Skate America 2015- Men

The men's event was less dismal than the ladies event here, but it was still not great. Like with the dance event, I don't know that I agree with the judging.

It kind of still amazes me that Max Aaron won. He has clearly been working on improving his PCSs, but he still has a very long way to go. For a long time, I've had a lot of problems with Max Aaron and his choreography (or lack thereof). His programs have always looked like jump drills, and in the IJS that shouldn't cut it. And yet, it does. Max Aaron has always been rewarded for good jumps in the TES, which is fine, but that also bleeds over to the PCS, where the difficulty of the jumps should have zero impact. He finally has a little bit of choreography, but not a ton, and his skating skills are still nowhere near as good as they should be. The biggest problem for me is the setup of the judging system, because judges have so much to watch, they often neglect the PCS and focus entirely on the TES. This leaves the system rewarding skaters despite their poor skating skills, if only because they aren't paying close attention to it.

Shoma Uno won the freeskate, but finished in second overall here. He's still new to the senior ranks, but for me, he deserved to win here. He's got great skating skills and choreography, and he commits fully to his programs. His jumps could use a little more control but overall they were good here. He's one of my favourite skaters, and the showdown between him and Yuzuru will be interesting this year and in the next few years.

Jason Brown did not skate as well as he could have here, but lost out in the short mostly because he doesn't have the quality of quads some of the others have.

Han Yan and Konstantin Menshov have good jumps when they can manage to land them, however they are incredibly inconsistent and don't have a ton of other stuff to back them up when their jumps fail them.

4 Continents Championships- Men

Denis Ten is a fantastic skater on a good day, but unfortunately is notoriously inconsistent. At this year's Four Continents Championships, however, he came out in full force. He had two clean skates, receiving positive GOEs on every element except for the triple axel in the free.

If he can manage to skate like he did here at Worlds, he might just take the title this year. But that's all going to depend on the kind of day he's having.

Joshua Farris had a fantastic skate. His skating style is certainly my favourite. He has an ease to his skating, with beautiful transitions and footwork his connection to the music and the audience is extremely inviting. He is always entertaining to watch, and when he is as technically good as he was here, it only makes the programs even more entertaining to watch. In the freeskate, he had a few small mistakes. He was able to hold the jumps together, even though he tended to be back in the hips. He has fantastic positions in his spins, but they can get a little slow. His clean freeskate was only second to Denis Ten, moving him up from 5th to 2nd overall.

He is too cute. We've got to love reactions like that

Han Yan had a strong finish in third. His short program is an odd choice, the music doesn't seem like a natural choice, however, you can't say that he doesn't sell the program. The choice of skating to "If I Were a Rich Man" is surprising, but he manages to make it work. When the jumps work, he is very entertaining to watch, but when the jumps fall apart, he allows the program as a whole to fall apart.

His freeskate music makes more sense for him, "Fly Me to the Moon" works well for his style and the program is successful, again when he can manage the jumps, which he did in this case. There were some relatively small mistakes, but they did little to impact the overall program. However, the one thing he needs to work on is his spins, they have a tendency to be quite slow.

Shoma Uno is still a junior skater, but he doesn't look it. The depth of the men's field in Japan is doing wonders for their skaters. He finished in 5th, more than solid for a junior skater. He is sure of his skating and his jumps. Over time, his skating will mature, but for now he is a solid skater with great technical skills.

Jason Brown made some less than stellar choices at the Four Continents Championships. Rather than working a quad into the freeskate, where mistakes have less of an impact, he added a quad into the short, and was nowhere near a clean quad. The quad earned him only 2 points, a significant deficit of what he typically earns with the first jump in his short program. Not only did the quad receive a downgrade, the triple axel also received an underrotation call. These mistakes in the short were not small and made it impossible for him to make it onto the podium, though he is more than capable of such a result. It is clear he is not ready to add the quad into his short program (and probably the free as well) and we should hope he will not attempt it again at Worlds.

His freeskate was more successful, but not technically difficult enough to make up for the points he lost in the short. His freeskate was not perfect, but the mistakes from many others allowed him to make up a significant margin, leaning him in 6th place overall.

Nam Nguyen attended his first Four Continents Championships this year, and he took some risks that did not benefit him. Putting his quad in the short program was a significant risk and it did not pay off for him, however it was a smart choice. It is worthwhile for him to attempt the quad in the short program. He has been landing them consistently in the free, and he needed to take the risk at some point. It was better for him overall to try the quad in the short here, rather than for the first time at Worlds.

He did better overall in the freeskate, but he wasn't able to recover from the mistakes in the short. For his first year in the senior ranks, his finish in 11th place was solid, and if he can manage a slightly better skate, he will finish around 10th or 11th in the world, and will certainly be the top Canadian man.