First of all, I have to say that I don’t think of myself so much as a journalist but rather as a story-teller. From time to time those two job descriptions overlap. Yesterday was one of those days.
I am lucky enough to be working with some great people at CBC. In many ways this is a dream job. The icing on the cake is being able to go back and forth with Scott Russell who is the best at what he does.
This week I was asked to present a story that has been brewing for a while where some fans from the FSU website have decided to toss panties on the ice after Patrick Chan skates his free at the Grand Prix Final in Quebec City. From the posts that I have read, it is intended as a harmless bit of fun. It all started at Skate Canada where panties were tossed on the ice for Patrick after he skated. If you didn’t know that was what he was looking at, you wouldn’t have necessarily known that it was panties. Here’s how I presented it to Scott:
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/figureskating/video/#id=2171065578
There has been lots of reaction to the ‘Chan-ties’ piece. I decided to dig a little deeper.
I asked 4 time World Champion Kurt Browning for his thoughts:
“I remember one interview where I said I really didn’t want to receive stuffed animals or flowers anymore. I mean the flowers die and the stuffed animals that I wasn’t able to keep can’t be donated to hospitals anymore because of the possibility of germs. So when they asked what I wanted, I said ‘socks and underwear’. For a whole season, fans tossed socks and underwear on the ice after I skated which was great. I didn’t have to buy any.”
It seems the whole underwear tossing idea isn’t new.
I still stand by the idea of putting everything in Ziploc bags to de-ookify it for the retrievers.
I’m not worried about Patrick Chan – he has a great sense of humour and frankly has bigger things to think about than what will land on the ice after he is finished competing.