Critiquing the New Yorker Figure Skating Cartoons #1 & #2

You perhaps know that the New Yorker magazine has almost a hundred years of cartoons and beautifully illustrated covers. Some of these are about figure skating. I am now going to critique the skating in some of these cartoons.

Garth, 1944

 

The background skaters are nicely drawn, and you can instantly see what the skater is doing, and their skating level. This is obviously a public skate session.

The problem is with the 'humorous character'  in the front.  He's not funny at all--except his entry to the figure 8 is completely wrong.  Falling is so common in figure skating that it's not fodder for humor. I think this must have been an illustration for a short story or a drawing to fill a blank space.

I do want to mention that every cartoonist in the New Yorker collection draws the figure 8 entry from the end--as if it was being drawn with a pen. What's with that?

Chon Day, 1944

 Here's another example of an 'end on figure 8 entry'

And shouldn't his free leg be tucked in?

  Here's my caption:

To pass Gold moves, USFSA requires you to to skate 

how much you paid in lessons

rounded up to the nearest 8

NOW THAT'S HUMOR!

The Broken Blade at my Rink

Below I'm showing the effect of a broken blade. Johnathon Hunt in the 1999 South Atlantic Regionals, had a blade break in a triple Lutz.

 He was in good position during the jump, too bad.

And he cleaned up the parts and screws on the ice.

That's a gentleman.

Now at my rink last week a male skater had a blade break, not in quite the same way.

He had Pattern 99, because he's a big guy, and much like Santa Claus, he needed that fist sized toepick that a Pattern 99 gives.

He's walking to the ice, and he hears a click-click with every right foot step.

He ignores it.

He gets on the ice to take a lesson.

He's not jumping, so the lesson goes okay.

He gets off the ice and takes off his boots.

The right blade had a crack straight across the front footplate, so everytime he took a step, it made a click-click.

Red line indicates failure

He skates in 11 1/2 blades (which is rare in any blade, but it seems ALL the male skaters I know, skate in an 11 1/2 blade).

So, he starts a search for a new pair of Pattern 99 blades in 11 1/2" . He finds ONE PAIR, in the UK that will take over a month to get.

Then the skater contacts his coach, who contacts her skate tech, that has a lot of male customers, including several Olympians.  The tech has a pair of Jackson's Ultima Apex in 11 1/2" on the shelf and they're equivalent to the Pattern 99. The tech gets the word the skater will take them. They're mailed out two days later.

Let's face it. In figure skating, who you know counts, even when you're a hobbyist  or recreational skater.

(Oh, and why did the Pattern 99 break? There's a suspicion that it was a manufacturing fault, as skates normally rust out at the stanchions (as in the video above))

Notes on Christmas Ice

It's Christmas and the Ice Tourists are here en masse. This week and next week are the two most miserable public skates of the year. At my rink, Christmas Ice are the only two publics where they do mid session ice cuts.  So, the ice is crap after the first 10 minutes, and crowds double after the ice cut.

The Rink

Notice women are wearing both back and white boots.
That's a loooong time ago

The one person who goes against the flow

and can't figure out what's going on

The kid who can't skate

is like the cat in the soccer pitch:

everything stops until you get them 

out of the circle

And adults who can't skate then get in

the circle,  ignore my evil eye.

I mean if you're in your 30's and get in the circle because it's not
as scary as skating in the crowds, you should be ashamed of yourself

My coach to entitled mom with kid in the circle: "Please take your child out of the circle."

Entitled Mom: "But it's safe from the crowds."

My Coach: "IT'S NOT SAFE IN HERE!'

Mom: You can't tell me what to do.

My Coach: I'm a coach (points to big words on jacket) YES I CAN.

But hey, I got to work on 1 foot inside and outside rockers and counters. New stuff

Coach: "Do inside counter, back cross, then spin."

Me: "Ok"    [spin sucks]  "You learn something new, something old goes bad."