Scoring System Woes

The Seattle Times' Ron Judd articulates my complaints about tonight's competition when he writes about how the crowd doesn't understand the new scoring system. The Skate America crowd at Comcast Arena in Everett, Washington believe that Evan Lysacek should have won the competition.

Alas, this isn't the exception in the skate world today. It's become the norm.

Lysacek as much as acknowledged the problem tonight, saying his only disappointment from this Skate America contest was seeing potential new figure skating fans leave the building in a hail of boos.

"It's a little disappointing to me, because we're trying to get people back in the building," Lysacek said. He could see some of them going home and swearing off figure skating forever, he said.

His only hope, he added, was that "someone" out there would explain to those fans exactly what happened, and why.

But they never will. Because media people in a position to do that, even if they understand the system themselves, can't possibly delve into the level of minutae required to fully explain. It just doesn't work. Trust me.

Doubt that this will help the popularity of the sport...