This has been a very strange week and a half for Carol Lane – one half of the coaching team primarily responsible for Canada’s Ice Dance champions Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier.
First there was the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Carol was unsettled on the Thursday evening just before the Friday disaster and told her husband Jon that the rain storm was “wrong”. She and Jon had been in Stuttgart after the Chernobyl disaster and they were informed to stay indoors during another very strange rain storm. Carol was sufficiently spooked by the storm a week ago Thursday that she made Jon check the house with her room by room. He tried to reassure her that it was simply a storm and she insisted that “there was something wrong.” Not able to sleep, she stayed up past 2am reading. Once asleep, she was wakened by the phone at 3:30am and her sister in England hysterical on the other end worried that Carol and the skaters were already in Japan. Jon said “Bloody hell – you knew something was wrong didn’t you?” Spooky.
Carol wishes that she had had the same sense of premonition 2 days later when she stepped on a piece of Canskate (learn to skate program) equipment on the ice,causing her to fall over. She had already broken her hip by going on the ice with her guards on – so when it looked like she was going to go down on that hip, she put her hand out to break her fall. Not only did she break her fall – she broke her wrist in a couple of different ways – sort of horizontal in one place and vertical in another with a little bit of floating bone. She says she has a massive cast. Leave it to Carol to get all fancy with a bone break – and – it has to be said…can you imagine if she wasn’t coordinated????
So here we are and aside from having to figure out how to keep her skaters on the ice in a situation that has never happened before, she has to do it with her dominant hand in a cast.
New day – new problem. They say (whoever they are) that everything comes in threes. Vanessa Crone needs new skates. A decision was made at the end of the Four Continents, that although it wasn’t ideal, Vanessa’s skates could last until Worlds but truly not one minute longer. She had tried them after Taiwan and wasn’t comfortable and begged to be able to stay in her old boots. The time has come to make the change and once again if Carol had been able to see what was coming, she would have insisted on the new boots a month ago.
Although this piece is all in fun – the truth of the matter is Carol shared with me that she is heartbroken with what has happened in Japan.
“I can say without a shred of a doubt I don’t want to even contemplate a Worlds in October. In a month or so, I can deal with that. The kids just want to know. If we are going to do it in a month they will gird their loins and get to it. I dont think anyone would have ever had to deal with this scenario before. It really is a voyage of discovery.”
If you want to help Japan – check out: Japan Relief – CBC or Red Cross.
My friends (and yes I really do know theese people – and they’re amazing) at Artistry have set up a link through their parent company Amway, where they are matching donations. Check it out.