May 13, 2007

Hey Everyone!

Well this is my first journal entry and I'm not really sure where to start but here it goes... I'd like to start by thanking everyone for checking out our new site and also for watching our performances. We have been getting a lot of good feedback about the Web site and we hope it will continue.

We have finally concluded our longest season to date and it feels great.

The season started with some local competitions to get our feet wet since we started with our new coach, Johnny Johns, this year. We kept working hard all season and we were receiving some great results.

Then after some rehabilitating from Brooke's twisted ankle in the middle of our season, Nationals coming up quick. This was our first competition with Johnny that was really going to put us to the test after our eighth place finish the year before. Both of us were actually quite confident in our programs and excited to show off what we had been working on all year.

Once we arrived in Spokane, I was very pleased with the layout, organization, and large crowd at the competition. For me the larger and more enthusiastic the crowd, the more fun I have performing. From our first practice ice on everything just seemed to click and come together. All of our training was paying off and most things felt relatively effortless.

When we went out for the short program we got a good cheer from the audience and I was ready to skate to the music of my favorite band, Pink Floyd. We started with a good triple twist followed by a strong throw triple Salchow.

I was feeling good about the program but then I started to get a little distracted going into the side-by-side double axels. I remember letting the tiniest bit of doubt creep into my head right before I was about to take off and it was just enough to cause me to two foot the landing. The rest of the program felt great and we were very happy to be sitting in third place.

Following the short, I made sure it wasn’t going to let that same bit of doubt sneak in for the long. Still practicing very well after the short program I made sure that my focus was going to be much stronger for the long.

With the exception of my sleeve button coming undone during the long program and flopping around a bit, I felt like I had skated the program to the best of my ability the way we had trained it. Skating second in the last group and being behind by a considerable amount of points I had no expectations for first place.

I did, however, expect the skate that we had.

After we received our points in the kiss and cry we were quickly brought backstage to answer questions for the reporters. Just after we finished our questions the scores for Rena and John came up, placing us just a quarter of a point ahead. Of course the reporters immediately began with the questions again after they saw that we were leading.

We went to the couches backstage to watch Naomi and Themi skate their program. When their scores came up and we found out that we had won, I didn't really know how to feel.

My phone wouldn't stop ringing so I had to turn it off so we could deal with interviews and press conferences and a bunch of things that I’m not use to having to deal with. The rest of the night was pretty much a blur.

The last thing that sticks out in my mind was when I walked into my hotel room and stood and the end of my bed and thought to myself... did that really just happen? Oh yeah, and then I listened to the voicemail left to me by my best friend, which was about six seconds of screaming and then hung up. Haha.

All and all nationals was an experience I wouldn’t change in the slightest.

I knew after coming home that the rest of our season was going to be tough because we hadn’t planned on doing any competitions after nationals except maybe Four Continents. We had to be back on the ice the day after we flew home from nationals so we had virtually no down time. This is hard if you're not very experienced because you always get a bit of a down after a competition due to the stress and such. Our goal was to try to keep ourselves motivated for one more week and then we’d have a day or two where we could relax.

Four Continents was a particularly enjoyable competition because five of the teams from our rink were competing. This helped us stay focused and train as usual. Plus, when we got to the competition I felt like I always had someone to hang out with because we had so many friends there.

Our hotel was one of the best that I've ever had at a competition. They had an incredible selection of food and deserts and I thoroughly enjoyed every meal. I particularly liked the fruit tarts they had at lunch and dinner. I definitely ate far too many of those, haha.

As far as practice ice goes, we didn’t exactly skate the way we were capable of. I think the two big competitions pretty much back to back was starting to get to us. The short program went very well besides the side by side jump which Brooke had a little bit of trouble with. We found ourselves in seventh after the short and knew we would have to put together a strong long program. At those kind of competitions you just can’t make those kinds of mistakes and not expect to pay for it.

Our long program went very well, no major mistakes, and we moved up to fifth, which we were very happy with. Four Continents was hard to prepare and compete at but we made it through with two programs that we were proud of.

I would like to continue to write more but im afraid I am running out of time. I will make another entry within the next week or so to update you on how worlds went along with how our off-season is going and thoughts on next year.

Thank you all for reading.

Talk to you soon,

Ben