Lovepairs get better soon!! ((Hugs))

IMHO, I thought that article was extremely insulting and condescending. I contacted the referee at the 2006 Mids in Cleveland because she had put our pairs event almost back to back with the champ gold, and there's no way I would have had time to change and prepare for the champ event if I had been in the first warm up for champ. She was very nice and easy to work with and changed things to accomodate me (and another skater who was in the same boat). How would she have known that we considered it an issue if I hadn't contected her? It certainly wasn't whining, like was implied in that atricle - it was a valid concern.

I hope that your healing process is smooth, and my total support goes out to both you and Lee. I may not have skated pairs much, or well, but I do know that it is far more difficult (and on the flip side - fun ) than I would have thought before I tried it myself.

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This was addressed at the Adult Skating Committee Open Forum. Lynn Goldman was there and personaly answered all of the questions. She was not aware of the particluar incident about the Silver Pairs because she was not on that panel. She did apologize for it and went on to explain that occaisonally refs. will ASK if everyone is ready. If everyone is ready, then they they may start early only if the competitiors agree. Somehow, there was a lack of communication in the Pairs event...the ASK could have turned into DOING by the time it got to the ice monitor. AdultPairsSkater can tell you exactly as I believe he spoke with Lynn personally too. She also said that she doesn't mind getting emails from skaters.....as long as they are "nicely" written. Unfortunately, she said she got many nasty emails from skaters before the event. She also got some well thought out ones as well. I'm just repeating what she said. I can say that she was very helpful in answering questions and stated that she is there because she loves the adult events and wants to encourage adults to skate.

And that's the thing. In the past, I've seen some correspondance to the referee that has been extremely polite, and others that would make your hair curl. Plus when you apply it to a National, not a Sectional, if just 5% of the skaters for a 500+ event contact that referee with questions/complaints, that's 25 skaters! That's A LOT! That's why the article was asking that questions be directed to the LOC, who can then consolidate them and get them to the referee.

I will say for ANs 2007 in Chicago, a lot of the questions to the referee were simply, "when is the schedule coming out?" Frankly, the referee does not need 20 or so emails asking that question. It really doesn't make the adult community look great in the officials' eyes to be bugging their email in-box 20 times when the LOC can ask the same question just once.

If there's a major scheduling conflict like sk8er1964 described, then by all means contact the proper people. But if you're simply unhappy that you don't get your official WU on your competition rink (which is NOT a requirement by the rules, BTW) then don't bug them. No need to alienate the officials. And believe me, the officials are getting alienated. The planners of various adult events are having a hard time finding officials to help us because of nasty correspondance. Sadly, adults have a bad reputation now as a result.

(didn't meant to misdirect the original purpose of this thread, but wanted to address this since it came up)

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So, do you think I should contact Lynn Goldman and ask her why she signed off on having nine (9) pair teams on official warm up ice? Even without a rule noting the maximum amount of pair teams allowed on an NHL surface, wouldn't common sense dictate that this is creating a highly dangerous situation?

Forget about the March article, because all of my letters are professional and polite, but I was just doing some math and if you have 9 teams each having 3 lifts in their program (well-balanced) then you have a total of 27 lifts that need to be warmed up in 20 minutes. We were pretty organized out there anticipating the chaos from the previous night's practice and had a system of screaming out "LIFT" to clear the lift lane, but in this environment there was a sense of rushing for everyone to get everything in. This is not to mention that each team has approximately 9 additional elements in their programs to warm up, which is a total of 81 elements. Now, I know that we all don't get to do all of our elements in this 20 minute warm up and that this is not really the point. However, if you ever skated pairs, or interested to know something about pair skaters, it's that we really place a priority on warming up our lifts before a competition--ironically, it has to do with safety.

I'm sure she's very nice, but I can't imagine what she was thinking in this instance??? Should I write?

Hi all

I take all of the written rules very seriously, particularly when I am aware of them (there are so many rules!), and so I took this rule seriously.

I did mention this to the Chief Referee who was the referee on my panel, and her intent was to start early if everyone was ready. The ice monitors were again the problem here, because I did not agree. This was not communicated to the referee. The monitors confused 'checked in' with 'ready'.

Her advice to me in a similar circumstance was to say, "No, I'm sorry I'm not ready to start early." And make sure they tell the referee 'not ready.' In the end, we ended up in agreement that the ice monitors need training, and she gave me as sincere an apology as she could muster. There's nothing to do after the fact, and I communicated my understanding of this to her which helped diffuse the focus to the matter at hand, which was ice monitor readiness and how the referee uses/communicates to the monitors.

Monitors are simply volunteers who will do what is asked of them. From the box, the officials need to be clear with the monitors to get the exact info they need from the floor. But mistakes will happen, as people are only human. In this case, however, the monitor simply didn't listen to my reply, and I was told, "We are going 5 to 7 minutes early."

Cheers!

Larry

I agree with this. The schedule will come out when it comes out, and no amount of nagging will change that. It just only makes it take longer.

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"Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway." -- Unknown

It may have been an honest oversight on her part. I don't think it was intentional.

I will say that the Adult Committee is well-aware that there were too many teams on the ice, so I don't think you have to notify anyone, actually! It's an issue that will be covered.

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Lovepairs, what a scary story! I don't know you but I wish you complete and quick healing. Take very good care of your body.

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Of course, it was not intentional, and I would never have thought that for a moment. However, it was a glarring oversight for which both Lee and I have paid a very high price. I'm glad to hear, and thank you for reassuring me that the Adult Committee is aware of this, and that it will be covered. If some good can come out of this; meaning that some very concrete rules can be put in place with regard to Adult Pairs' safety at USFSA sanctioned events then I will feel that what happened to us wasn't in vein. Since I've been on an individual crusade for the past four years writing to every LOC in advance of sanctioned events, with the exception of the 2006 E. Sect. in which Tara joined me in this effort, asking in a very professional, polite and formal manner, on behalf of the entire Adult Pair Skating community that there be the following,

1. Ample "Pairs Only" practice ice with regard to the total number of pair teams attending the event.

2. An ice cut before all Adult Pairs sanctioned practice and competition ice.

3. The maximum of five (5) pair teams per practice session.

my hope is that I no longer have to send these letters, because some very clear rules are put in place. I might mention that I sent the same request to the ORDA office before this event and was met with a very luckwarm response. Really, what started my writing campaign was when back in 2004 Lee and I arrived at the Lake Placid AN to find NO pairs practice ice at all and they wouldn't let us sign up for Freestyle Practice, because we were a pair team. Hands down, the 2007 Chicago Nationals was the best to date, making sure that we had enough, cut, uncrowded pairs practice ice. Thank you very much to that LOC! The worst was, of course, what just transpired up in Lake Placid, and 2006 in Massachusets when the Pairs actually stagged a protest at the podium, because they were treated so badly. We took a lot of heat for that protest after the fact, but I still believe that we did the right thing under the circumstances. I really hope this gets cleared up. I'll be watching from my bed and hope that everyone will keep me up-to-date if any emergancy RFAs are put forth to the Governing Council in this case. If nothing happens, then Lee and I will have to seek another solution.

Thank you all for your kindness and understanding.

Lovepairs

"Even without a rule noting the maximum amount of pair teams allowed on an NHL surface, wouldn't common sense dictate that this is creating a highly dangerous situation?"

As much as common sense would dictate to modify your warm up to be safe in "a highly dangerous situation".

Seems like a lack of this all around and an opportunity for lessons learned.

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[QUOTE=w.w.west;362637]This was addressed at the Adult Skating Committee Open Forum. Lynn Goldman was there and personaly answered all of the questions. She was not aware of the particluar incident about the Silver Pairs because she was not on that panel. She did apologize for it and went on to explain that occaisonally refs. will ASK if everyone is ready. If everyone is ready, then they they may start early only if the competitiors agree. Somehow, there was a lack of communication in the Pairs event...the ASK could have turned into DOING by the time it got to the ice monitor.

FYI, this wasn't just Pairs...this happened in Ladies' Interp IV as well. The monitor did not ask if people were ready, just if they were there. One poor woman had just started putting her skates on as it was ten minutes before the event was supposed to start when someone came running in to tell us the event had started (without us, apparently!).

The monitor was really nice, I just don't think she knew what to do.

lovepairs - how are you feeling now? How is your partner? And when this is all over think about posting a pic of your bejeweled body brace!!!

Hi Herniated,

Thanks for asking. Here's an update of things I can do now, which I consider progress:

In bed, I can now roll to my left and right. It's painful to do this, but at least, I can do it (nice to get off my back, because I've been flat out, since the accident.)

I can stand up for about 5 minutes, before I feel like I'm going to pass out. This is when I put on one, or two jewels on at a time. I'm measuring my progress by how many jewels I can put on.

I'm trying to step down the drugs to wean myself off and that's pretty brutal with withdrawl headaches, but I think I'm over that hump and will continue to step down gradully.

I'd be happy to post a picture of me in my be-jeweled body brace, but Lee has to bring my camera up to me. I'll ask him for it the next time he comes up to visit.

Lee is doing better, he is back on the ice now practicing Novice Moves and hopefully will have his first lesson, again, next week.

So, we are getting there slowely, but surely.

Thanks, again, for asking--very much appreciated!

Oh, I'm schedules for a second set of X-rays and another Cat Scan next week, so I'll let you know.

It's nice to hear that you're on the mend, Andrea.

Take care,

Frank

"This is when I put on one, or two jewels on at a time. I'm measuring my progress by how many jewels I can put on."

You are very funny! And glad Lee is back on the ice. CAT scans suck. Will it be the one with the radiated dye that makes you feel like you are uhh? having an accident on yourself? Bleah.

Is it the CAT scan or the MRI that is so claustrophobic? I can never remember.

Best of luck, and carry on bejewelling your brace! Hope you recover completely and quickly and are back on the ice before you even realise you were off it!

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It is the dreaded MRI!!!! I have major issues regarding it. (See my thread in non-skating disc. 'Anxiety in the MRI')

Hi Frankie,

It was so nice to see you at AN; it's always nice to see you. Please say hi to your mom for me.

Oddly, enough, I've never had any problems with MRIs, or Cat Scans. I don't know if I received state-of-the-art Cat Scan in Saranac Hospital, but it was really eventless. No dye injections at all and they put me in this very small donut that sort of circled around my hips and that was about it. It took no longer than 5 minutes.

I know that I'm alone in this, but I actually enjoy MRIs--I know, strange. I was very envolved with conceptual art at one time in my life, and there was this Canandian artist who I was really interested in, Janet Cardiff. She did some amazing things with sound. I always loved all of the clanking, different sounds, and noises in the MRI and thought that it could be really interesting "patterned sounds" incorporated into artwork in some way.

Okay, I'm off to the doctors this morning. Everyone have a great day!

Hey- we have something else in common! I LOVE MRI's I find the sounds to be incredibly relaxing. The only annoying part is when the doctor says something like "this one will take 6 minutes, don't swallow" like that's possible.

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What kind of MRI was this? When I had an MRI about 4 1/2 years ago (really bad fall directly on my knee while doing back crossovers), it made these jackhammer-type sounds. Definitely not relaxing. In fact the sounds were so loud that they would give people earplugs, and even with the earplugs it was still loud.

Have MRIs changed?

Glad to hear you're starting to feel better, lovepairs.

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No- jackhammer explains it nicely- the thing banged and whirred like crazy, but in a very rhythmic way.

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Absolutely. I've fallen asleep while having MRIs done. I can't explain it. As Skittl said, maybe it's the rhythm.

I enjoy MRIs too. It's the only time I have the opportunity to just lie still and do NOTHING. With the sound-muffling earphones on, I don't mind the noise at all. Very relaxing.

I know! I love the combination of classical music (when they give you head phones) and then that very rhythmic clanking and jackhammering! It's so nice to have to do "nothing" for a change, too!

Yes, "now, don't swallow for six minutes and don't blink either! " LOL!!!