Go Figure, I went to Skating

This weekend the World Figure Skating Championships were in Boston. My friend Laurie is a huge
fan of both figure skating and gymnastics. She knows everything about those two sports. She knows the names of all the jumps, knows all the competitors and even the up and comers.  She is as much a fan of gymnastics and figure skating as high school boys are of pro football.

For four days the best skaters in the world competed in Boston. Laurie went to three of the events. She went to the Ladies short program and the dance finals on Thursday. She was supposed to go to the pairs finals on Saturday with her sister, Christie. Christie couldn't make it, so Laurie asked me if I wanted to go.

This is the point of the story, where I could tell you I had nothing better to do. I could say I went just so Laurie had someone to go with. The truth is, I love sports. I enjoy watching world class athletes. So I admit, I was looking forward to watching figure skating.  Because skating is Laurie's favorite sport, I end up watching a lot of it. I tell everyone, I know way more about figure skating than any straight man on earth.

When I was a little kid, my dad did not like "sissy sports". Basically he liked football. He even considered basketball a sissy sport. It is too bad I grew up this way, because I could have been a good tennis player if I would have been exposed to it at a young age. When I was about twenty I took up tennis. I didn't play much, but I was beating friends that played on high school teams.

As you can imagine, I pride myself on being open to new ideas. I understand how hard all world class athletes have to work to be at the top of their game. My dad might have made fun of figure skating,

The winners

but I respect all athletes.

Now that I got that out of the way- The finals started at 1 pm. There were four groups of four. The teams with the worst scores went first. There was a definite difference between the best teams and the others. It was still fun to watch the lower teams. A lot of them were new to the world stage. They were young or up and comers.

The United States had two teams compete in the finals. Neither of them were favorites for a medal. The two teams came in ninth and thirteenth place.  A team from Germany got the bronze medal.  The Chinese took the silver.

The team that won the gold was from Canada. Their names were Duhamel and Radford.  I can't say I know much about scoring of figure skating. I know this, during their performance, I knew I was

Canadian Flags were all around the arena

witnessing perfection. I could tell it was one of the greatest athletic performances in history.

I watched the night Brett Farve played a game the day his father died. He was unbelievable. I watched Larry Bird put up 49 points versus  Portland his last season. He could barely walk, but he lit up the scoreboard. Those are of two great athletic performances that I've seen. However, the Canadian pairs performance was right up there. When they finished, the arena erupted in a standing ovation. It went on for a solid two minutes.  Two other teams had to compete after the Canadians went. Neither of them were as good, but it would have been a hard act to follow.

After the competition was over, there was an awards ceremony.  The medals were handed out. Then  the Canadian national anthem played. The stands were well represented with people that came from Canada. After the competition was over, we took the subway back to the parking garage. When we got home, we made supper and watch the Ladies Finals. An American got the silver medal.

The NBC announcers Tom Hammond, Tara and Johnny