Of the early performances, I really enjoyed the Hugentoblers, Wing and Lowe and Silverstein and Pekarek. I was looking forward to seeing Faiella and Milo after watching their fantastic OD on the TV from Euros, but it seemed to have lost a lot of the sparkle here.

The only performance I missed was the Russians, Anna and Roman. She fell apparently. :(

Bravo Lobacheva and Averbukh, yet another crappy draw like Euros, but they came out and shook some ass. Even Michelle was impressed. Denkova and Staviski of Bulgaria were total babes too.

In the final group, I was amazed by the step sequence of Chait and Sakhnovsky, wonderful timing and precision.

Now all season long, I have totally adored the Original Dance of Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio, At Trophee Lalique I thought they should have won that section of the competition and part of me was hoping for some poetic justice here. I wasn't that bothered about them competing for the gold medal overall this year, but wanted them to do well in this section.

Of course they came out and skated it great, very good marks. I thought that it would be hard for A&P to win this section. Then of course, Gwendal made an error during the step sequence. When the technical marks went up, I was complaining to Michelle about A&P being held up (me??!) and that the Italians should definitely have won. They did, by 6 judges to 3 (? Ordinals weren't shown on the screen).

Of course, when the placings went up, the crowd were NOT happy, but we were in our seats going: 'Yay!' (quietly...in fear of retribution).

So, off to the bar we went, to wait for the men’s LP. I had to have my 'afternoon tea', which Michelle thought was so 'British' of me. (Damnit! I am!). Marina Annisina came in with her mother, she didn't look very happy. Then Michelle left for the men’s LP. I decided that I could live without the first 2 groups, so continued to sit in the bar.

Gwendal came in and was talking with some people I didn't recognise, then a long line of people formed to take his picture. I thought: 'What the hell?' and joined it.

Then a Canadian lady came and sat at my table as she was smoking too. We got chatting and it turned out that she was Aaron Lowe's mother. We talked about several things like Aaron getting into skating, judging (LOL) etc. Then Megan, Aaron and Kris Wirtz came in too. Nice people. I thought: 'Michelle is going to KILL me!'

As I was talking with them, in he came.... Maurizio!! Kris said to him: 'Hey man, this ice dance game is getting exciting!'. Maurizio joked back that he was retiring then and there so he could go out as champion! He was in great spirits (of course).

I was getting quite bold on the old picture taking front...LOL! Well, I had bought this nice camera and quite early on in the week I had decided that I'd rather be concentrating on actually WATCHING the skating, than lining up the next shot.

Barbara walked in and I congratulated her, she was really sweet. I didn’t have my camera at the time, but managed to snap her at the elevator.

So I bid farewell to Mrs Lowe etc, and wandered back to the rink for men’s free.

Not the most stellar night of skating, really. Was gutted when Yags was crying on Tarasova after his marks. We didn't even watch Plushenko, too busy watching Yagudin. I would like to add here that not once when Plushy fell did Alexei pump his fist. That was when he'd realised that he had won. I don't know what TV Station did that 'marvellous' editing job, but that must be on a par when we saw CTV shoving a microphone in Kris's face as he left the ice the night before.

So Yags won and Plushy didn't medal. Those Bladers’ looks of death were working, more on them in tomorrow’s installment as they showed their TRUE powers then! LOL.

Went to the bar, lots of skaters around as always. Congratulated Lisa and Micheal Weiss. Convinced Lisa to 'bugger the cost' when it came to the champagne. Finally, we stayed there drinking with other fans until about 1.00am.

Oh, I forgot. Michelle was most gutted at my stories of my new found 'Canadian Uberfan' status. She made a mental note not to leave me on my own again. Well, going to the food stand during the resurfacings was another scoop for me, there was Jamie Sale! Congratulated her and told her to be proud. She was feeling a lot better than the night before. Also when Michelle decided to go off to the phone or something, in walked 'Elvis'! LOL.

Poor Michelle....xoxoxox

Day four, would be Thursday, which was the Original Dance and the Men's free skate. We didn't jump out of bed bright and early or anything, but got up in enough time to visit the cyber cafe on our way to the rink to see the OD's. I got stuck with the French keyboard, and found out just exactly what Sharon had complained about. Why on earth would keyboards vary from country to country? It just makes no sense! (note: my mom the computer expert tells me that it does in fact make sense, because each country would have the letters they use most frequently in the 'home row' so that they're easiest to get to)

Ok, Original dances. Sharon was 10 BILLION times depressed when Gwendal tripped in the sbs footwork, but overall she was glad that Fusar-Poli & Margalio won the OD. I was surprised to find that I quite liked L&A's dance. I love Wing & Lowe's dance. To be honest, their latin combination is practically the first dance of theirs that has really jumped out at me. I really think the move to Detroit was the right thing to do, they have improved tremendously. Dubreuil & Lauzon were fantastic in their dance too. I totally adore their music, although I still don't think much of her dress, but that's life. I did honestly think that FP&M had the best OD out there, A&P's was quite weak.

A little side trip here. Skaters who skate at a World Championships or at the Olympics in their own country must have the most dreadful time. First of all there is so much pressure on an athlete to perform well at any event, but when you're at home with the fans there with their flags, banners, air horns, pom-poms, noise makers, hats, makeup... how do you concentrate on what you're doing? In fact, Gwendal made a comment on Sunday (jumping ahead here, I know) that the crowd on Friday was so loud that he was having a hard time keeping his focus. I know there really isn't any way around it, but I now know that when a skater from the home country skates well, you should be doubly impressed by what they've accomplished, because they've beaten their own demons, as well as the 'ambient noise'. Ok, did I go too far afield there? LOL

Went over to the Sofitel for a drink in between the OD and the mens free. I have no idea what we had, I was probably drinking diet coke though. I decided I needed to be there for the first group of men, so I could see Ben skate. Sharon had no interest in the first couple of groups, so I went over alone. On the way I stopped and talked to Frances who is another of the Brits that I was introduced to by Sharon. I found out later that while I was chatting with Frances, Sharon was becoming the biggest fan of Canadian skating! There will be pictures of that posted along with Sharon's story... As I was walking through the lobby at the arena Scary Babs was doing a television interview, and Maurizio was standing in another section of the lobby surrounded by girls wanting both autographs and pictures. He was loving every minute of it too. I almost stopped to get a picture of him for Sharon, but thought, there's too many people!!! So, I walked on.

Ben skated quite well, and I believe I cheered quite loudly for him, much to the amusement of the French lady sitting next to me. She was very nice, and managed to understand me, switching back and forth between French and English with ease (that would be her ease...not mine!). I did try to speak French to the 'natives', it's just that sometimes certain words eluded me, which really is only natural considering I haven't really used my french language skills in 6 years. The rest of the men did not skate well, and pretty much bored me to tears. By the time Sharon arrived I was practically asleep in my seat, not an easy feat considering how terribly uncomfortable they are. Then of course she digs out her camera and proceeds to tell me all about her time spent with Gwendal, Megan, Aaron, Mrs. Lowe, Kris, Maurizio and Barbara. (oh well, I still had my Alexander Abt elevator encounter to remember LOL)

As everyone knows, the men were terrible. I was convinced, along witheveryone else that Elvis was going to end up in 4th place, and was quite frankly shocked and a little confused when Michael Weiss was placed behind him. But, I don't think anyone anticipated that the men would all skate so badly. A couple of bright spots in the mens competition were Stannick Jeannette and Stefan Lindeman. Stannick has a style that is totally his own, and Stefan is just so cute, you want to adopt him. And...they both skated well too (not hard under the circumstances). Takeshi Honda also skated quite well in the free skate after totally bombing in the short program. I think he may have even placed above Elvis in the free skate?

I've been reading that a television network (I don't know which one, have yet to see this on CTV, so I don't know if that's it or not) showed Yagudin pumping his fist and looking quite gleeful that Plushenko fell on the ice. I don't know what the network did to doctor that tape up, but that is absolutely not what happened. When Plushy fell, Yags was sitting quite downcast on the same steps where David Pelletier sat the night before, crying on Tarasova's shoulder. He did NOT pump his fist when Plushenko fell; in fact, he didn't even lift his head. He did, however pump his fist when he realized that he'd won, and I think that's perfectly reasonable.

We stayed for the medals this time I think, I honestly don't remember. But headed back to the Sofitel afterwards (again). We congratulated Lisa Weiss, and told her to "just buy it, you need to celebrate" when it came to the champagne. I thought perhaps I should have offered to help her carry it back to wherever she was going with it (in the lobby I think) because she was balanced on top of some really HIGH shoes, and the champagne bucket along with all the glasses looked heavy. However, she did manage on her own.