Battle of the Blades

Last night, Suzanne and I attended the first episode with an audience of Battle of the Blades. It was not held at Maple Leaf Gardens this year but at a film studio a couple of blocks south of the Don Valley Parkway on Commissioners St. The show started at 7pm and was broadcast live for Atlantic Canada and taped for the other time zones.

We arrived early to get parking close by so there was over an hour to kill before the show. If course, I brought something to keep me occupied.

This appeared on the big screen just seconds before the show started.

The first pair to skate was Christine (Tuffy) Hough-Sweeney and Russ Courtnall.

Then came Shae-Lynn Bourne and Patrice Brisebois.

Anabelle Langlois skated with Georges Laraque. He was deemed to have "the biggest butt on figure skates"- LOL.

The day before the show, they were practicing the 'chain saw' move where she spins around his neck and she let go. He tried to catch her and on the way down she sliced him on the forehead. 12 stitches and 24 hours later, they did a terrific job.

 

Isabelle Brasseur skated with Todd Warriner.

  

My favourite couple was Russian comrades Katia Gordeeva and Valeri Bure.

Skating last were Jamie Salé and Theo Fleury.

 Here are all the skaters together at the end. It is also a great view of the bleacher seating. There were two rows on the ice and then 13 rows in the bleachers. The bleacher seats had nice, 4" foam seat for us - quite comfortable.

The fake windows also replicated those in Maple Leaf Gardens.

It was a lot of fun getting to see the show live, the first night when all the pairs were skating for the first time. I'm really glad Suzanne brought her good camera so she could take all these awesome photos.