Is there a World Pros competition this year?

[Bryan]

I don't recall hearing anything about it this year. Isn't it always around December?

[Teenes]

Nope. The Hallmark Skaters Championship, which took the place of the World Pros a few years back, was cancelled this year. Only two pro competitions this year are Ice Wars and World Team Challenge, which are both team competitions.

[Artemis]

Definitely a bad year for pro comps -- in addition to Hallmark being axed, there's no Sears Open this year either. :(

I intend to make the most of the World Team comp this Wednesday, which will also be the 1st pro competition I've attended live.

[Teenes]

Well, World Team kind of replaced the Sears Open. Sort of a one-to-one switch. But yeah, still not a great year for pro competitions, that's for sure.

On the plus side, apparently Oxygen Network has signed a 3-year deal with IMG/TWI so I'm gonna guess IMG's gotta continue producing skating events to fill that deal, and IMG tends to do pro stuff, so...

http://www.tvweek.com/news/web120103.html

Now if only Oxygen was more widely available...

[jcspkbfan]

Well, considering most of the skaters at last year's Canadian Open had also competed at Skate Canada just a month or so earlier (I think S&P, Yuka and Jason, Alexei and Todd were the only exceptions), I'm not too disappointed to see it gone this year...especially since the World Team Challenge is probably the 1994-1998 pro competition I missed most of all!

I am disappointed there won't be a Hallmark/World Pros-type event this year, though. It would have been nice to see at least one old-school, non-team pro competition this season...especially after seeing the quality of most of the skating at Ice Wars last weekend! :D Hopefully next year, though!