Battle of the Blades No Girl's Sport

I've never been a figure skating fan, and to this day I'll watch World Champion Patrick Chan - and then only briefly -  out of a sense of obligation to support a fellow Canadian.

When I played hockey as a 10 year old at the old Dixie Arena in Mississauga, there was a kid playing for the Dixie team named Peter Hughes who wore black figure skates. Dixie was a macho team in the hierarchy of Pee Wee hockey, with players such as perennial scoring champion Tom Chudleigh, he of the Milton apple farm fame, Spencer and Bob Fosbury, rock-'em, sock-'em defencemen right out of the Don Cherry mold and Freddie Stanfield, who later made an effortless leap to the NHL and fame with the Boston Bruins.
But here was this kid Hughes, who played good hockey, scored goals, was fully accepted by his team mates and gave as good as he got, distracting us Lorne Parkers with his black figure skates!

We'd lose the game, then attempt to deflect criticism of our lack of scoring, porous defence and puck-shy goaltending with a remark such as, "Yeah, but they got this guy that wears figure skates..."

Sadly, even at that age, there was a stigma attached to any boy who had the audacity to use the ice for something God had not designated it for, which of course was hockey, and to go out and skate with neither pads nor stick nor puck, and attempt spins, jumps and flowery motions with his hands.

It was considered, well, a girl's sport.

So it was with feelings of conflicted emotions that I read of the format of Battle of the Blades, which was to take former NHLers, put figure skates on them,  team them with past female figure skating luminaries and let them compete in front of a 3 person judging panel led by former figure skating champion Sandra Bezic.
The viewing public also played a large part in selecting who stayed for the next week and who became champion by electronically sending in votes for their favourites.

I was hooked after the first episode. Those were real live, macho men out there! They had the courage to skate in-line, using their picks, to fall ingloriously, to become frilly, dance to music, make flowing motions with their stick-free hands and to lift their sometimes wary (but always courageous) partners overhead.

They showed without a shadow of a doubt that figure skating is not just a girl's sport.

In 2011, things were reversed when former pairs Olympic gold medallist David Pelltier scooped Tessa Bonhomme, Canadian Women's hockey team member, as a partner, and they swept the competition when Tessa got rid of her edginess and adopted Jaime Sale-like moves and charisma.

'Battle' had Kurt Browning, Ron McLean, occasional guest judging from Don Cherry, large crowds at Etobicoke's Mastercard Centre, major TV viewership and an enthusiastic, considerable number of sponsors.
They were profitable.
So when CBC, following miniscule budget cuts, recently announced the cancellation of 'Battle', and shoved diminutive, former figure skater Julie Bristow to make the official announcement, it smacked of typical, CBC bully boy retaliation. Of  pouting, and reacting with, "This will teach you a lesson, government and viewers! Nobody sits CBC in the corner!"

Let's hope the demise of 'Battle' is short-lived and picked up by a network that gives a damn.

I bet Peter Hughes would make a great addition to the next episode.