Battle Of The Blades

I blame The San Diego Chargers for coming out of the blocks way too slow and not being able to make the Sunday night NFL game interesting until late in the 4th quarter when they started to blaze down the field and started putting up points and made the Steelers sweat a bit. It is because of that that I began to roam around the stations just for a look see. It was the last regular day for baseball so ESPN did not have an 8pm baseball game. All 15 NHL teams played Saturday so it was a rare night, especially early in the season that the lights were off in the league and there wasn’t 1 game on the schedule. NASCAR had wrapped up with Jimmie coming in 9th due to a small mistake by Chad Knaus to take on 4 tires instead of just 2 and losing valuable track position.

At that point I stumbled upon Battle of the Blades on CBC. This is a Canadian version of Dancing with the Stars...on Ice. They match up former NHL players with well known Canadian female skaters. The lineup includes: Claude Lemieux and Shae-Lynn Bourne, Jamie Sale and Craig Simpson, Ken Daneyko and Jodeyne Higgins, Stephane Richer and Marie-France Dubreuil, Bob Probert and Kristina Lenko, Glenn Anderson and Isabelle Brasseur. Ron Duguay and Barbara Underhill and finally Tie Domi and Christine Hough-Sweeney (her husband is former NHL player and current Asst. GM for the Bruins Don Sweeney).

I feel like there was a level of entrapment on the part of the producers. I was tricked into watching with Ron McLean hosting and Kelly Hrudey as one of the judges. I am a fan of both these guys on Hockey Night In Canada and find that Kelly Hrudey has become a great analyst and is a pretty funny guy...so I watched. It felt wrong but it was compelling. What was an even dirtier move was the fact that they put up Shae-Lynn Bourne and Jamie Sale up first, back to back...how can you not watch these two stunning ladies??

Hrudey was MR. Complement and was in charge of complementing the ladies on how well they skated and how great they looked..and even extended a few interesting remarks to some of the guys...Ravishing should not be a unisex word by the way Kelly.

Overall it actually was a lot more watchable then I thought it would be and the hockey players for the most part actually handled themselves pretty well. I do have a fear that these guys will try to do to much or make a mistake and hurt on of the ladies. Marie-France Dubreuil was already knocked out earlier in the week after hitting the ice. Who I do feel a little bad for is Kristina Lenko, she looks like a sweet girl but I think Probert may be the first to be on the way out. The other one I feel bad for is Christine Hough-Sweeney, having to skate with Tie Domi.

I may be forced to keep watching for a little while...but it still feels wrong.