Before I start, this report will probably be pretty short (for me anyway!) I'm having a couple of aches and pains, so I'll only write the essentials.

We started off our day by going to the junior ladies short program. It was my first competition where I saw a level other than seniors. Skating wise, I was pretty impressed with the junior ladies. Jump wise, well, there were only 3 clean programs. Alissa Czisney had a nice spiral sequence. The leader is Joan Cristobal, who went last, and was clean and had a nice presentation. She and her coach were pretty happy when the scores came up. The skaters from the Boston area (Louann Donovan and Colette Irving) both had mistakes.

Then came the ladies short program practice. I didn't take notes, so these are from memory and therefore not as detailed. The first group up was group A, with Michelle Kwan, Jennifer Kirk, Elizabeth Kwon, Katie Lee, Lisa Nesuda, and Stephanie Chace-Bass. Michelle was wearing a plain silver-ish costume with a rinestone pattern on the front. I heard it was the first "plain" costume she's worn this week. Michelle skated first to East of Eden. I still wish she was skating to Rush, but it was nicer than when she did it at the Canadian Open. She landed all her jumps in the run through, and I believe landed all her jumps in the practice session. She did the loop several times (and landed them.) I think she also landed a triple toe/triple toe combo at one point in the practice. She leaft very early (during the runthrough of maybe the second skater after her.) She was hounded by autograph seekers when she left the ice, and stayed for a pretty long time signing. Jennifer had a good practice, landed everything when I watched her. In Group B was Amber Corwin, Andrea Gardiner, Ye Bin Mok, Stacey Pensgen, and Stephanie Roth. Amber landed more than one triple toe/triple toe combos. Then we left to catch the ladies practice at the Fleet Center.

Again, first up was group A. All the ladies got onto the ice, except for Michelle! She got on the ice a few minutes late. Jenny went first, and I think had a clean runthrough expect for her final jump. Michelle skated next. Her first jump was the triple loop, but it looked like she tripped on something on the ice and she caught an edge. I don't know, it was a very weird fall, and she was on the ice for a bit (she didn't just pop up.) The crowd was almost silent. She was stretching around a while, and skated back over the Frank. She was holding her lower back (which I believe is what she said was bothering her recently.) She eventually got back into the program to try I think a lutz, but she popped it. She then stopped skating again. She seemed pretty uncomfortable, and spoke with Frank for a while. After her runthrough was over, she went and did some parts of her program, and slowly got back into skating well, but she did seem to keep holding her lower back, and one time she passed by us, I could see her elbow was red. She stayed longer than the first practice, but she did leave early. I was later informed that I went to her one bad practice so far. Of course, my luck. I'm hoping she's going to be OK. No, I know she's going to be OK. One bad practice, gets it all out of the way. With all of that excitement, I really didn't see much of the other skaters. In Group B, the biggest thing that sticks out is that Stacey fell forward doing a spiral. If she was a tad closer to the boards, she would have gone right into them. It was another scary moment. I missed some of group C, but I got back in time to see Sarah's runthrough. She didn't do her whole program, only doing a about 4 jumps and non combinations, and then stopping and skating around. Later on in the practice, she did the triple sal/triple loop 3 or 4 times. She also did the 3 lutz/2 loop once. She also seemed very happy, I guess free is a good word. She had a big smile on her face several times when she passed us. There was a group of people a section or so over that cheered for her twice when she passed them, and she looked right at them and smiled and sort of waved. She left early (very few skaters stayed through the whole practice). Angela was a no show.

Following is a spoiler of the Dance Finals and Mens Short program. If you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading, and wait for my next report tomorrow!

Dance Final

I don't know much about dance, so I can't give any expert commentary. The first group had 2 teams, and the second had 5 groups. I thought they could have split that up a tad better, but what do I know? ;) Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev were beautiful, but at one point in the program, they had a small error. He lifted his leg over her ducking, but his leg looked like it hit her in the head (I had a bad angle on this.) It didn't stop them from getting 6 for presentation though. I was at the arena until they were shooing people out of there, and Naomi and Peter stayed all that time, signing autographs and posing for pictures for the fans, which I thought was really nice. Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto were nice, and finished second.

Mens Short

I was extremely excited for this event, but it turned out to be a little disappointing. There were only two clean programs, by Trifun Zivanovic and Michael Weiss. After he skated, Trifun sat in the section next to us. He gave Michael a standing ovation (along with the rest of the crowd). Michael is in first, and Trifun is in 4th. Todd landed the quad a few times in warmups, but doubled it in his program, leaving him without a combo. The crowd was really for him. Tim landed a quad sal combo, but had problems with his other two jumps. Hopefully, the long programs will be a lot cleaner.

Tomorrow is the ladies practice and short program, and pairs finals.