Skate America 2012!

Everyone - this is my Skate America report. I have modified it so that there are no personal details in it. If you want to see the full thing, go to the Facebook page note.

Practice session: Ladies, Short

Ashley, as usual, was kind of boring. I am not a huge fan of her short, but that is okay. Haruka is absolutely beautiful to watch in person – I encourage you to do it sometime if possible. I was rather surprised at how much more graceful Rachael Flatt is in person/how much she has changed over the past summer. She said she is really working on her artistry, so I am glad it is coming out a bit. Christina Gao is beautiful – absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Good for her to be doing well while being at Harvard. Victoria Helgesson was kind of eh – not bad, but not great. Same with Sarah Hecken. Alena is not that graceful, and her skating skills aren’t all that great – you can really hear her blades on the ice! Adelina Sotnikova – what a firecracker in person! I was absolutely amazed to be able to see her in person. She is quite amazing. I love her lines! Valentina Marchei is quite awesome in person, I must say – I was surprised. Dungjen/Sato must have done some good work with her this summer. Mae Berenice Meite – not impressed, not unimpressed.

Practice session: Dance, Short

Davis and White. Wow. I’ve seen these two perform twice before, but they never fail to amaze me. I adore their new lifts, and although they are a bit rough now, they will get loads better with time. I am excited for that to happen. Giselle was FANTASTIC. You know it’s a good program when a PRACTICE audience is clapping along to it. Oh, and I got to see their mothers – Jacqui White and Cheryl Davis – as well! They were sitting right behind me during that entire session and led the cheers for whenever the announcer said “Meryl Davis and Charlie White!” I also loved Weaver and Poje – as she skated by me (they were not skating that particular part of their program at the time to conserve energy), I heard Katelyn singing, “that will bring us back to DOE!” It is clear that they genuinely love that program, and I hope they do well this season. Bobrova and Soloviev are quite a couple in person – either they have gotten better this season or they have a charm with a live audience. Probably the latter, to be honest. They were fun to watch. Everyone else…. It doesn’t really matter. If you’re good at ice dance, it’s obvious. If you’re not, you’re not and it is really obvious that you are working to do anything and therefore it is not enjoyable to watch. Sorry for the run-on sentence.

Practice session: Men, Long

Seeing Taka, Yuzuru, Tatsuki, Armin, Michal, Tomas, and Jeremy in one go was a lot to handle. That was a fun practice. They scratched up the ice really fast! All were amazing skaters. Douglas Razzano has a lot of potential but really needs to get his head together during competition – same with Armin and Jeremy, actually. I feel like Jeremy needs to see a sports psychologist at this point – he is too experienced for this kind of thing to be happening all the time to him. He did so well in practice. Tomas is just getting old – you can tell with his face. I enjoyed him, though. I have NO clue what on earth happened to Michal from last season – he was screwing up everything in practice! Taka landed several absolutely gorgeous quads – gorgeous to watch. And his skates make NO sound on the ice, and I was right at the edge of the rink. Wow. Tatsuki’s program was a practice crowd favorite! And Yuzuru is beautiful to watch. His skating skills have developed quite well under Orser – honestly, Mao could probably use some practice with him. He cleaned up Yu-Na’s skating skills, and he is in the process of cleaning up Yuzuru’s, and his was quite good with Nanami Abe. However, I think practice screwed up Yuzuru for the actual competition. He did a quad toe – cake jump for him most of the time – and a) landed on his leg, b) momentum forced his leg to twist under him so that he landed on his back, and c) he slid about a quarter of the length of the rink (if that doesn’t give you an idea of how powerful that quad is, I don’t know what does). He was clearly in pain – Orser was concerned – and didn’t skate for a couple of minutes. When he got back out there, it did look like he was in a fair amount of pain. That coupled with his injury is probably what did it for him. Konstantin Meshov again was another eh – not impressed, not unimpressed. Alexander Majorov is ADORABLE. I have no other word to describe it. He has the face of a… ten year old, and he just has the sweetest face. Apart from that, another eh.

Practice session: Pairs, Long

I like Castelli/Shnapir. I think that, with a couple more years, they could get quite far because they are more artistic than the other American pairs. They just need to get their tech levels up and stop falling all over the place like they did in practice. Qing Pang/Jiang Tong are a DREAM to watch! They were the only true pair – they skated as one. They were not two people skating to the music like everybody else was. I loved their performance – words cannot describe how amazing that was. They have a solid bond and connection to each other that I really only see in the Shibutanis. Denney and Coughlin made me mad with that butchered Phantom cut and horrid lifts. Add to that muscled out elements – nothing intricate. At all. Gah. Donlan and Speroff were surprisingly good. And I just felt sorry for the Israeli team, although they were fun to watch. And Tatiana and Maxim are good, but I like Pang and Tong better.

Men’s Long Program

I assume that everyone here watched most of the programs. Poor Armin – I think them not finding his music in time really threw him off. He didn’t look happy. I hope Christy sorts him out. His stamina has improved, though – I think training in Springs has really helped with the high altitude and all. Jeremy was absolutely devastated – the home crowd really helped put a little smile on his face. However, I will say that even though his jumps failed, his choreography didn’t. That program was still beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Honestly, poor Yuzuru – he lost his heart halfway through the program (and I saw Brian Orser giving him a bit of a talking-to about that, so good). However, standing ovation for Taka! He is SO BEAUTIFUL in person! He just glides! So smooth, so fluid – ah! Tatsuki also got a standing ovation – props. Honestly. That is hard with a ‘murican crowd (no offense, all US people – I can say that because I am one myself). After all was said and done and Taka had won, they interviewed him (they interview all the gold medalists right there). First question: “So, Takahiko Kozuka, you came in first at your first Skate America appearance in Everett, Washington. In your second one, you came in second. And in your third, you won again – and again in Washington. What happened last year?” Taka’s response (no translator): “Well, in LA, it’s really nice, and it’s so hard to focus on skating!” The entire crowd started screaming with laughter. The weather in Seattle and the greater metro area, for everyone not from the US, is perpetually awful from mid-September to mid-May or June, depending on the year. It is always raining. ALWAYS. And this weekend was no exception. Second question: “Tonight was a Japanese sweep. I can’t remember the last time that happened in any competition – the first one that comes to mind was the 1992? World’s women’s team with the US. What does that say about Japanese skating?” Taka (without translator): “Well, first – sorry!” Again, everyone laughed really, really hard – for a good minute. Then he gave a response (via translator) along the lines of “well, this just means that we have a very, very strong men’s program. Just keep in mind that it is the beginning of the season, and others who did not have the strongest showing tonight will improve later on.” Good response, Taka – pleasing everyone is a good thing. Especially in front of the ‘murican crowd that really wanted Jeremy to win.

Pairs Long

Shnapir and Castelli cleaned up their act from a horribly disastrous practice session. That was a lot more sharp and like a tango than it was in practice, and they didn’t crash and burn technically! I am impressed that they manage to do that well when Simon completely dwarfs Marissa. Pang and Tong… even more beautiful during the performance. Ohhhhh…. That was just spectacular. Absolutely spectacular. Standing ovation for them. Obviously the American crowd had to give a standing ovation to Coughlin and Denney despite the butchering of one of the best musicals of all time because they are American. Everyone else…. Eh. Even Donlan/Speroff. They weren’t as good as practice, when I thought they could have beaten Marissa and Simon. This includes Tatiana and Maxim – they were good, but they weren’t special.

Exhibition Practice: Men

Oh, this was just awesome. The minute Yuzuru got onto the ice (Jeremy was already on), he grabbed Jeremy’s hips and started pushing him around everywhere. He is just so cute! They did that till Yuzuru pushed Jeremy out from behind him and then helped him up with both of them laughing. Yuzuru that ran over to Tatsuki and did the same thing, only this time, they formed a train and went around and around the rink a couple of times. Jeremy joined in. After about eight minutes into the session, Taka FINALLY showed up (a person sitting next to me joked that he had to get over his hangover from partying too hard the previous night) and literally RAN to the choreographer. Tatsuki’s exhibition is gorgeous! As is Jeremy’s. Konstantin’s was okay. Yuzuru’s was just absolutely adorable. He completely messed up his thing where he does… kind of a death spiral position ish? He fell out of it as he was trying to get up and just sprawled on the ice, pretending he was dead for a couple seconds. Oh, he provided a lot of good laughs for us. And Taka’s exhibition is beyond gorgeous. Jeremy actually sat on the edge of the rink to watch it. At the end, the Japanese men “didn’t understand the exhibition director” and messed around with each other – and Jeremy pretended to be deaf. Lots and lots of chasing each other. When Yuzuru finally “understood” it was time to get off, he slid over to Taka in a “will you marry me” position (with both knees on the ground, not just one), looked at him with the most adorable pout, got up, grabbed Taka’s hips, and forced him out. Short story – Yuzuru is cute, awesome, and hilarious. We, the audience, laughed so hard at his antics.

Ice Dance Long

Again, Davis and White – wowowowowowow. They need to improve some of their lifts, but WOW. That is the first time I saw that much emotion in a first Grand Prix event from those two. I thought Weaver and Poje got a bit undermarked in PCS. However, Bobrova and Soloviev were very good, I must say. Again, everyone else – eh.

chapis wrote:

May be Christina should to do a break in Harvard, We know what happened with Rachael, I mean the university wont move and she has real talent.

I'm worried about that too. It's great Christina made Harvard, but I definitely do not want her to become the next Rachael nor Emily Hughes. But I think Christina definitely has much more potential than Rachael or Emily, so however difficult it may be to both study and keep practicing, I think she has a better chance of doing well in both at the same time.

Alokya, thanks for posting your report here although I've already enjoyed reading it on Facebook! Hope everyone enjoys it here too. It's surely a must read report guys!

Thank you Alokya, I am glad that you had a good time , excellent report, I want to watch Yuzuru and Taka live too.

shikure wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGTRcp-JtVo&feature=share&list=ULJGTRcp-JtVo
I am pretty happy he got his quad in SP first time but the judge #1 gave him -3 GOE for no fall jump...I think there should be for this kind of rule (they would like to make COP complicated...let's make it more complicated LOL) ..for full rotated and no fall, no hand...there should be no -3...but with hand and fall pls give -3 (like what happened to p-chan)

shikure, I think this -3 could be because of lack of steps preceding the jump. The rules say that the solo jump in the SP must be out of steps, but many skaters often do not bother putting difficult steps right before the jump, especially if it's a quad. The absence of steps must result in -3 GOE, according to the rules. But this rule has not been enforced and is being applied inconsistently from time to time by some judges to some skaters and not to others, which is frustrating and confusing.
Takahiko was amazing at this competition, hope this is a start of a good season for him. I especially love this program.

Alokya, thank you so much for sharing that with us! I'm one of those troglodytes who still doesn't have a facebook account, so I appreciated that you brought it here! Loved Taka's interview!

I was busy this weekend, but I managed to catch the NBC broadcast on Sunday. For me, the highlights were Yuzuru's SP and Taka's LP, and I'm so happy for Taka! I am a little worried about Yuzu, though...

Most of the ladies didn't impress me as much. Ashley skated well, but I thought the program needed more energy in the last part—the step sequence seemed somewhat lackluster, for instance. Like a lot of you, I was more impressed by Christina Gao. It seems she's finally coming into her own, and I hope she has a good season.

how did ashley get a 2 and a bunch of 1's for that triple salchow?

good question, how did she even get positive goe, with her weird same way of landing. i don't know if you guys have noticed it but something really is off, i haven't seen a skater have the same weird landing on all the jumps. i don't even recognise some of her jumps when looking at her landings. anyway i wonder what the judges where smoking when they gave her score.

somehow I'm hoping that her strange landings will be addressed at the next competition!

Alokya wrote:

Yuzuru’s was just absolutely adorable. He completely messed up his thing where he does… kind of a death spiral position ish? He fell out of it as he was trying to get up and just sprawled on the ice, pretending he was dead for a couple seconds. Oh, he provided a lot of good laughs for us. And Taka’s exhibition is beyond gorgeous. Jeremy actually sat on the edge of the rink to watch it. At the end, the Japanese men “didn’t understand the exhibition director” and messed around with each other – and Jeremy pretended to be deaf. Lots and lots of chasing each other. When Yuzuru finally “understood” it was time to get off, he slid over to Taka in a “will you marry me” position (with both knees on the ground, not just one), looked at him with the most adorable pout, got up, grabbed Taka’s hips, and forced him out. Short story – Yuzuru is cute, awesome, and hilarious. We, the audience, laughed so hard at his antics.

I think you might be referring to hydroblading. That's a fun thing to do on ice when there aren't many people skating. Well... we know how crazy and familial the Japanese team can be. Remember when Taka was 'impaled' on Dai's sword? *kyaaaa* I love them so much

Thanks for the wonderful report, Alokya!! It makes me wonder when will I be able to see these skaters in person.....

swan wrote:

how did ashley get a 2 and a bunch of 1's for that triple salchow?

Reputation boost, home advantage, the confident look she shows after the pro is over as if nothing wrong had happened during her performance at all, plus the fact that the judges were incredibly warm hearted folks who wanted soooo much to cheer the audience up after the disappointing US mens singles results?

I like Ashley...but not her scores this time. I wish the judges would stop scoring her like this cause people are definitely going to start calling her overrated (already happening?), and we'll have ourselves another case like Kostner if things go on like this.

ballerinamao wrote:

good question, how did she even get positive goe, with her weird same way of landing. i don't know if you guys have noticed it but something really is off, i haven't seen a skater have the same weird landing on all the jumps. i don't even recognise some of her jumps when looking at her landings. anyway i wonder what the judges where smoking when they gave her score.

somehow I'm hoping that her strange landings will be addressed at the next competition!

What do you mean with the weird landings?, I am not for defense her but for me it looks normal, and the type of jump you can know because the take off , I am not expert, probably I am lost in something .

her way off landing is always forward with her legs around each other, look at the videos again and you will notice that something about her landing is off!

PochinkoPotanko wrote:

swan wrote:

how did ashley get a 2 and a bunch of 1's for that triple salchow?

Reputation boost, home advantage, the confident look she shows after the pro is over as if nothing wrong had happened during her performance at all, plus the fact that the judges were incredibly warm hearted folks who wanted soooo much to cheer the audience up after the disappointing US mens singles results?

I like Ashley...but not her scores this time. I wish the judges would stop scoring her like this cause people are definitely going to start calling her overrated (already happening?), and we'll have ourselves another case like Kostner if things go on like this.

i'm ok with carolina getting 2's and 1's with her jumps but not really ashley. does anyone know if it's true that ashley gave a tweet about her results were expected?

I went through her Twitter feed and didn't see anything.

ballerinamao wrote:

her way off landing is always forward with her legs around each other, look at the videos again and you will notice that something about her landing is off!

her 3 loop looks weird , but the other jumps looked fine to me. I didnt watch in slow motion.

Alokya wrote:

I went through her Twitter feed and didn't see anything.

Nor in Facebook has she mentioned anything of that kind.
Howevermuch she may have been overscored I don't think Ashey is someone who'd say anything like that.

swan wrote:

how did ashley get a 2 and a bunch of 1's for that triple salchow?

It's Skate America she's an American, that says it all, the same thing happens to canadian skaters at SC. It looks like the japanese Fed is the only federation that screwes up it's own skaters at home competitions.

ballerinamao wrote:

her way off landing is always forward with her legs around each other, look at the videos again and you will notice that something about her landing is off!

THIS. And every time she lands a jump you're wondering if it was two footed because the landings are messy.

PochinkoPotanko wrote:

Nor in Facebook has she mentioned anything of that kind.
Howevermuch she may have been overscored I don't think Ashey is someone who'd say anything like that.

I agree, she's very confident, and says stuff like it's my nationals to lose (this has gotten her in trouble when she couldn't deliver) but she never sounds arrogant, also when it comes to international competitions she has always been nothing but respectful, so I can't imagine her saying this. if she said something like this, she might meant that winning was expected, (the field wasn't very deep to be honest) but i doubt she would mean /meant the score was to be expected.

zarinaballerina wrote:

swan wrote:

how did ashley get a 2 and a bunch of 1's for that triple salchow?

It's Skate America she's an American, that says it all, the same thing happens to canadian skaters at SC. It looks like the japanese Fed is the only federation that screwes up it's own skaters at home competitions.

ballerinamao wrote:

her way off landing is always forward with her legs around each other, look at the videos again and you will notice that something about her landing is off!

THIS. And every time she lands a jump you're wondering if it was two footed because the landings are messy.

PochinkoPotanko wrote:

Nor in Facebook has she mentioned anything of that kind.
Howevermuch she may have been overscored I don't think Ashey is someone who'd say anything like that.

I agree, she's very confident, and says stuff like it's my nationals to lose (this has gotten her in trouble when she couldn't deliver) but she never sounds arrogant, also when it comes to international competitions she has always been nothing but respectful, so I can't imagine her saying this. if she said something like this, she might meant that winning was expected, (the field wasn't very deep to be honest) but i doubt she would mean /meant the score was to be expected.

she could've just deleted the tweet so i was wondering if anyone saw it before she deleted it if it ever existed.

Once again, I take too long to check the thread and give my opinion. I won't bring up conversations from pages back, but here's a couple of my thoughts:

Yuzuru - Wow for SP, but I think he has a lot of work to do with his conditioning and stamina! He just lost in in LP. Sad

Taka: Well deserved win.

Jeremy: After LP he said he is frustrated that even though he's in excellent shape, his body won't do what he wants it to. He said he thinks it may have something to do with his training and/or nutrition and he will review that. Although I heard somewhere else that he actually has a back injury right now and this news was after SP I believe... so IDK what's going on there... I wish him the best though, cause when he's on, he's breathtaking.

Christina Gao: Glad she's really starting to be able to make an impression and medal! I really do like her skating. One of the commentators (Sandra I think it was) said something along the lines that she is a subtle skater, and that may be why she doesn't get all the credit she deserves. That immediately made me think of Mao. I think this is true for her too.

Ashly: Liked her LP. I do like her, but she's not one of my favorites. I agree that she is being over scored and overrated too.

Adelina: I have a complaint about her LP dress. At first I though it was gorgeous, but that was from seeing it up close. When I saw a shot that was a little farther away I realized how... naked it looks. The nude dress with a sheer color over the top while pretty, just gives the illusion of "it looks naked... but it's not." My eyes kept being drawn to her chest to be sure everything really was covered up.

Pole and Weaver: I don't usually watch Ice Dancing, but while fast forwarding through the FD, her costume caught my attention. I watched the program and loved it. I love the concept and the choreography. It reminded me of something you'd see on So You Think You Can Dance. So I wasn't too surprised when Kurt said the program was choreographed by Allison Holker from SYTYCD. She is an amazing dancer, and apparently a great skating choreographer too! I'd like to see her get her hands on more skaters - especially Mao!

Star85 wrote:

Jeremy: After LP he said he is frustrated that even though he's in excellent shape, his body won't do what he wants it to. He said he thinks it may have something to do with his training and/or nutrition and he will review that. Although I heard somewhere else that he actually has a back injury right now and this news was after SP I believe... so IDK what's going on there... I wish him the best though, cause when he's on, he's breathtaking.

This is what Jeremy posted about his condition after SA:

Quote :

Just talked with the physio. I have a compression in my spine that is apparently pushing on the nerves that connect to me legs.This is causing the muscle to cramp and not fire properly. Thank god because I'm in the best shape of my life and was worried why My body felt like it was completely shutting down on me. Wish I had the means to have a trainer with me daily like Takahashi.

He sounds relieved to know what the problem was, but it sounds quite serious to me. Hope there's a cure for it.

PochinkoPotanko wrote:

Star85 wrote:

Jeremy: After LP he said he is frustrated that even though he's in excellent shape, his body won't do what he wants it to. He said he thinks it may have something to do with his training and/or nutrition and he will review that. Although I heard somewhere else that he actually has a back injury right now and this news was after SP I believe... so IDK what's going on there... I wish him the best though, cause when he's on, he's breathtaking.

This is what Jeremy posted about his condition after SA:

Quote :

Just talked with the physio. I have a compression in my spine that is apparently pushing on the nerves that connect to me legs.This is causing the muscle to cramp and not fire properly. Thank god because I'm in the best shape of my life and was worried why My body felt like it was completely shutting down on me. Wish I had the means to have a trainer with me daily like Takahashi.

He sounds relieved to know what the problem was, but it sounds quite serious to me. Hope there's a cure for it.

Yes, Jeremy's skating is very beautiful so I hope he'll get better soon and finally nail his jumps. He can omit the quad for now while still healing because I wanna see clean programs from him this season. But I wish he hadn't mentioned Dai in his tweet at all. When I first read it it felt odd. Somebody else has posted the same observation -- saying she wished Jeremy had left out Dai's name.

This looks a bit painfull.

I agree roma I also don't understand why he's mentioning Dai, especially since Dai wasn't even at SA. He could've just as well mention Evan, I'm sure he also has the means to have a trainer with him daily.
I wonder though, how much does JSF contribute financially, and how much does Dai have to pay for himself. I heard they can be quite generous.

Anyway, I wish a speedy recovery for Jeremy.

Star85 wrote:

Christina Gao: Glad she's really starting to be able to make an impression and medal! I really do like her skating. One of the commentators (Sandra I think it was) said something along the lines that she is a subtle skater, and that may be why she doesn't get all the credit she deserves. That immediately made me think of Mao. I think this is true for her too.

Under 6.0 they will definitely score higher but I get the feeling that judges nowadays prefer programs with a lot of oomph. I mean, it seems they give higher marks to those overly dramatic, seductive or other highly entertaining programs.

zarinaballerina wrote:

This looks a bit painfull.

I agree roma I also don't understand why he's mentioning Dai, especially since Dai wasn't even at SA. He could've just as well mention Evan, I'm sure he also has the means to have a trainer with him daily.
I wonder though, how much does JSF contribute financially, and how much does Dai have to pay for himself. I heard they can be quite generous.

Anyway, I wish a speedy recovery for Jeremy.

It may be JSF paying for his trainer...but I kind of doubt it. JSF divides and selects skaters in priority ranking groups and skaters like Dai, Mao, Takahiko, Akiko, Kanako, Miki, etc., are in the top group. Then you have the next group with skaters like Machida, Mura etc., and I suppose the higher the group you're in, you get more funded by JSF. But there are quite a few skaters in the top group, and I don't think they all have physical trainers tagging along with them all the time. So I'm guessing Dai is paying his physical trainer from his own money; which he gets from apprearing in ice shows, tv shows, and tv commercials and advertisement posters for some companies here. Some of the companies he advertises for may be paying the physical trainer directly...who knows?

In anycase, I think it's obvious that right now figure skating is much much more popular in Jpn than in the US. As a result, Japanese skaters have lots of opportunities to make money; whereas in the US...harsh reality. So I don't think Jeremy was trying to make it look like Dai is getting extra special attention because he's 'Takahashi the great' sort of nuance, but I think he just wanted to imply that even top skaters aren't getting much attention in public in the US compared to Jpn, and that makes him sad. But I think he shouldn't have mentioned Dai of all Japanese skaters, because most likely the reason why Dai has a physical trainer with him daily would be because he had that terrible injury some years ago, had a bolt taken out of his leg this year (or was it last?), got into horrible condition after that accident with Takahiko during practice. After all those things happening to him, I think any skater would have a physical trainer around him as much as he/she can if they can afford it. Plus you never know if the trainer goes to competitions with him because he's being payed or whether he's doing it voluntarily for nothing, cause alot of Japanese folks are dedicated to their jobs and their clients so the latter can be the case.

But I can understand Jeremy's feelings too. He had attended a ceremony for SK8A Japanese Fans' Boys Fund Award (don't know anything about this fund nor award), in which a little skater boy from Seattle Washington (non-Japanese) was given all event tickets, $500 funding in Japanese Yen, and a meeting with Jeremy. I think events like that made him see pretty well how much more the sport is appreciated in Jpn. I remember once when Pattie said to the press that he doesn't feel he's supported enough by his own people in Canada. Alot of people seemed to think that was a rude thing to say in public, but I kind of understood how Pattie was feeling, too. He became world champion but still had to use the same program as the previous season, because it cost too much for him to have someone make a new one for him. Something like that would never happen in Jpn. So I thought you couldn't blame him much for complaining that he's not being (financially) supported; I think that's what he was referring to.

Sorry for the long post...in a nutshell, when you see how skaters like Yuna, Dai, Mao and most likely Plush are treated in their countries, I'm sure skaters in other countries can't help feeling depressed. So although Jeremy should be careful about what he says online maybe just a bit more, I don't think any less of him just because he mentioned Dai. I just hope his situation gets better, and if he needs money to make that happen, I sincerely hope that the US Skating Fed would lend him a hand.

PochinkoPotanko wrote:

Sorry for the long post...in a nutshell, when you see how skaters like Yuna, Dai, Mao and most likely Plush are treated in their countries, I'm sure skaters in other countries can't help feeling depressed. So although Jeremy should be careful about what he says online maybe just a bit more, I don't think any less of him just because he mentioned Dai. I just hope his situation gets better, and if he needs money to make that happen, I sincerely hope that the US Skating Fed would lend him a hand.

Pochi, thanx for explaining.
I wasn't trying to imply that Jeremy meant anything bad in mentioning Daisuke, I was just surprised he did. It did look a little weird. I like Jeremy, he looks very down to earth, nice and respectful. It was so nice to see a great welcoming that Japanese fans did for him at WTT (dinner and gifts). And I agree, I hope US fed will help him if he needs it.