There’s a standard post-game joke that circulates in most recreational hockey or oldtimers’ dressing rooms. Especially if the butt of the joke has made a ridiculously bad pass, missed an obvious goal or (in the case of a goalie) blown an easy save during the game. It doesn’t take long – within minutes of the end of the scrimmage – and it usually follows a short period of silence as players catch their breaths on the dressing room benches. Then, it comes with the predictability of a sunrise.
“So what happened?” the jokester begins. “Did you trip on your toe picks?”
In case you didn’t get the reference, toe picks are the jagged edges common to the leading edge of most figure skaters’ skates. The point is that the hockey player involved in the gaffe, looked so hopelessly inept during the play, that the worst comparison the jokester could imagine would be the hockey player being only good enough to try figure skating or ice dancing.
In truth, those picks are more than practical for figures skaters; they’re essential. My sense of them is that toe picks give height and strength to their take-offs. They ground their dizzying spins. And they deliver precision and accent to their classical or modern dance moves. They’re as vital as a puck is to hockey.
If there was any doubt about either the value of toe picks or the quality of skating inherent in figure skating, watch any of this country’s legends in the sport: figure skaters such as Barbara Ann Scott or Toller Cranston and ice-dance pairs such Barbara Underhill and Paul Martini or Shae-Lynne Bourne and Victor Kraatz. No self-respecting hockey player would ever suggest – even for a second – that these extraordinary skaters were less agile, less talented, or less athletic than an Henri Richard, Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky or Sidney Crosby. And if it wasn’t obvious before, the point was delivered definitively this week as CBC TV’s “Battle of the Blades” competition concluded.
I hadn’t planned to watch Monday night’s broadcast, but tripped into it with my TV remote and found myself mesmerized by the skaters and the “reality” TV dimension that I generally find a bore. I found myself wanting to see the three final pairs profiled, wanting to experience the build-up and final decision. What’s more, I guess I wanted to watch the apparent merger of ballet on skates – figure skating – with Canada’s national winter sport – ice hockey.
And like the 2 million or so who tuned in, I was not disappointed. The hour-long broadcast was better than any Ice Capades show I’d ever attended as a kid. It was more informative than most national or Olympic competitions I’ve witnessed. And it answered a question we have all asked at one time or another: Can/would a hockey player ever succeed as a figure skater?
Craig Simpson, who won the first “Battle of the Blades” championship with partner Jamie Salé Monday night, proved he could make the transition from rockered skates to toe picks. And then some. The former Edmonton Oiler learned dance moves, executed partner throws and he was the first of the show’s male competitors to complete a free-skate jump.
And he did it all in a spandex costume, not a hockey jersey, shoulder pads, hockey pants and a helmet. Where twice he has left NHL hockey arenas with the Stanley Cup hoisted over his head, the other night he and Salé left Maple Leaf Gardens, a temple of hockey excellence, with the first ever figure-skating “Battle of the Blades” trophy in their hands.
It could be argued that in smaller communities across Canada, aspiring to greatness in the sport/art of the figure skating is not as high a priority as becoming the next hockey phenomenon. Even in sophisticated neighbourhoods such as ours, figure skating is often ranked as an also-ran at the arena. There are those who consider playing hockey after a figure-skating practice a disadvantage because of all the gouges in the ice surface; the same might be said of the reverse, I might add.
When it comes to athleticism on skates, hockey has always been the meat and potatoes in small-town Canada. But thanks to Salé and Simpson, that may suddenly have changed.
What’s more I think the brave statement they’ve made in the past weeks of “Battle of the Blades” video-taping, may have dispensed “toe pick” jokes in Canadian hockey dressing rooms … forever.
