The Finlandia Trophy happened last weekend! Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada easily won the ice dancing event and we got to see some new programs from top ice dancers.
Here is a video of Virtue and Moir's short dance. It apparently uses some of their free dance music (and possibly choreography?) from last season. The first 15 seconds is kind of unwatchable to me, mostly because Virtue appears to be dancing like I normally dance, right before my friends all laugh and point. Then it gets better. I don't quite feel it as much as the commenters...it does not come off as the sexy dancing I think they are trying to pull off. But it's eminently more interesting than most short dances have been and there are some sections with a lot of difficulty (I like that slow section at around 1:45). Not quite as precise as they have been in the past but it's their first time out. What do you think?
And here is the free dance to Funny Face. They seemed much smoother in this dance. It's very cute and it's fun to watch and it's quite perfect for them. I will say it makes me appreciate dances like Davis and White's tango last season much more, which is a weird reaction. But this is a difficult dance and Virtue and Moir are so talented and watchable. I won't mind seeing this again throughout the season. Everything just seems to fit in really perfectly. I wonder if they will make any changes.
American team Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani were in second place. Here is their short. Very typical Shibutani dance - a very proficient dance without a whole lot of personality aside from big smiles. Technically very good and they are so together. But it seemed very slow in the middle. They have the potential to get better and the potential for some hip action but they don't quite get there. It definitely felt like I was watching some moves that were being done because they needed to be done, while I didn't feel that with Virtue and Moir's dance.
Here is the free to Glenn Miller music. Also very Shibutani-esque but with the music it doesn't have to really be anything else. I like it a lot but I don't have any intense desire to watch again. They should do well this season, though.
America's Madison Chock and Evan Bates (new couple) placed third. Here is their free dance. It's Prelude in E Minor by Chopin. Unfortunately this version sounds very much like muzak at times. The dance is fine, I like the lifts and the extensions. I definitely watched Evan a lot more than I ever did when he was with Emily Samuelson and I don't know if that's good or bad. She really is great at selling the emotion of the program.