Grand Prix Final 2015- Men's Free

To see what happened in the men's short and some of what I thought, you can watch the video here.

The men's free saw two more world records broken by Yuzuru Hanyu. He beat his total score record by nearly 10 points. He had two fantastic skates, and he's finally having a great season. Until this season, I can't remember ever seeing Yuzuzru Hanyu do a clean free in competition, and now he seems to be able to do that pretty consistently. I really enjoy watching his free, especially when he skates it well, not even necessarily world-record breaking, but as long as he skates it fairly well, it is dynamic and exciting. I have to say though, that the fact that skating skills was his lowest PCS was more than a little surprising, that's not to say it wasn't an amazing score, but compared to some of the other PCS elements, I would've put the skating skills on par at least.

Javier Fernandez held his position in second place in the free, but he was close to 40 points behind Hanyu. His free was better than the short, but still not nearly as amazing as Hanyu. He didn't have the same performance impact as Hanyu and as even Fernandez has had in the past. Most of his elements were very good, with the exception of the opening quad toe and the triple flip sequence. He got an edge call(!) on the flip and negative GOEs on the toe. Many of his elements had close to 0 GOEs. He also did very well in the PCSs, all of them were over 9.

Shoma Uno finished in third, but got fourth in both programs. He had strong elements overall, with the exception of a triple lutz, which he got an edge call on (e). He really needs to work on the details of his programs. He needs to work on the landing position, and the details within the skating skills. He did well on the PCSs, but still fell behind Hanyu, Fernandez, and Chan in that department. With a little more work on the transitions, choreography, and skating skills to ensure he can start to beat out the others, even when they're skating well. He beat Chan overall, but he lost the free to him because Chan did actually skate well. With a little more refinement, he's going to be consistently fighting for the top spot.

Patrick Chan recovered well from the disaster that was his short program. In the free, all of his GOEs were positive and all of his PCSs were over nine, averaging over 9.5. He is able to use his PCSs to keep up his total score despite the fact that he doesn't necessarily have the technical content others do. He's really not skating well this season, he's nowhere near back to himself, and others have improved while he has been slipping in terms of technical skills. He is learning to perform, but he is sacrificing the technical content. I don't have a problem with learning to perform, but with Chan, he has certain standards to meet based on what he's done in the past, and he is falling far short of the expectations we have of him.

Boyang Jin wasn't able to hold onto his lead from the short. He fell from third to fifth in the free. He did attempt four quads in the free, and got positive GOEs on three of them. He had the third highest technical mark in the free, but he fell far short of the others in PCSs. He's become so proficient in the technical elements that he's missing some of the basic skating and performance skills. He clearly can perform, we see it in the step sequences, and a little more often in the short, but it all falls away so that he can do the difficult technical elements. As those become even easier for him, hopefully he will start to build the transitions into and out of those elements. With time and energy spent on transitions, choreography, skating skills, and performance, he may just be the one to beat out Hanyu, but I have a feeling it's going to be a while before he's at that point, if he gets there at all.

Daisuke Murakami fell one place in the free, leaving him in last place. His program wasn't great, but he didn't have a disastrous program. He had some negative GOEs, and repeated the quad salchow out of combination, and it was also downgraded. That left him with a base value of just over 3. He got an edge call (!) on a flip as well. He had better PCSs than Boyang Jin, but couldn't make up the technical difference. I generally like Murakami, but he couldn't manage to hold it together here.

Grand Prix Final 2015- Men and Pairs Short Programs

So instead of my usual posts, I've actually made a YouTube video for a news channel I contribute to on this event, so in the interest of time and timeliness, I've decided to share it here.


Let me know what you think of the new format.

Skate Canada 2015- Men

The men's event sure as hell didn't come out the way I thought it would (which is illustrated by my fantasy skating scores looked for Skate Canada).

Patrick Chan won the event, which is something I didn't imagine he could do. I was sure he would finish in second going into the event, but Yuzuru Hanyu bombed the short program. Patrick had surprisingly good programs, especially the free. He managed two clean triple axels, which we know has always been his problem jump. I like his programs, but they don't necessarily have the impact that he can have. The programs are nice, but are so similar to the style he's done in the past, so they lose a little bit of the impact in the comeback.

Yuzuru Hanyu finished the event in second, but was 6th in the short program. His technical score in the short was 10th. Yuzuru was saved entirely by his PCS. Without the PCSs, there's no way he could've recovered from the short. I like his programs well enough, but that short program was a complete trainwreck. He did very well in the freeskate, and he definitely needed to to save himself.

Diasuke Murakami won the freeskate, in large part because the top skaters had a rough day. He skated well, but his skating skills is not quite as good, and he doesn't have the flow or ease of edge skaters like Chan or Hanyu have. So, despite his clean jumps and good spins, he couldn't hold onto his place at the top. He's a very good skater, and between him, Hanyu and Shoma Uno, Japanese nationals will be very interesting.

Adam Rippon finished in 4th place, he had two good skates, but the quad lutz is still pretty far off clean. If I were his coaching staff, I would take that out of the short, because he doesn't do the footwork into the jump, which is a required -3 GOE. He's also not getting around in competition. His programs are pretty good, but the Beatles medleys are already getting a little bit old. Also the hair. I know he likes it, but I am really not a fan. His costuming is also a little strange, as it always is.

Nam Nguyen finished in 5th, which was due in large part to the way Skate Canada set up the event. By having Canada's top 2 men compete against Yuzuru Hanyu essentially ensured that Nam wouldn't make it to the GPF. It is really disappointing that Nam didn't have the chance to end up on the podium. The best case scenario for Nam going in was third place. He definitely needs to work on his skating skills and spins, but at just about any other event he would've been basically guaranteed a place on the podium with skates like he had.

Autumn Classic International- Men

As is often the case, I found myself very excited for the men's event, in this case more than any other event overall. Most of the men did not disappoint.

They did look especially exhausted after the free overall. Most of the men looked like they were going to pass out by the time they got off the ice. It may be early in the season, but you would think we were at a high altitude with the way they looked getting off the ice. I'm wondering if some of them were sick or something, because there was definitely something off about almost all the men.

Yuzuru Hanyu made his season debut here, and there was no shortage of buzz around him. I had never seen him skate live before, and he did not disappoint.

It still blows my mind though, that so many people would fly from Japan to Barrie just to watch him skate. Many people came just to watch the men's event both days.

Both of Hanyu's programs are stunning. I like both of them more than last season's programs. They accentuate all of the best in his skating.

It was too bad the sound system ruined his short program music. All I could hear was the speakers buzzing the entire time he skated his short program. That took away a little from the impact of the program.

As per usual, the skating itself was great, and the jumps were mostly very good. He was a little shaky, and did have a fall in the free.

I am a big fan of these new programs, and I'm excited to see how he matches up to Patrick Chan and Javier Fernandez this year.

Nam Nguyen got the silver medal here, with a personal best short program score. He blew his former personal best out of the water this week. Beating it by almost 10 points.

He did have a strange freeskate. He fell out of his spin at the end of the program, falling over completely, and he looked exhausted from about halfway through. I'm not sure what was going on with him, but here's hoping it was just a fluke.

I definitely prefer this year's free to last year's, and overall I like his choreography much better than last season. For next year though, I'd like to see Nam with a more upbeat short.

He can do fun, they'll just have to make sure his choreography doesn't look as young as last year, but the fun programs do suit him, which is pretty rare in men's skating today. It would be nice to see him take advantage of that and stand out a little more.

Working with Jeff Buttle has definitely been good for Nam. With the more mature choreography, he has clearly been working hard on his skating skills, which will go a long way in helping him compete against Hanyu, Fernandez, and Chan.

Watching him practice though, it's pretty clear his edge quality is not as good as some of the top men, and though it's come pretty far, it's not anywhere near far enough to break into the top.

Sean Rabbitt of the USA made his international debut here. Though his jumps are shaky, he has a couple of things I love in a skater.

The thing about Sean Rabbitt is he really looks thrilled to be on the ice. That makes the audience and the judges enjoy a performance more. When skaters look miserable on the ice, it can take away from audience perception and also PCSs.

Sean Rabbitt also has everything he needs for great PCSs. His skating skills are very good. He has good choreography that he does well, and since he looks so happy it makes it all seem a little easier.

He certainly made a splash at his first international, finishing third, beating out his teammate, Alexander Johnson. He had a pretty good short and a strong free. We'll probably be seeing a whole lot more of Sean Rabbitt over the next few years.

Alexander Johnson had some serious under-rotation issues. Between the two programs he had four under-rotation calls.

I like Johnson well enough as a skater, but it was hard to stand out in an event like this, and even though he skated well, it didn't quite measure up to the top three men.

The other men were all pretty good. Lots of the men struggled with endurance in the free.

I did hear rumors that Meng-Ju Lee had recently suffered from a concussion, which would explain at least some of his issues during his programs, though if he did have a concussion I would hope his coaches would try to get him to withdraw, especially from a competition this small.

We're In Quad Country- Autumn Classic International Day 2 Breakdown

The usual posts will be coming soon, but for now, a brief overview of what you've missed if you didn't watch the Autumn Classic International today.

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.