ReNe: ice skating at Harborfront

I went ice-skating last Saturday; the trip was organized by Charles Street Family Housing. Quite fortunately, last week was also the January thaw. Yes, oddly enough, there's always a week in January where the temperatures rise, giving people a false hope that winter's over and spring's here. So temperatures on Saturday was between 0 to 3C, and cloudy, which is also great because there was little glare from the ice.

There were quite a lot of people at the Harborfront outdoor skating rink (actually a frozen pond), including kids. Some were at the side, learning in an organized class, and some were being led by their parents at the rim of the pond. The older ones had kid-sized ice-skating boots, while the younger ones had plastic strap-on's, either one blade or two (I think these are called bob skates). The youngest were around two and a half!

ReNe: ice skates?

Toying with the idea of buying ice skates...

I know how to skate, a little, both on land and ice, though the last time I've been on skates of any kind was in Singapore. I've always thought that while living in the Great White North, I'd have plenty of opportunities for winter sports -- I had planned to skate, to learn to ski...

I have done nothing. The first winter, I was too busy settling into my new job and simply settling into Toronto. Second winter, I was pregnant.

Augh. But we just bought a new microwave yesterday cuz our previous microwave died, and the new oven costs more than I hoped it would have cost.

ReNe: world figure skating championship '08

Quick fangirl moment: Johnny Weir won bronze at the World Figure Skating Championship yesterday.

Ok, so Jeremy Buttle (of Canada) winning gold was all over the Canadian news today, and that's nice. But one skater I really like is Johnny Weir so I was really pleased to see his good results. Loved his comment in the Canadian Press (I think the 'second' referred to his placement after the short program, not the entire competition):

"I nearly peed myself," he said of being second after finishing eighth last year.

Some of the other skaters I like, including Stéphane Lambiel and Daisuke Takahashi, didn't place as well, but that's ok. Congrats to them all as well. =)

Personally, I think competition shouldn't all be about the medaling, though that's important as well. The trouble with medaling is that it is only an ordinal level of measurement; it tells you the ranking order, but it's not as descriptive as an interval or ratio measurement. For example, in the recent US championships, Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek actually tied for first place; eventually Lysacek won by 0.01 on a tie-breaker (because he scored better on the long program, while Weir's points came primarily on the short program). This kind of victory is hardly decisive at all (I personally think Weir is better), thus reporting the final results as an ordinal ranking can be misleading.

Anyway, my point is, the competitors are all good. They certainly all trained hard and tried their best. Some stumbled on their quads (quadruple axles), but that's extremely difficult and kudos to them as well. For me, if everyone can jump a triple or quad, then that's boring; what I like is the artistry and flow of the entire program.