Battle of the Blades–Season 3

The third season of Battle of the Blades is now over, and I figured what the heck. It’s a topic that can give me something a little different to rant about. Before I start, let me say that I do not normally watch figure skating, and I have never been on ice skates in my life. All comments are made based strictly on how things seem to me. People who are more familiar with the reality of figure skating might completely disagree with some of my comments.

Let me start by going back to last year’s competition. Valeri Bure looked good from the very beginning. He also saw good scores from the very beginning. Despite his skills, he wound up in the skate-off twice in the first three weeks. The show was obviously having problems with a voting system that seriously devalued the actual skating performances. Meanwhile, Kelly Chase looked awful and still managed to get votes to keep him on the show each week. Around the third week, it appeared to be between Valeri Bure and Patrice Brisebois with some good signs from Tood Wariner. In the next to last week, Kelly Chase was finally eliminated. The season was salvaged the moment that I knew that my top three were the final three. Not only were the top three the actual top three, but the best skater, Valeri Bure, won the competition.

When season three started, they announced a “twist” to the show. This year, they had a female hockey player, Tessa Bonhomme. CBC hyped her up like crazy and pushed her participation as a battle of the sexes.

The first several weeks went by without anyone really wowing me like the three finalists last year. Cale Hulse and Boyd Devereaux had a couple of skates where I thought they were the best of the night. I felt that Brad May was the second best a couple of times.

After watching the fourth week performances I realized that there were three skaters who were skating themselves and three who were over-reliant on their partners to make them look good. The pairs skaters were Brad, Cale, and Boyd. The three that weren’t pairs skaters were Tessa, Brian Berard, and Curtis Leschyshyn.

That week’s skate-off was between Brad and Cale (who has the highest score from the judges). I was starting to think that the competition was primarily going to be between Cale and Boyd. While I found that Brad May was among the more entertaining skaters, his skating wasn’t very smooth. I had no problems with his departure.

Another change this year was the addition of a judge’s save. The judges had one save that they could use to keep a skater in the competition after voting them out. Since Brad was receiving the most criticism from the judges, received the lowest score that week, and was unanimously voted to go home, I figured that there was no way that they were going to use the save on him. I was wrong. While I liked having Brad still skating, I really thought that they needed to keep the save. Signs of last year’s voting issues were emerging, and I really thought that they should have kept the save in case they needed to save Cale or Boyd.

The next week was essentially a rematch. Since the voting was close, they added Curtis to the skate off. Curtis was looking like the weakest of the skaters in the competition. He was skating for the same charity as Kelly Chase from last year. He seemed to be getting the same Saskatchewan vote. Apparently, Saskatchewan has no problems associating their province with mediocrity. While Brad wasn’t perfect, I felt that his routine was much better than what we saw from Curtis. Regardless, the vote was unanimous. Brad was gone. The save had clearly been wasted.

Week six ensured that we wouldn’t see the same redemption that saved the previous season. Despite receiving the top two scores from the judges, Cale and Boyd were in the skate-off. While I was starting to view Cale as my number one pick for the competition, the judges were bigger Boyd fans. Where was that save when we needed it?

Last year, Valeri couldn’t get votes early. Why was this? It’s because a lot of people were loyally voting for their favorite players and charities. Once they were eliminated, they started voting based off of performance. This meant that fewer competitors benefited him because there were more votes available to those who performed well.

While Curtis was getting a lot of undeserved votes, Tessa had a clear advantage over everyone else. Curtis faced potential elimination before Tessa despite a few poor performances on her part. The reason was obvious. After last year’s voting problems, they didn’t fix the problems. They exploited them. By turning this year into a battle of the sexes, they ensured that numerous females would vote for Tessa regardless of her performance.

I commented to my family that if they went with a top three format for the finale again, Tessa would win even if she fell flat on her face repeatedly. There are more females watching and voting than males. Even one-on-one, the battle of the sexes works to Tessa’s advantage. The nature of a top three finale would have males splitting their votes between two pairs, which would only seal the deal for Tessa.

Of course, we weren’t quite to the finale yet. There were four pairs remaining. Surprise! Tessa was in the skate-off. She fell on her performance on the previous night, but I didn’t think that it would be enough to overcome her army of female voters.

Somehow Boyd managed to top her despite similar scores from the judges. Below him, the competition was once again tight enough to justify three pairs in the skate-off. It was between Tessa, Brian, and Curtis. While I never viewed Brian as a top contender, he did put up a couple solid performances towards the end of the show. He was the most likely to stay in the competition. While Tessa didn’t exactly nail the performance, her mistake was on a difficult move. While I wanted her gone so that the finale would be a little more fair, I felt that Curtis would be going home. A unanimous decision backed that feeling.

There was a brief moment of hope. Since Boyd beat Tessa, perhaps there was an outside chance of the best skater left could actually win it. Either that or females would view Tessa as vulnerable and up the voting efforts. It was the top three finale that I had been dreading, but I decided that I might as well watch in case Boyd made the impossible possible.

In the finale, Boyd had the best performance. Brian was out of sync. David Pelletier, Tessa’s Partner, struggled to keep his balance while holding Tessa at the end of the performance. It seemed like an obvious order, Boyd then Brian then Tessa. Voters reversed the order to Tessa then Brian then Boyd. Simply put, being a female won the competition for Tessa. I wouldn’t be surprised if she knows it as well.

Of the three seasons so far, this was the worst one for Battle of the Blades. Including Tessa on the show was a mistake. So was ensuring that she had a loyal fan base that didn’t care about big mistakes in the final two weeks. The battle of the sexes and the hype surrounding Tessa was partially CBC’s fault, and I hope that we don’t see a repeat in the future. If they ever bring another female into the competition, they need to have at least two. That way, the females will at least have to compete with each other to stay in the competition. They also need a final involving only two pairs so that males voting for males will come closer to offsetting the females voting for females.

The bottom line here is that CBC wanted to try something different but failed to think things through. Their presentation of Tessa combined with their format made the winner fairly obvious from the beginning. Figure skating was not a big enough factor. Since the show is about hockey players figure skating, the show was becoming irrelevant in the voting and the outcome.

If the figure skating becomes even more irrelevant, why watch? If we reach a point where there is no point in watching, ratings will drop. If ratings drop, they will no longer be able to continue the show. If they can’t continue the show, they will no longer have to provide incentive to the hockey players. What is the incentive? Contributions to the charities of their choices.

Females voting for females or Saskatchewanians voting for Saskatchewanians could ultimately take money away from charities. Perhaps it would be best if they just stopped voting and let the judges pick the best figure skaters. Judging figure skaters based on figure skating abilities. What a novel idea.