I Like to Watch My Skating ... BUT ...

Figure skating. It's the most exciting thing on ice, right? Like curling only poetry.

Like the rest of Canada, this week I've really missed watching the Olympics. And most of all, I miss my skating. Particularly men's figure skating. Don't get me wrong. I watched all the hockey and cheered when Sidney Crosby sunk that last putt into the net. And I watched all the curling and tried to figure what the hell was going on when we won gold. My regional heart swelled with pride when those two local kids Tessa and Scott performed their magic on ice. And I had to sneak into the bathroom at work to cry when that Joannie girl from Quebec skated after her mom had died a few days earlier.

But the most bittersweet highlight for me was the first round of the men's figure skating and Johnny Weir had just done a pretty hot-shot - and apparently 'unorthodox' flounce around the ice. Now, I haven't watched a lot of skating in my lifetime, but enough to know that after their skate, someone always presents the lady skaters with a bouquet of roses to hold onto while they sit in the penalty box and wait for the judges to tally up and announce their score.

And when the camera cut to Johnny, he's sitting there with a tiara of roses atop his head. And the guy didn't even win! Didn't even come close. And looked like he couldn't care less. He accepted it as if he was used to it. Like it had happened before.

So I called up my friend Elvis who was at the games and he explained that Johnny didn't do any quads. Just triple axels and those squatting spinny things. Well, I was pretty pissed off to hear that. So what, I said. That Evan guy who won gold for the States didn't do any quads either!

And then Elvis explained that the judges don't like Johnny because he's too "flamboyant." And that the other men figure skaters make fun of him in the locker room by singing that Josie Cotton song, "Johnny are you Weir?"

I was pretty saddened to hear all this. I had naively thought that surely, as a civilization we have gotten past all that kind of narrow-minded thinking years ago after the industry bullied Toller Cranston into leaving skating and becoming a painter.

Well, if the skating community can't accept even one skater because of the colour of his skates, then I don't know if I want to even support it anymore.

You know, I had planned on going to see the Canadian Stars on Ice show at the downtown hockey arena on May 2nd. Everyone is going to be there. Tessa and Scotty. Kurt Browning. Joannie Rochette - that French girl whose mom died. Salle and Pelltier, the ones who got screwed in the last winter Olympics.

Yep. Everyone is going to be there. Well, almost everyone. Noticeably absent from that list is Johnny Weir. And is it because he's from the States and not Canadian? Well, I'm sure that's what the organizers would like you to believe. But the real reason is because he doesn't dress in the traditional puffy shirts, but in white silks and black leather. Because he has not only Paul Reuben's knack for make-up but the same twinkle in his eye. In short, he's just too 'flamboyant.'

Well, the boy can't help it. He was born that way. And if he chooses to hang out with Lady Gaga, that's his business. And if the Canadian figure skating community can't accept that, then, as a society we obviously still have a long way to go. Until the Canadian Stars on Ice Tour stops excluding Johnny Weir, I'll be staying home.

Will we never learn? My mother never really got over how the Americans did the same thing to Toller Cranston by not including him in the U.S. Stars on Ice Tours. This is like history repeating itself. That's what finally turned her off skating. I guess I'm turning into my mother.