World Figure Skating Championship in Boston
As many of you know, Cierra and I often go to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. A couple of years ago it was announced that the World Figure Skating Championships would be held in Boston in 2025. We immediately agreed we were going. We usually go to the championship weekend of the US event but splurged and bought tickets for the whole event which meant I spent most of my time Wednesday through Sunday at the TD Garden Arena in Boston. Since it was a full week this time, Jeff came along too and shared the 2nd ticket with Cierra while she worked some days.
Getting to the World Championships is not easy for a figure skater; getting to Boston and home again was not easy for Jeff and me! You know how you avoid travelling through Denver or Chicago in the winter well you should avoid parts of the South in the spring except when that is where you are starting and ending! Our first flight had mechanical issues, and they needed to bring a part in; meanwhile a thunderstorm came through and ruined the day's schedule. Being the veteran traveler that he is, Jeff was able to get us booked up to Boston a different route, so we were only 4 hours or so late (our original flight did not get to Boston that day). When we left Boston both flights were again delayed because of a thunderstorm in Atlanta. We did get home the same day at least!
The schedule for the event changed after I had booked our room for the event and gotten a discount for staying a week, so we decided to keep our schedule and just explore Boston on the Tuesday before the event did start. Happily, our good friends Marty and Elisa were able to come up from New York and join us. On Tuesday, the 4 of us did a walking food tour that was all chocolate and art based in the Back Bay area. We had a miniature chocolate cake, cookies, cupcakes and hot chocolate. We visited 2 art galleries both of which were quite nice, but I had to laugh as soon as he said the name of the 2nd one because back in 2021 Jeff and I had visited Boston and had really liked the art at one gallery. In fact, we liked it so much I ended up on an email mailing list for a while - that was the second gallery Galerie d'Orsay / A Boston Art Gallery on Newbury Street. I still really like the art especially some of the landscapes they had. The first gallery had several different artists they showed - one was a late monk, and one was a lady Ali Clift who took parts of purses and jackets to make unusual and pretty artwork Pucker GalleryPuckerGallery to see pictures. The chocolate cookie and the hot chocolate places were originally from New York City but now had outposts in Boston. The cookie company was Levain which my foodie daughter knew of so on Sunday we each bought a cookie and snuck it into the arena for a very nice mid show treat!
We had chosen a chocolate tour because I did not want to stuff myself on a food tour and then try and eat a nice Italian restaurant meal because I had booked us a nice spot for dinner on Tuesday evening. In fact our meal that night was quite nice. We ate at Mama Maria which is a well-established restaurant in the Italian area of Boston.
The next morning, we all went across the street to the Time Out Market which is an international chain of food halls and had doughnuts. Then we sent Marty and Elisa off, and we started the skating portion of the trip. Each day of the Skating Championships followed a similar plan. There would be a competition that started around 11am that would finish in the mid to late afternoon with the evening program beginning around 6pm and lasting till close to 10. There were 4 types of skating that these championships were for: pairs, dance (couple), ladies and men and each group did 2 different programs. The first program might have 40 or so participants but only the top 20 or so got to move on to the 2nd round which meant you got some drama when someone had a really bad or good program. Would the underdog make the cut would the really good skater who had an untimely fall not make it? Obviously on the first day we saw 2 first round events, but then the next couple of days were a qualifying round in the morning and the championship round for another group that evening. Our first day first event was women's short program, and, in the evening, we saw the short program for the pairs. The very first program gave us some unwanted drama. The American top lady has a jump that only a handful of women can do, and it had gotten her to an unbeaten season. Well, she fell on it, bummer no perfect season no gold medal and probably no medal for her. She did happily easily still make the cut. Also, surprisingly a US women who just returned to competitive skating this year was in the lead. When we got back to our condo/apartment that night Cierra had arrived so she would be my partner for the next couple of days.
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| Carol modeling Cierra's new sweatshirt - notice the Boston Terrier as the logo he is named Quincy |
I had rented a condo through Sonder so we had 2 bedrooms, kitchen, living room and a washer and dryer. I settled for the neighborhood around Fenway and in fact our Uber driver made sure we saw Fenway before he dropped us off and the same for Cierra. Boston has a multi modal system of public transportation. I had expected a modern subway line to take us from the Fenway area to the TD Garden arena. Um no. It was old like maybe late 1800s or early 1900s old and more of a trolley than a subway. We did go underground some, but the cars were very much more trolley and electric than subway and not the speediest either.
So the next morning after breakfast, Cierra and I headed off to the Fenway station to go to the skating competition to watch the men's short program in the morning followed by the pairs free program which was the championship round in the evening. The men's program went pretty much as expected the only surprise was that the US man who had come in 2nd at nationals fell apart under the pressure. Now many of you may think like Jeff did oh well at least it is not an Olympics year. Wrong there are rules based on how your country does this year at Worlds as to how many spots you can have at the Olympics. So, him falling apart was not good. Amazingly to me, we had brought Jason Browne as our 3rd man. He is a good skater, and I like him a lot, but he has hardly competed this year. Cierra informed me he had issues with his skating boots and had finally gotten good boots. It showed he skated his routine perfectly - we were safe. Oh and of course Ilia was fantastic.
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| Jason Browne after his short program |
After a quick break to the outside world and a Mexican restaurant for dinner, we were back and watching the pairs skate. I had hoped one of the American pairs would be up there, but they did not do as well as expected at US Nationals, so I suspected there was an issue they were dealing with. I would find out later he was skating on a broken foot as someone who finished a half marathon on a broken foot my hat is off to him because I never saw a sign of it except, they were just off on some moves. Oh Jeff kept himself busy wandering around the upscale back bay area of Boston and did a little shopping.
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| Recent competition dresses on exhibit |
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| Cierra with Natan Chen in the back left - how to get a photo without waiting in line! |
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| Alysa Liu at the exhibition |
Next day rinse and repeat with a nice change in that it did not start till 1 in the afternoon so all 3 of us went to a nearby breakfast spot for a nice meal together. That afternoon the dance teams had their competition round. While there are many very good teams these days, the top Canadian and the top American couples were the ones duking it out over the gold. While I really liked the Canadians' short program, I was happy that the American couple won the gold.
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| Canadian couple after a very good dance program - ended with Silver |
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| American dance team of Chock and Bates winning the gold |
Short break between events so we walked towards a steeple for Cierra. Turned out to be around Faneuil Hall so we explored that area and then headed back to the arena for the final competition - mens. Most of the men did well, but there were some falls. Both Jason Browne and Ilia Malinin of the US skated well so that yes Ilia won the gold as expected and Jason finished in the top 10 so we get to send 3 men to the Olympics next year.
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| Ilia at the end of his exhibition skate |
One thing that was very different from the US Nationals we have attended is that this rink was full of people as in sold out for a couple of the events. We had the same seats for all the competitions - just above where the Zamboni machine came out and the little kids who collected the stuffed animals that were thrown were stationed. They were pretty good seats. Knowing where they were we got to them quickly. I can't say easily because the place was packed and the crowd control was lacking, but it was cool to see an arena filled to the rafters with skating fans.
Another thing to discuss is attending a skating event with Cierra. On the first day, I was the expert - poor Jeff. I only knew the really famous and he often had little idea who I was trying to point out to him. On the other hand, with Cierra, she knows most of the skaters by site, had coworkers here working, friends from her rink, etc. So, walking through the concourse with Cierra meant she may stop at any moment and talk with someone; mom had to stay aware or be lost. I mean the young ladies who had seats next to us - meant nothing to Jeff or me. Before she even sat down, she asked them if they used to skate in Kirkwood - yep - she recognized them from skating camp. Then she looks down at where the Zamboni comes out below us and goes oh that's Bill. Uh? He's the manager of Cabin John Rink and a USFS certified Figure Skating Ice technician, um ok. We would run into him outside the arena that night. On Saturday her dance skating coach and his wife were coming to town, and Cierra grabbed a couple of the gluten free cookies I had made and brought for her. Yeah, they were sitting maybe 10 feet away, so I met Dimitri and his wife. I also got to meet her friend Sonya who was there on Saturday with her mom. Her mom too was working to keep up! At the moment we ran into each other Sonya was practicing a favorite past time of Cierra's too - getting photos and autographs. She told Cierra where a Swiss skater (Kimmy Repond) was and off they went - um which sandwich do you want daughter?? I did take a photo of another well-known skater, - Gabriella Papadakis, if you watched on TV, you may have seen her during the dance portion since we noticed her in the NBC booth during that competition.
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| Cierra with Kimmy Repond |
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| Cierra with Gabriella Papdakis |
As is our tradition at competitions on Sunday we went to church, had a nice brunch and then all 3 of us headed to the arena for the exhibition. Cierra likes to visit old churches so we often find unique ones to attend. This time, it was a well off old church in the city in the Back Bay area. The church was nice, the pews were full but we were in for a little bit of a surprise - a danger of going to new churches. The mass lasted longer than an hour and we had reservations. A little past 1 hour as communion was starting, we all slipped out (we had company) and headed to our brunch restaurant.
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| annual nice photo - exhibition on left and brunch on right |
Then off to the arena one last time for The Exhibition and all 3 of us were going. The show lasted 2 1/2 hours. We saw all the medal winners skate and some good local skaters including the Haydenettes who are one of the top synchronized skating teams in the world (yes world competitions for that too) and based in Boston. While I was a little sad it had ended, I also was looking forward to no arena food for a while - I can't even look at a french fry right now! Cierra the working girl had an early morning flight - she landed in DC when I was getting out of bed. Jeff and I had a long day of delays and some flying!
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| Mens bronze medalist Yuma Kagiyama from Japan and Silver Mikhail Shaidorov from Kazakhstan |
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| In exhibitions, you get to see the fun side of the skaters; this an Italian dance pair that did swan lake with the man skating the female part - it was fun |
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| Amber Glenn the American Lady who had the untimely fall and the Haydenettes |
