Best Sport on Ice

Two weekends ago, Justin and I had the opportunity to witness the best sport on ice.... the U.S. Figure Skating Championships! Although on the same exact day the All-Star NHL game was being played in Raleigh. Justin is a 'Canes fan this just shows how such a wonderful husband he is. Instead of watching hard-core hockey, he sat through 4 1/2 hours of figure skating with me :) True love. The tickets to this event were actually a Christmas present to me! You see, I secretly wanted to be a figure skater when I was younger. Yes, I know, so girly, but I love the sport! I loved watching figure skating during the Olympic games: Nancy Kerrigan, Kristi Yamaguchi, Michelle Kwan, Sasha Cohen. This was my first time ever seeing a live competition!

I had been looking forward to this day for weeks! I was so excited because the Olympic Gold Medalist, Evan Lysacek was scheduled to compete. We got the the coliseum early and as I was flipping through the program I realized that Evan was in fact not competing :( In fact, he was performing in an evening event that we did not have tickets to! Oh well! We still had a fun time watching the other 22 competitors.

Putting the Gorillapod to good use!

The top competitors warming up.

My favorite part of the day was watching the sport that I had long admired. It was fun to watch all the jumps [and falls!] and see the stuffed animals and flowers being thrown onto the ice after each performance. My favorite performance was by the guy who came in second place, his performance was to the music from Sherlock Holmes. I also loved when the 1st place guy did a back flip as he was exiting the ice. Justin's favorite part was watching the 'sweepers.' The sweepers are the little girls who collect the flowers and stuffed animals. He called them little robots because they were all matching and were trained to skate with their arms out to their sides.

The Sweepers.

I am very thankful that I got to experience this event! I am even more thankful that my loving husband endured 4 1/2 hours of pure excitement, just so that I could have this experience.

Look who made an appearance!

Yep that is Evan handing 1st place his trophy.