I missed the Junior programs yesterday and earlier today, so I can't really say anything about those, and I missed most of the senior ladies short programs (traffic, ugh).
What I can tell you is by the time the senior men took the ice for their warmup it was a packed house, and I mean SRO.
A crazy number of people flew in from Japan to watch the event because Yuzuru Hanyu was skating, and people from all over Southern Ontario and the US made the drive in to watch.
What else did you miss?
On a less than substantive note, Eric Radford rocked a nice beard in their Moulin Rouge short program (which was great)
Merissa Castelli and Mervin Tran were really strong. They've improved in leaps and bounds since last season, it's really a shame they didn't nail the SBSs.
Yuzuru Hanyu skated beautifully, the music choice was great (even though Mariposa's speaker system was not). Some of the jumps were a little shaky, but the rest of his skating mostly made up for that.
Nam is growing up fast. His programs are more mature, he's got better speed, better edges. and really strong jumps, he's moving up fast, and that trajectory doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon.
Sean Rabbitt was a lot of fun to watch, he's energetic and looks thrilled to be on the ice, which is always nice.
The short dances were fine, but a lot of the programs fell a little flat (and some of them were a little scary to watch).
The competition itself was a bit of a hot mess in terms of the organization. There was no signage anywhere directing spectators and competitors. The schedule changed last minute (which is why I missed so much of the ladies, but nothing can be done now). And the packed house was on the small side of the arena, while Octoberfest, a much smaller, lower level competition running at the same time had the rink with the seating but almost no spectators. Clearly they were not expecting the crowd they got, but it doesn't seem like they were doing a whole lot to make things run more smoothly.
More updates to come, but that's a quick overview of the day from the Allendale Rec Centre in Barrie.
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