While Everett’s 8,300-seat Comcast Arena appeared to be only two-thirds full all weekend for Skate America, but the Everett Herald reported Monday that 29,477 tickets were sold.

The three-day event set a new Skate America standard for ticket sales, breaking Spokane’s 2002 record of 28,664.

“We had more tickets sold than people in the stands,” said Laura Lee, chairman of the Skate America organizing committee. “I’m not sure why.”

Organizers of this weekend's Skate America expected to set a record with 30,0000 spectators according to an article in a September issue of the Everett Herald.

Judging by all the empty seats in the small arena, there's now way they broke the record.

Here's what we're saying about the attendance in tomorrow's paper:

EVERETT – Laura Lee, chairman of the Skate America organizing committee, wants Everett to be the next Spokane.

Spokane hosted Skate America in 2002 and used the event to become Skate City USA. (At least, that’s what they’re calling themselves.)

Lee was happy with this weekend’s event, but it’s clear that Everett is no Spokane.

Spokane set attendance records for Skate America in 2002 (28,664) and for the U.S. Championships in 2007 (154,893), but in Everett most of 8,300-seat Comcast Arena’s upper horseshow was empty all weekend.

“Skate America isn’t an event that sells out,” Lee said. “We never expected to sell out.”

But they did publicly set the goal of breaking Spokane’s Skate America attendance record. U.S. Figure Skating did not respond to multiple requests for this weekends attendance figures.

Whether or not Everett can parlay Skate America into future Olympic sporting events remains to be seen. Lee says the goal is to bring the U.S. Championships and even major gymnastic and NCAA events to Everett.

“Spokane is the model we are trying to follow,” Lee said.
Spokane has become the crowned jewel of U.S. Figure Skating over the past six years.

Spokane Arena only seats 10,440, much smaller than regular Figure Skating venues in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and St. Louis.

“But I was just talking to somebody from the ISU (International Skating Union) yesterday who was saying ‘You guys have something special in Washington,’” said Barb Beddor, executive director of the 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane.

Perhaps that’s why Spokane was the first city asked to host the U.S. Championships in the same four-year Olympic cycle since Colorado Springs hosted in 1948 and ‘49.

The 2010 Olympic team will determine at the Spokane competition.

Tickets for 2010 went on sale March 31 and are 25 percent ahead of where they were in 2007, said Toby Steward, president of Star USA, the company organizing the championships.

Spokane also plans to host a USA vs. Canada women’s hockey exhibition game a few weeks before the 2010 Olympics.
They have other big plans, including bidding for a future Figure Skating World Championship, but, for now, Beddor says they’re keeping most of their wish list hush-hush.

“We hope Everett has similar success,” Beddor said. “I do think these events build on each other.”

Yu-Na Kim of Korea concluded Skate America by winning the ladies competition. Her win kept Team USA from winning at least one gold medal at its own event for the first time since 1998. It’s the third time (1993 was the other) since the event began in 1979 that the U.S. failed to win a gold.

American skaters finished with three silvers and a bronze.
Defending world junior champ Rachel Flatt, 16, came closest to medaling for the U.S. in the ladies competition Sunday, finishing fourth. Americans Mirai Nagasu and Kimmie Meissner, both of whom fell twice, finished fifth and eighth respectively.

Nagusu, the top American after the short program, aggravated a nagging ankle injury during warm-ups.

She blames too many jumps in practice for her irritating the injury. However, she says she’s glad she didn’t skip the competition even though she’d hoped to contend with the Japanese and Korean skaters for the win.

“Coming here is not a decision I regret,” Nagasu said. “I learned how much work I have to do.”

Japan’s Yukari Nakano and Miki Ando took silver and bronze.

Despite falling just short of their fifth Skate America title, ice dancer Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto where pleased with their first performance under new coaches Natalia Linichuk and Gennadi Karpanosov.

“There is good recognition of what we need to do (to improve) … and that’s typical of this point in the season,” Belbin said. “… It’s good to get this feedback now so that we have time to work on it.”

The Americans won the free dance Saturday, but it was not enough to claim gold in the three-dance competition. Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France took first with 187.64 points. The Americans scored 186.53 points to take silver.

“We are so pleased with the progress we are making under the tutildge of our new coaches,” Belbin said. “… I hope this is a platform we can build on.”

Part of the reason the dancers brought in a new coach was to develop a clear plan for progressing over the next two seasons.
“This is the first step in this season,” Agosto said. “But at the same time it is the first step toward the Olympic games. And the Olympic games is the main goal.”

While Skate America participants are trying to score points to qualify for the Dec. 10-14 Grand Prix Final in Korea, they’re also trying to get paid.

The winner of each event gets $18,000. Second is worth $13,000, third $9,000, fourth $3,000 and fifth pockets $2,000.

Prize money increases by more than 50 percent at finals.

Final standings for the men's competition. Evan Lysacek slipped from first to third and Johnny Weir took silver. Takahiko Kozuka of Japan gets gold.

1 Takahiko KOZUKA JPN 226.18
2 Johnny WEIR USA 225.20
3 Evan LYSACEK USA 223.21
4 Kevin REYNOLDS CAN 204.89
5 Shawn SAWYER CAN 199.98
6 Alexander USPENSKI RUS 177.81
7 Adrian SCHULTHEISS SWE 177.26
8 Adam RIPPON USA 174.82
9 Igor MACYPURA SVK 169.61
10 Ian MARTINEZ CAN 155.18

American ladies Mirai Nagasu, Rachael Flatt and Kimmie Meissner finished the short program in fourth, fifth and sixth place respectively, but Meissner felt like she missed out on much more.

Meissner, the 2007 national champ, fell trying to land a triple flip. As disappointed as she was, she says today’s long program is her strength and she vows not to make the same mistake.

“I’m going to come out with a vengeance for that triple flip,” said Meissner who scored 54.90 points Saturday.

Yu-Na Kim of Korea leads after the short program with 69.50 points.

Two young USA pair skaters dazzled the fans at Skate America this afternoon, but watched as more experienced pairs took the title.

Americans Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker surprised the field by edging the Russian favorites, Maria Mukhotova and Msxim Trankov for second place.

Germans pair of Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, the defending world champs, glided to victory with 180.77 points. McLaughlin and Brubaker had 172.69 points and the Russians scored 167.67.

Rena Inoue and John Baldwin (146.51 points) finished fifth and John Coughlin and Caitlin Yankowskas (141.70) finished seventh for the Americans.

Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto took a small step backward in their pursuit of a fifth Skate America ice dancing title.

Belbin and Agosto are still solidly entrenched in second place behing Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France, but finished third Saturday afternoon in the original dance.

Belbin and Agosto's 57.47 points weren't as good as the British brother-sister combo of Sinead and John Kerr, who scored 57.74 points. Delobel and Schoenfelder scored 58.26 points but were not entirely pleased with their performance.

"Out technique marks were not what we wanted," Shoenfelder said, "because we made mistakes."

I have to confess, my primary sports interests are pretty typical. College basketball and any kind of football. I also love skiing, cycling and many Olympic sports.

But when it comes to figure skating, well, let's just say I don't get it.

As I watched ice dancing a few minutes - listening to the Viennese Waltz 9 times in an hour - I kept pondering this thought: "Sport or not sport?"

I get that these competitors are athletic - probably more so than some baseball and football players - and if I ever start thinking figure skating is for wimps I remember this:

But there's something about sports decided by judges that make them seem more like reality TV.

Any way, I'll leave this debate to you guys. What do you think? Sport or something else?

Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder showed why they are the defending world ice dancing champs by effortlessly taking winning the compulsory dance.

The French pair earned a score of 38.49 during the Viennese Waltz to take the lead over USA's Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto.

Belbin and Agosto, defending Olympic silver medalists, are the clear crowd favorites and were pleased with their performance.

"That's the most comfortable I've ever felt in a compulsory," Agosto said.

I spent the afternoon at Comcast Arena where some of the world's best figure skaters were practicing for Skate America. The 3-day event starts Friday.

The event is the kickoff to the pre-Olympic season and no small thing for the athletes.

"I've made a lot of changes," defending Skate America champ Kimmie Meissner said after practice skate. "... I think I'm stronger (this season)."

The first event of the season will allow her and the other skaters see how there off-season changes stack up against everybody else.

"It's the start of everything," Meissner said. "We get to see everybody's new programs and their new costumes."

The event starts Friday at 3 p.m.

Here are a few pics from today:

Meissner address the media in the bowels of Everett's Comcast Arena earlier today.

A pair practices their routine.

From the Chicago Tribune:

By Philip Hersh
Chicago Tribune
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Rachael Flatt is a young woman in a hurry.

Flatt finishes her second on-ice training session of the day at the Ice Hall of the Colorado Springs World Arena — half her usual number of sessions because she had to take a standardized statewide achievement test at school.

In less than five minutes she takes off her skates, pulls on a sweater and drags a suitcase, briefcase, oversize quilted bag and a purse outside the building, where she waits for her mother to drive her to a two-hour physical training session at the Olympic Training Center.

=> Read more!

From the U.S. Ski Team:

When it comes to specific race preparation, the U.S. Ski Team goes 'All Out,' or in this case, all in.

In order to ready for the upcoming Europa Cup indoor slalom at Landgraaf, Netherlands, tech aces Cody Marshall (Pittsfield, VT) and Tim Kelley (Starksboro, VT) joined up with Paul MacDonald (Bellevue, WA) for a training block at Snow Funpark, an indoor skiing facility in Wittenberg, Germany.

"We slept at the same place we skied, you can't beat that," said Marshall, who had a breakout World Cup season last winter scoring slalom points at both Wengen, Switzerland and Zagreb, Croatia. "It's like a hockey rink with a pitch and it's absolutely perfect for practicing ways to find speed on flat sections."

And with around 20 gates in the set, they get a lot of practice. At 330 meters in length, Snow Funpark is essentially a giant refrigerator laid diagonally on stilts. Only, this refrigerator also houses a hotel, restaurant, and for the U.S. Ski Team, slalom training.

"You can't create this kind of snow outside. It's around 22 seconds per run, so you get a lot of chances to work on your technique," Marshall said. "Our coaches Tom Sell and Pete Korfiatis have helped us out a ton and we've been pushing each other pretty hard. It's funny to say, but it's been a really good session and none of it was outside."

For Marshall, the measure of good slalom training is based upon the number of broken gates tallied at the end of the week.

"We broke a lot gates. I feel kind of bad about that, but if you want to be fast, you've got to hit them hard," he said.

Marshall enters his third season on the World Cup carrying the momentum of a breakthrough year highlighted by a 19th place finish in Wengen on a day where the first run was held in blinding snow and the second in rain. Following the Europa Cup in Landgraaf on Nov. 6, where McDonald was second last season, he heads to Levi, Finland for the first World Cup slalom.

"I'm really psyched for Levi. I was pumped to go there last year, but it was moved to Reiteralm [Austria] because there wasn't enough snow in Finland," Marshall said. "Hopefully it will go off this year. I gained some really good experience on the World Cup last year and I'm really fired up to get on it this winter."

The men's 2009 Audi FIS World Cup season opens Oct. 25 with a giant slalom in Soelden, Austria. Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) opened his run to the 2008 World Cup giant slalom title with a second place at the annual kick off race in Soelden.

This just in from the Associated Press:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — The 2010 Vancouver Olympics remain financially strong, organizers said Thursday, despite a current deficit, rising venue budgets and concerns about the global financial crisis.

The organizing committee’s latest financial statement says it ran a deficit of $40.5 million in the year ending July 31, compared to the $51.3 million surplus it had in 2006-2007.

“It’s important to look at that in the context of the entire run of the Games, the six-year period,” said John McLaughlin, the chief financial officer for the organizing committee, who added the deficit wasn’t a surprise.

“Whether or not we have a deficit or a surplus in any given year is really strictly just a matter of timing of our cash flows and is not indicative of the financial performance of the organization.”

The overall budget for venue construction hasn’t increased, the committee said. A contingency fund was built in to cover overruns.

McLaughlin said organizers still expect the Games to break even. He said the deficit comes from organizers ramping up spending on staff, technology and other planning elements for the Winter Games.

“We’re not asking for any more money, we won’t ask for any more money,” he said. “From our perspective we are going to complete them on target and on budget.”

When organizers first released their business plan for the 2010 Olympics last year, they said they were making their revenue plans on the assumption of the “Canadian economy remaining relatively strong with no recession through Games time.”

On Thursday, Canadian banks warned a recession was coming as the global credit crunch continues.

Still, McLaughlin said the Games are on solid financial footing — 79 percent of revenue has already been committed or received and organizers have surpassed their target for sponsorship.

Money from ticket sales will start coming in next month when the first phase of sales ends. Organizers say demand is high.

“We should be able to hit our revenue targets, not without our challenges but we’re in good shape,” he said.

From the U.S. Ski team:

The U.S. Ski Team's Liz McIntyre, Nelson Carmichael, and Cary Adgate, along with a man who set the precedent in American ski mountaineering, Bill Briggs, will be inducted to the 2008 U.S. National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in April according to Hall of Fame President Tom West.

Both Olympic medalists, McIntyre and Carmichael will be recognized alongside Adgate, an Olympian who was named 2005 Masters Racer of the Year, and Briggs, who has a collection of famous first descents to his name.

McIntyre's career spanned 20 years with the U.S. Ski Team, first as an athlete on the freestyle moguls squad from 1986-98, then as the moguls technical coach from 1999-2006.

As an athlete, the culmination of McIntyre's career came during the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer where she led the qualifying round and went on to take the silver medal. With an athletic career filled with accolades, McIntyre also stood on top of the World Cup podium four times (all in Tignes, France) and earned 18 other World Cup top tens. After taking time off during the 1990 season, she came back with her eye on the Olympics, making the team three times in 1992, '94 and '98.

Her contributions as the U.S. Ski Team moguls technical coach are outstanding. She coached Olympic medalists Shannon Bahrke, Toby Dawson, and Travis Mayer. In 2003, her athletes Bahrke and Travis Cabral swept the World Cup titles. It's been said that she coached from the heart, and it was never about her, but rather the team. She challenged the athletes with fresh ideas and new training methods, and dedicated herself to getting the most out of them. She led athletes into a new era in the sport when inverted maneuvers were approved for competition after 2002.

Carmichael, a Steamboat Springs native, jumped into a spot on the U.S. Ski Team straight out of high school in 1984. He struggled during his first couple of seasons, but by 1988 found his mojo and won the World Cup mogul championship. In 1989 he repeated his World Cup championship and then set his sights on the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France, where he won bronze when freestyle debuted as a sport in the Olympics. During his career with the U.S. Ski Team, he also won six U.S. Championships and 12 World Cup events.

After the Olympics, Carmichael continued his successful ski career, winning several professional tours and, after retiring from competition, established himself with Steamboat Ski Resort.

Adgate was a Midwesterner who made his first race turns on Boyne Mountain in Michigan. In 1971 he won the U.S. Junior National Championship at age 17. He joined the U.S. Ski Team in 1973 and in that year won the Can-Am Overall Championship, the Can-Am GS championship and the Roch Cup downhill/overall championship. He earned the U.S. Alpine Championship title in slalom or combined six times, and was a member of the U.S. Olympic team in 1976 and '80.

Adgate turned to professional skiing in 1981, competing in Bob Beattie's World Pro Skiing Tour. He became the only skier to win back-to-back races in his pro debut, going on to win 25 professional victories and the 1984 U.S. Pro Championships.

In 2005 he won three U.S. Masters Championship events and was named Ski Racing Magazine's 2005 Master Racer of the Year. He currently is Boyne USA Resorts' Snowsports Ambassador and mentors several racing programs.

Briggs was a pioneer first-descent skier and is considered a leader of American ski mountaineering. He started his professional ski career as a fully certified instructor in 1955 and founded the Bill Brigg's Ski School at Suicide Six Ski Area near Woodstock, Vermont in 1958.

With three companions, he made the first 100-mile traverse from the Bugaboos to Rogers Pass, BC in 1958. He made a series of first-ski-descents from Mount Rainer in 1961, Middle and South Teton in 1967, Mount Moran in 1968 and, most famously, the Grand Teton in 1971.

He founded the Great American Ski School, which models his own ski teaching ideology and technique. His system established the Certainty Training Method (CTM) for ski instructors and he still holds the position of director at the Snow King Ski School in Jackson, Wyoming.

The U.S. National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame's Class of 2008 was selected by an independent selection committee of ski professionals, historians, and writers chaired by Paul Bousquet and voted on by a national panel.

The official induction of the four members of the class of 2008 will take place in Park City UT in April 2009 with an enshrinement in Ispheming in September, 2009.

The U.S. National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame and Museum is dedicated to honoring America's skiing and snowboarding professionals, pioneers and athletes. The museum houses one of the largest collections of skis and snow sport related memorabilia in the United States.

This just in from the U.S. Ski Team:

It was another day of jumping domination for Anders Johnson and the U.S. Ski Jumping Team's Lindsey Van (both Park City, UT). Each took in their second win of the weekend when the 2008 U.S. Championships made way for a SuperTour event in Lake Placid.

"I had pretty good jumps today. I was really psyched," Van said. "It feels good to have two wins and have the consistency coming back."

=> Read more!

There are still 498 days until the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, but it’s already time to prepare for the games if you’re looking for tickets.
Starting this morning Olympic organizers are accepting ticket requests for the games scheduled for Feb. 12-28, 2010, in Vancouver and Whistler.
Tickets range in price from $25 to watch cross-country skiing to $1,118 for the opening ceremonies.
HOW TO REQUEST TICKETS: Ticket requests can be submitted at cosport.com or 877-457-4647 until Nov. 7. A credit card is required to request tickets, but no payments will be collected during this time according to the cosport.com website.
THE LOTTERY: Regardless of when ticket requests are submitted they are considered equally when ticket sales will be confirmed in mid December. Those win the right to buy tickets will have their credit cards billed at this time. Tickets will be shipped in January 2010.
OTHER TICKET OPPORTUNITIES: Any remaining tickets will go on sale on a first-come, first-served basis in February or March according to cosports.com.
CREDIT CARD INFO: Credit cards are accepted if they have an expiration date of February 2009 or later.
COST: Opening Ceremonies ($185-$1,118), alpine skiing ($85-150), biathlon ($25-70), bobsleigh ($30-85), cross-country skiing ($25-70), curling ($65-125), figure skating ($50-525), freestyle skiing ($65-125), hockey ($26-775), luge ($35-85), Nordic combined ($50-120), short track speed skating ($50-150), skeleton ($30-85), ski jumping ($80-210), snowboarding ($50-150), speed skating ($95-185) and closing ceremonies ($185-793).
MORE INFO: vancouver2010.com