August 13th and 14th, 2005

Stars on Ice
in Baselga di Piné

A technical note: I know the videos are ridiculously huge, but this is the lowest resolution of my camera... I can't get them any smaller (unless someone has some tips on this, which I'd happily appreciate)

Part 1: The trip

This summer for my friends and me consisted of very little holidays, but was punctuated with some extremely pleasant trips around northern Italy for some skating-connected reason. Just a little more than a week after having been in Cerreto Laghi to see al the dancers' practices, my friend Sissi and I were up for a new adventure: a trip to Baselga di Pinè for one date of the Stars on Ice tour we have every year in Italy (I will be forever thankful to Alessandro for this!). We started to think that the word we could be cheap taxi drivers had spread, as this time too, we had arranged to go and pick someone up and drive them to our common destination. This time Alessandro had asked us if we could go and meet Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukov who were joining the tour on the night we had planned to see the show... oh well, how could we refuse, after he had been so nice with us? I had arranged to do an interview with my all time favourite skater, Philippe Candeloro, and once I got the ok from Philippe, I involved Alessandro in trying to find a suitable date/moment. Not only he made sure I would find a moment for the interview, but he also booked the hotel for us (so we payed the lower rate reserved to the tour's bookings) and then gave us two passes, so that we could move freely at the arena. After the missed plane with Natalia Albena and Maxim we were a bit scared of something similar happening again which would make us miss the show... so we were absolutely relieved when Ale told us that the Americans were actually arriving on Friday, and we had to go and pick them up at an hotel near the airport. If with the Bulgarians we had tried to pack small bags, this time we tried not to pack anything at all! Fresh undies, a t-shirt and the minimum of toiletries absolutely necessary was what I added to my regular bag with cameras, tape recorder, notes, etc... I stored the "warm clothes for the rink" in a plastic bag under the passenger seat and drove all the way to trento with my backpack jammed betwen my legs and my seat, with my left leg having to fight with it for space when changing gear; Silvia's situation was even worse, because she had the already quite large bag with her camera, then she had severa little bags that she ended up carrying on her lap for most of the time... We arrived at the hotel without problems, and we were happy to find that Melissa and Denis had not to much baggage... it actually fit in my boot. My personal nightmare started as we were driving out of the hotel's gate, and probably because of the excessive weight, the bottom of my car touched the railway for the automatic gate, and made quite a bad noise.. and from then one, very bad and menacing sounds kept being heard. (some were just due to some mechanical parts never being so stretched and thus protesting vigorously, and have since then disappeared; others wouldn't go away....) I can sum up the travel as an utter nightmare. Fortunately Melissa and Denis were evidently still tired and fell asleep very soon, missing most of the torture.. we went fine till Brescia, but from Desenzano to Verona to the Brennero motorway it was just one solid, almost static queue... and even when we managed to get past the worst of it, we still found little queues that formed for no apparent reason, forcing me to give several hard brakes... those that Natalia Linichuck would have described as of a "typical Italian driver", LOL. To make this part short, it took us more than five full hours to get to Trento.. thankfully Alessandro's directions were very clear and we found the Hotel in no time. We were a little upset because Silvia had called Alessandro on the phone, discovering that he had taken all the skaters on a daytrip to the lake.. gr... and my interview with Philippe?? what would we do till 5.30, all alone in the hotel??

Part 2: the afternoon

We were lucky: we were at the reception getting registered, when I heard my name called from across the parking... it was Federica coming back from a shopping spree in Trento! She had preferred not to go to the lake, so she had taken a short trip downtown and was now coming back to the hotel to work on her costume for the night.

^_^ lucky us, we put down our things in our room and then joined her in her room to keep her company. Actually we ended up chatting quite a lot, and Fede was adorable.. we talked of funny stuff, of gossip, of technical stuff, of personal issues, of everything we could think of!! Actually we were not just chatting.. we also kept ourselves busy by helping Fede glue lots of swarovsky crystals that Ludmila had brought her from Russia to decorate her costume; it started as a cheap black dress bought at a market stall, and it became a lovely and sparkling little number! Sissi and I did the tights by ourselves.. so if anyone saw Fede's legs give tiny sparkles in the dark during the recent exhibitions, that's our work! We quite literally gave her a hand... in the sense that we kept getting our skin glued to the dress or tights between our hand and the swarovskys while we were keeping the fabric tense for Fede to place the crystal, and detaching it from ourselves was no fun... ouch! On a side note, I was happy to see our beloved Toponiglio Franklin sitting proudly on her bedside table - so she had indeed kept him with her all the time, even on tour!! When the rest of the group arrived back to the hotel we left her to take a shower and get ready for the show, and went back to our room to rest a little. I had slept virtually nothing and the 5+ hour drive had been exhausting. I also sent a text message on Philippe's phone to ask him if he wished to meet for the interview before leaving for the rink or later, but as soon as I hit "send" Alessandro called on Silvia's phone to say that he had arranged with Philippe to meet at the rink after practices. Ooops. In fact Philippe wrote back saying we'd meet at the rink because he was resting now, and I just apologized to himm, and settled down to rest a little myself. A bit refreshed, by 5.30 Sissi and I went outside to meet Alessandro and the skaters, and to head for Baselga for the show. Actually not everyone was ready on time, so we spent quite some time chatting with Massi, Andrea, Alessia, Fede and Andrea's girlfriend Valeria, while the rest of the cast slowly arrived. We still had to give a lift to someone till Baselga, as there was not enough space in the mini vans the tour used to move from town to town.. Silvia wanted me to have Philippe in our car, and I really couldn't make her understand that I was deeply embarassed by the weird noises my car was making after the little incident at the hotel, and I really didn't wanted Philippe to remember me as the one with the "is-it-going-to self-destroy?-car"... I had to come up to Philippe and tell him he'd be more comfortable in the vans, as he was ready to come with me. (*o*) I was much more comfortable having in my weird beheaving car some friends like Andrea, Valeria, Massi or Alessandra (actually a new aquaintance, she was Alessandro's new aide) .. someone I had no problem discussing car problems with! (well, after you've been directed to a bathroom while being told "in this one there's no light so far, but there's a candle there, and to wash your hand you have to use the other one's sink as this one broke and if you open the water it will go straight on your feet because there's a piece of tubing missing, but when you're in the other bathroom to wash your hands don't close the door fully because it might lock itself shut..." there's very little you should be embarassed of... ^_^ LOL I guess that by now these problems have been fixed, and for the rest of the house.. is totally adorable! ). Before jumping on the car Alessandro gave us two guest passes for the show, so we had no problems hanging around and sitting on the hockey benches during the show, making photos and videos. With Sissi, Andrea, Valeria and Alessandra in the other seats, I followed the vans till the rink.

Part 3: at the rink - and the interview

There was still time before the practices started, so we all went to the cafè (lovely.. on the first floor, with one side completely made of huge windows overlooking the rink... so you could follow the skating from there too! There were a couple of other visiting guests.. first I bumped into Carlo, the ironic, sarcastic and funny man from the Agorà rink/Toroc Sports section... I totally adore him because his witty remarks, funny stories and relaxed attitude (yet very useful and practical) were life-saving for my morale during Euros. Even there he started firing jokes and comments straight away, and we were soon laughing. I was a bit more upset at finding myself face to face with my ex-boss at Toroc, Christine... I had not expected that. I hadn't seen or talked to her since I left Torino, and was not prepared.. I was a bit embarassed, but hey, it's not like she killed my cat... we greeted each other warmly making a bit of small talk, but then left it at that (though I noticed she smiled at me knowingly when I passed next to her & Alessandro while following Philippe... but more about this later). Anyway, Sissi and I ordered some warm drinks and a snack and sat down inviting Valeria with us, and chatted happily for a while warming up before going downstairs for the practices. Maybe the skaters didn't do much, maybe I was tired or little inspired... anyway I don't remember too much of those practices. I know I watched in particular Rohene Ward to see if he really could jump both CW and CCW (wow... true!), of course I watched Philippe (but tried hard not to stare at him all the time) and some of the dance... When I noticed that Philippe had stopped practicing I was unsure of what to do.. I was already a bit embarassed for disturbing him when they had come back after the trip to the lake, so I didn't want to be too pushy... so I sat there, watching the beginning of ice dance practices. He stayed on the other hockey bench for a while chatting to Surya, but at some point, just as I was completely engrossed in watching Fede and Massi skate, I sensed a presence next to me... he had come to "our" hockey bench to ask me to join him for the interview... awwwwwwwwwwwww... I was melting down. (it seems that I am quite lucky with my interviews... Paola and Sinead and John and Babi in cerreto all came up to me saying they were ready for the interview, without me having to stalk them everywhere - well, apart from Mauri - my "victims" are easy...LOL) .Of course I jumped up, grabbed my bag, and followed him towards the dressing rooms, smiling happily to Christine and Alessandro who were chatting on the doorway and smiled back some knowing smiles. Philippe asked Alessandro which room we could use, and so we found ourselves in an empty locker room with a bunch of chairs and table piled next to the walls (Silvia had followed us to take pictures). In a few seconds he grabbed one desk and three chairs and set up an improvised "office" for us to work... ^_^ how cute is this?? Okay, I admit I get totally irrational when talking about Philippe, I just adore him! He's always so kind and nice and funny and... ok, I'l shut up.

Anyway, we did the interview as planned and it was brilliant, he just speaks straight from his heart and mind, it was like talking with an old friend.. He even said things I wouldn't really publish because they seem too confidential...BTW HERE you can read the version of the interview I later had published in a Russian Skating magazine, while HERE is the full interview, just written down without any cutting (it's very long).
At some point I looked at my watch and saw it was 9pm - 15 min to the opening of the show... it was funny because I closed up the interview because it was so late.. while he was perfectly relaxed and willing to talk more! I gave him some photos I had printed like 3 years ago for him, and went to the hockey bench to get ready for the show while he dressed up.

Part 4: the show
- this one is gonna be long -

The show.. it was good! I was already in a very good mood, but I have to say I enjoyed everything.

I really looked forward seeing Philippe perform because Massi had told us he was doing D'Artagnan... in fact I forgot to ask him, but I got a confirmation anyway because when I let him pass in front of me while entering the rink on our arrival, I had to avoid getting hit by this "bag" exactly sword-shaped.... eh eh eh eh eh. I taped this performace with my camera... I was a little bit hoping he would come up to me for the ring-kissing scene, but he stopped a few meters from me, with a lady from the paramedic service... from one point of view I was sad, from the other I was relieved because if he ha come up to me I would have majorly messed up the video... Anyway, it was a dream to see this program live again, after Milano 98... I remember when I saw it at Euros, the first big competition I ever attended.. I had gotten an all-event ticket, but 90% of my interest was him! It had been a stellar performance, and I still remember the electricity in the air that night.. it's hard to explain it, but you can really feel when you're watching something that will be remembered in the future... I don't remember the exact order in which the skaters performed, so I'll keep talking about them in casual order... Philippe's second number was the Ricky Martin medley in which he plays a toreador... this time Sissi forced me to sit away from her, hoping that he would do at least one "attack" to me... but we were not that lucky again (let me say this: I was only relieved this time, because I didn't felt like having the cape swooshed on me, and I would just be totally embarassed by the second attack... those who know the number know what I mean...). I took some photos this time, and made a few little bits of video with my camera.. the final, part of the encore, etc. In the encore he did a SLSS that was not really bad at all (well, not under the NJS... but if you really look, even his spectacular D'Artagnan sword fighting SLSS would be worth nothing... and yet it was so good), which he didn't do as well in Courmayeur...

I'll stop talking about Philippe for a while, because there were lots of other good skaters...

First my friends Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali, whom I really really couldn't wait to see skate. They had told us they were doing a new exhibition based on a theme they found last year, but completely reworked: new music, new choreo, new costumes... it was very nice indeed. I am no huge fan of Carmina Burana, but I am a big fan of them, so I really enjoyed it.... Their other number was their fab new FD - well, part of it: from the slow section and the fast one at the end. Absolutely beautiful. Federica looked stunning in her dress we contributed in some little way to decorate (it's amazing how a cheap dress, a lot of crystals and some time can produce a lovely costume), and Massi with his long hair, tanned skin and white shirt was looking particularly gorgeous. Plus Sissi and I were really curius to see this famous shirt with the black "embroideries"... which actually Fede revealed us being lace flowers from cheap women's panties, which Massi sew on one by one... the story of him buying all those panties at an open air market, under the disconcerted looks of an old lady... LOL!! (other nights they did the OD instead of the FD, and I would have liked to see that as well... there will be plenty of time when we'll all be back in Milan!). Too bad Federica had left Toponiglio at the hotel... we would have thrown him on the ice... instead we had a fluffy fuchsia stuffed flower I had bought for her.. I had planned to arrange it so that it would look like it was Frank giving a flower to her!

I was also really happy to see our other senior dance couple skate - Alessia Aureli and Andrea Vaturi. I have never seen them in an exhibition, and was really curious (plus I really like them and in particular Andrea is one of the nicest, kindest, smartest people I know.. and he's my favourite source of quotes for the Torino 2006 articles I write!). Unfortunately they were doing only one number because they left the fourth dance spot to Melissa and Denis, who were taking over their place from the next day...), because I have heard the music the used for the other number (thanks Andrea, you're the best!) and it really sounded good for them and for an exhibition... maybe I'll find a video somewhere? Anyway, the one exhibition they did skate that night was really nice, on a song from Evanescence titled "My Immortal" (which I happen to like a lot). I made a video of it, but unfortunately because of the idea of the tour to start the numbers from pitch black, I lost the intro to the number because I couldn't put my camera on focus.,... I kind of remember it was a bit intricate and I would have liked to have the full number, but there was little I could do. Alessia is a lucky lady because she gets to wear Barbara FP's old costumes, which are really stunning.. and she's also growing more beautiful year after year, so she's a treat for the male audience...

As said, Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukov skated only one number, which was quite funny and fast, but there was really little in the technical content... not even one lift!! Probably what attracted one the most was Melissa's dress, which consisted of lots of strategic illusion fabric, red feather boas and lots of sparkles.... why a doll should be dressed like this, I don't know, but it was a very nice and cleverly designed dress... I can't say anyway that I was majorly impressed by their skating...

Another person that I saw with pleasure was Surya Bonaly, whom I had liked very much back in the old days when I followed ladies' figure skating.... a loooooooong time ago. I had seen her skate a couple of years ago at the Candeloro tour, so I knew she had changed quite abit in these years, probably because she was living in the US... She had aquired some kind of maturity and smoothness that she didn't possess before, and so she was really pleasantr to see in a first slow, romantic number on "One day I'll fly away" from Moulin Rouge (though she was wearing one of her trademark bodysuits, this time in different shades of blue and lots of glitters and pearls.) Her second number was a bit more of a surprise, because we were really not expecting to hear her music...
"I will surive"... and not any version, but exactly Barbara and Maurizio's!! I have heard soooo many times that music that I confess being quite sick of it. Surya anyway did an ok job with it... though I couldn't imagine what Lydia would do when she heard that music in Courmayeur.

My personal "wow-this-is-a-surprise" award goes to Gary Beacom, whom I was quite skeptical about, but ended up being very nice, and I was an instant fan! He's quite old-fashioned in his skating, which ends up meaning he has a very good basic technique and it shows. The spread eagle he did in the number he shared with the russian girls was umbeliavable... outside/inside/outside/inside... he changed edge a thousand times, going around and in-between the girls.... In fact, most of the time I kept looking at him instead of the girls skating in the middle of the rink! His second number was very nice too... He chose the "Mr Cellophane" song from Chicago, and created a very cute program building everything on the lyrics of the song (as Andrea had told us in the car), so that by paying attention you could really understand everything he did. The best thing about him was that he didn't do huge and spectacular tricks, but all his little bits and pieces were full of difficult moves, done with such an ease that they seemed simple.. but I am sure they absolutely were not!

Rohene Ward was much better in practice than at the show.. he made way too many mistakes on his jumps. He has gorgeous lines and a scenic presence to die for, with an amazing flexibility (his biellman his on the level a girl could achieve.. eat your heart out Plushi!)... He did first some blues number, and then a Michael Jackson Medley.. not bad, not bad at all....

Roxana Luca.. well, everyone who knows me know that I don't care very much for ladies' skating.. but at least I could appreciate that Roxana was quite nice as a person, greeting us nicely and introducing herself when she found us in Fede's room (which they were sharing). Her "competitive" program was not that interesting to me and I both in Baselga and later in Courmayeur I used that time to change memory cards and batteries on my camera... Her second number was not bad, though. She wore a quite nice full body leotard in warious shades of light blue, all shiny and very nice under the lights. The song was a bit slow and gave a quite depressing athmosphere, but the melanconic effect was after all quite nice.

I'll just report the existance of the girls from the Moscow Ice Theater - which our dancers had already nicknamed "Le sciampiste" (I don't really know if it exist an exact translation... it means "the girls that work at a hairdresser's but are not trained enough to do much, so they just wash the clients' hair") - the number they did with Gary was not too bad in the sense that I kept looking at Gary, and the other one in which they played some pom-pom girls was eminently forgettable, but I have to admit that at least they could somehow skate.. in the previous years we had seen much worse numbers... and they were not even almost naked!

Elena Leonova and Andrei Khvalko were good. Thankfully this year they had changed not one, but both programs they skated.. not that there was anything wrong with them, but I had seen them enough times. The Caruso number was nice, they are fab skaters who keep them selves in great shape, and you can tell that. I enjoyed even more the Mission:Impossible one, because I was already tired, I needed faster music to stay awake. Unfortunately Elena and Andrei had a terrible fall during their encore, right after going into their usually fabulous head-banger (so fabulous I am terrified by it, and now don't think I will ever be able to watch it anymore!)... all the skaters who saw it where shocked, and couldn't think of anything else for a while... Elena too was quite upset at the beginning, and I was told that she reacted angrily to Andrei at first. Anyway they were very brave and went back for the finale, with everyone else. I only saw her after the finale, when in the dressing room Alessandro (who thankfully is also a doctor and was reasonably equipped for small emergencies) was treating her jaw: he had to put on three of those band-aid like things that work instead of stitches, and was understandably mad at the paramedicsguarding the rink, who were useless as they didn't have the necessary things.

Part 5: a night out

We had to wait quite a bit for all the skaters to get dressed and for some of them (see Massi, Fede and Alessia below) to satisfy the queue for autographs (most just escaped from a back door in the dressing rooms)...

. . . .

Finally after talking a bit and waiting for everyone to gather on the outside of the rink, we piled up in the vans and my car (with Sissi, Massi, Andre and Valeria) and drove to the restaurant where Alessandro had invited us to join the cast for dinner (well, it was almost midnight, so it was quite a late dinner). The visibility was not great, my car kept making weird sounds, and the windows were al fogged up and with some apparently un-clean-able residue... aargh. Thankfully the bus didn't go too fast (it was also pitch black, with little indications), so we kept easily their pace. At the restaurant we ound a quite long table, and we ended up sitting near our italian friends, the organizer and a technician. We had a very nice pizza, and after a while the morale of the crew lifted a bit, after being all shaken by Elena's fall. We ended up spending a LOT of time there, chatting, with people moving from one group to the other, telling jokes (I was a tad perplexed by Philippe's joke complete with porno-origami... don't ask, please). Alessandro of course also asked us if we fancied going to the disco with them (actually it was just two floors below the restaurant, LOL) - ok, to tell the truth I fancied my bed more, but

1) I generally hate when someonewants to sneak into the skaters' parties, I always feel ill at ease. But this time there were lots of friends, and we were officially invited...
2) I wanted to see all the skaters dance!
3) I had no clue of wherw we were, so there was no way I would ever find my way back to the hotel without following the mini-vans!!

So we went to the disco... which was very small and not that good looking, with a strange humid smell hanging around in the air... but there was music, and it was enough! At first I was quite intimidated, but at some points I took my turns on the dance floor, if the song sounded well to me... The girls were pretty much all good dancers, and of course people like Massi I had no doubt would be good... A revelation was Andrea, who might sometimes look a bit stiff on the ice, but was actually fabulous! He and his girlfriend were quite a pair to watch (she's a dancer)! Surya danced like crazy, especially to any very fast, up-beat and wild song.. she was unstoppable! The Sciampiste kept having some guys trying to dance with them, but the girls weren't really intersted. Elena Leonova was another crazy dancer.. it was almost impossible to get her away from the dance floor! She was dancing in particular with Massi, and they were quite another pair to watch! Not to mention when at some point Massi and Rohene were miming some pole-dancing around the poles installed on a pseudo podium realized above the speakers... I sneaked some glances to Philippe to, who took some breaks, but had his bit of fun out there too... probably there was only one moment when everyone was out there dancing, and that's when they put on YMCA, and Ale jumped up on the podium directing the crowd just like the finale of the show.. eh eh eh I even have pics of that!!

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Part 6: end of the story

It was almost 4am when we managed to get back to the hotel. When we got out of the disco we were almost deaf.. it took a few moments to our ears to start working properly again! We piled up in my car again, with the windows even more fogged up than before, and found our way back to the hotels, with Massi hoping that Rohene wouldn't start talking nonstop and keep him awake till 6am once again (they shared a room), and the rest of us starting to feel just a little bit exhausted.... We arrived outside the hotel and stopped for a moment for some goodbyes (Massi and Fede were heading back to Cerreto, so we wouldn't meet them in Courmayeur) and some "see you next week!"... I thanked Alessandro and Philippe, set up a meeting with Ale & Andre for the next morning (we were travelling back to Milan together) and went to bed. I was a little sad at leaving, but the idea of seeing the show and Philippe again next week was a nice thing. It was hard, veeery hard to get up the next morning, or better, a few hours later.. Sissi and I had breakfast - of course we didn't expect to see anyone from the cast... even if we actually found Gary having breakfast by himself... don't ask me why one should voluntarily get up after so little sleep... he could have rested like everyone else in the cast, or as we would have done ourselves if only we had not a trip back home planned. Anyway, Andrea and Valeria arrived quite punctual, and took advantage of Alessia being late to get some breakfast themselves... to make a long story short, we managed to leave Trento arount 10am, almost an hour later than expected! The trip was not too bad, because we started chatting happily, even happier of not finding almost any traffic... we put on some music, talked a lot (I really have to remind Andre to lend me Gary's book when we are back in Milan), and apart from a moment when, near Bergamo/Orio al Serio, we found some heavy rain (it was bad! I almost couldn't see anything, but decided not to stop because.. oh well, I don't know, I just wanted to get home as soon as possible!) but in the end in about 2 hours we were back in Milan. If only I think that it took us more than 5 hours to drive in the other direction... !! When we made this remark, Andrea laughingly commented "oh well, it seems that Paoletta has quite a heavy foot (on the accelerator)!"... LOL I also lost some more time driving everyone to a suitable destination - Alessia at home near the ice rink, Sissi at a underground stop on the way to Andrea's house, of course Andrea and Valeria there.. and I was already next to my own final destination! What a nice experience.... but I ended up sleeping most of the day, and spent aug 15th doing very little at Anna's place!