Champions Crowned

Shae-Lynn Bourne and Claude Lemieux versus Craig Simpson and Jamie Salé. Clearly the battle that everyone probably expected and were rooting for to be crowned as champions of the Battle of the Blades. After Monday’s results show the winners were announced and it was Sale and Simpson...and I could not have been any more pleased. They were both my pick and my choice to win. Perhaps it had something to do with my continuing crush on Jamie Salé but they were the best and most creative pair in the competition.

As for the concept and the show itself, looking back at it was a good idea and turned out to be much more credible then I would have thought. The Hockey players did a good job to adapt to the sport of Ice Dance. They were far less awkward then I would have thought. That speaks volumes about the level of commitment and effort that they put into it. The fact that the winning pair took home a cool $100,000 for their charity of choice (Salé and Simpsons was spinal cord research.) is a huge bonus. I don’t know exactly what the ratings were for this but it appears that it was fairly well received by the public.

The way I look at this is the same way I look at other "reality" shows and many movies for that matter. The original is usually best and should end with that. The first editions of - Survivor, Paradise Island, The Apprentice - I watched and enjoyed. Had they ended there I would have been laughing, but sadly they did not and continued to churn out season after horrible season of crap. They are not going to top what they have done and it can only go down hill from here. Just like Dancing with the Stars is experiencing now they will run out of stars. That just hurts the credibility and the watch ability.

If this could be a one hit wonder and end there they I think everyone would be better off. Sometime it is best to do the Seinfeld thing and go out on top and not end up having to "Jump The Shark".

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.