Stars on Ice - United States

I don't think is likely that my excitement from the Olympics will die down any time soon. As I mentioned in my last post about Sears Stars on Ice in Canada, I was hoping to convince Mr. V to go with me to Smucker's Stars on Ice, which is the American version of the show. Its actually the exact same show. Its produced by the same people, group numbers are choreographed exactly the same, etc.... The only differences are the people who perform in the show (and since they do their own routines, that's obviously different too). Mr. V appeased me by agreeing to let me buy tickets to the show and since he could care less about ice skating we balanced out the weekend by spending one night in Seattle and touring the city before going to the show. In the 2 years since we've lived here, that was actually his first visit to Seattle (excluding the airport) so he enjoyed seeing the sights there, and I enjoyed my skating show. All in all it balanced out quite nicely and we both had a great time.

So this time around I got to see Meryl Davis and Charlie White (Silver Medalists in ice danicng - They also train with, and share the same coach as Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Gold Medalists and my favorites!), Evan Lysacek (Gold Medalist in men's figure skating and 2nd place in this season's Dancing With the Stars) and Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao (Gold Medalist's in pairs skating), and a handful of other world champions and Olympic medalists from years past.

As expected, everyone was amazing and it was another great show!

The Canadian version of the show was awesome because of the fact that there was a free autograph signing session the day before the show. Not only was it a free event, but we were also all given fairly large posters to have autographed, for free. The American version worked a little differently. Instead of having free autograph sessions, you have to join the fan club and apply for a Meet and Greet pass. There is really no benefit to the fan club, other than the fact that you're guaranteed at least one meet and greet pass a year. So since I'm a starstruck person obsessed with the Olympics this year, I shelled out $30 and joined the fan club. The other difference is that you aren't guaranteed to meet the entire cast. You're only promised that you'll meet one skater and you won't know who that person is until the meet and greet actually takes place. I definitely prefer the Canadian version of meet and greets better. The show's website has a message board that I had been following because people were writing about their meet and greet experiences in cities around the country. Some people met several skaters, while others met just one. The last post that I read before heading to Seattle was from someone who got to meet one skater, and it wasn't someone super exciting. So I was hoping for a good meet and greet, but I figured I'd most likely be meeting one of the random people in the show that I didn't even really know of.

After the show, people with meet and greet passes met in one section of the arena, where we were prepped for how it was going to work. Everyone there was shocked and thrilled when the lady in charge told us that it would be Evan Lysacek that we would be meeting! I have to honestly say that I wasn't expecting that! He's definitely the most famous and most well known of the cast, so having prepared myself for meeting someone uninteresting, I was pleasantly surprised to find out I'd be meeting the best person there!

So....here's my picture with Olympic Gold Medalist Evan Lysacek!