302.14

I'm a bit delayed in this post because I hadn't watched the skating that I PVR'd.  Now that I've watched Patrick Chan skate both his short program and long program at the 2012 Canadian Figure Skating Championships, I am literally speechless.  I don't quite know what to say.  So, I'll do a blog post about it!  Hahaha...

Patrick's score speaks for itself and though I'm not about the scores when it comes to skating, I think his performances this time around deserved it.  I may be wrong, since I haven't done my research, but I think this may be the first score over 300 in the "new" ISU judging system.  His performances were remarkable and if you enjoy figure skating in the least, you need to watch these ones.

Watching Patrick Chan tonight renewed my appreciation of men's figure skating.  The last time I enjoyed men's skating was when Alexei Yagudin was skating.  For the men, I think there is fine line between technical and artistic.  I lost interest because men's skating seemed to get too technical (maybe this was in response to getting used to the new scoring system).  I think I've posted previously about this, so I won't go into it again.

I remember seeing Patrick skate for the first time when the Canadian Championships were here in 2008.  I went with my mom-in-law and it was such a pleasant surprise to see this up and coming skater named Patrick Chan.  Even before his long program ended, I couldn't help but stand up and applaud because his performance was THAT good.  That was his first Canadian Championship title.

For me, Patrick's skating is reminscent of Brian Orser.  There is something in his style.  Or it could just be that I connect with these skaters in such a way that I feel their love of skating in their performances.  I get that from all my favourites - Orser, Browning, Yagudin, Witt, Baiul, Kwan, Torvill&Dean, Anissina&Peizerat, Underhill&Martini, Gordeeva&Grinkov, Salé&Pelletier.  It's such a joy to watch them skate.

Of course, the music helps too.  Patrick's long program was done to the adagio from Concierto Aranjuez.  I love the music and I think both Brian Orser and Michelle Kwan have skated to it in the past.  Wonderful.  And on that note, I think I'm going to go and watch Patrick's performances again...