Sunday, January 17, 2010

A Pleasant Afternoon

As I noted in my previous post, my daughters and I attended the Pairs - Short Program competition at the National Figure Skating Championships on Friday afternoon. It was an amazing event to behold. Once we found our seats I took a moment just to look around. Our seats were up high; however, we could hardly have asked for a better view. We looked down exactly on the center of the ice, and could see perfectly.

I had brought along a pair of binoculars, and the four of us took turns with them just to be able to look around. They were unnecessary during the performances though ... we could see the skaters just fine. While the first round of skaters were warming up, it was my turn for the binoculars. I scanned over towards the commentators' booth, and there was Scott Hamilton sitting there looking as official as can be.

Because of the positioning of our seats, our pictures were a bit far way, so I'm going to borrow two of the official AP photos. The first picture is of the winners, Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett. They were very good, and skated with such strength and power. Now when we watch them at the Olympics in a few weeks, it will be so much more fun since we were able to see them skate in person.


The next picture is of my personal favorite set of pairs, Tracy Tanovich and Michael Chau. They didn't finish in the top to be eligible to go to the Olympics this time; however they are still very young (I think she is only 13), and have a great future in this sport. Their performance was very strong, well synchronized, and an overall joy to watch.


It was such a blessing being able to share this event with my daughters. A great big thank you goes out to my son for bringing this joyful afternoon into our lives. Thanks, Luke!

2 comments:

Jennifer D said...

Oh it looks so lovely. Thanks for the intro to the Olympics. I really don't follow Ice Skating until the Olympics are on. Now i have a bit of an idea who's who.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing about your afternoon! I was so excited that you could go.