December 2, 2003
HOLIDAY CELEBRATION ON ICE
by Alecia
Hello all.
Well, of all of the shows I've attended, this was one of the best and at the same time, one of the most disappointing. First, the audience was really into all of the skaters. I think at some point each skater had a standing ovation, which is pretty cool. The disappointing thing was that all of the skaters skated at least twice with the exception of Katia and Alexei Yagudin who only had one number apiece. Not nearly enough of Katia's skating. Lee Ann Womack was the musical guest so she skated to "I Hope You Dance". Rosalyn gave a nice intro of how Lee Ann has two daughters and so does Katia and that this is Daria's favorite song of all time. Of all of the times I've seen her skate live, this was absolutely, without a doubt, her very best performance. It was clean, powerful and actually brought tears to my eyes. She skates with so much emotion. She didn't skate her number until well into the second act and right before her we saw Ros, Caryn Kadavy, Meno and Sand and maybe Ina and Zimmerman.
The excitement from the first act had started to fade and everything (even for a die hard skating fan) was starting to blur together. I like Meno and Sand, but they just weren't building much excitement that night, very slow, not covering much ice. Then out of nowhere, Katia comes out, zips from one end of the rink to the other and the crowd is back into it again. For anyone that ever questions why the Russians so frequently beat the North Americans, this was SUCH a great example in how differently the speed is between the two. And once more, you didn't hear a thing when she skated. She did such a beautiful job, nailed her double axel.
Todd Eldredge also had a great night, skated both of his programs with a lot of power and full of triple jumps. His second song was to a Garth Brooks number. The programs were only a 2 page layout, so unfortunately I don't know a lot of the songs for everyone, but there was a pretty decent amount of Christmas music. Scott was an absolute hoot with the audience during the retake session and ended the night with a back flip party doing 3 in a row. Unreal. Such a showman.
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