As if I was a newbie blogger rather than a seven year veteran, I nearly concluded the title of this post with an exclamation point because I'm so excited about this Olympic figure skating season. This weekend, I resume covering figure skating here at BlogHer, starting with Skate America, culminating with the Olympic Games in February and the World Championships in March.  We have some amazing skaters to watch, so I wanted to give everyone a preview.

The ladies' final event at the World Championships always comes with surprises.  This year, it was Kim Yu-Na who swept us off our feet Saturday with the most incredible score of any woman yet, and Mao Asada who showed that amazing triple axel isn't enough in the new judging system.

Friday's Ladies Short Program event at the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships in Los Angeles left former champions Mao Asada and Miki Ando in third and fourth place respectively, coming into the final event, making room for a possible new winner, who will immediately become the Olympic favorite.

This past week in Cleveland, the U.S. Figure Skating Championships took place, featuring an incredibly talented array of women vying for four medals and two spots on the World team.  Notably missing were former U.S. and World champion, Kimmie Meissner, and last year's silver medalist, Emily Hughes, both out due to injury.  But if there's a year to miss, it's this year since next year's winners will determine the Olympic team.

Skate Canada, the second in the Grand Prix figure skating series, took place in Ottawa this week and ended today.  With only a small batch of competitors in each division, it was easy to focus in on the ladies: three Canadians, three Americans, two Japanese and four European skaters.  Beginning with the short program on Friday, long time Canadian champion, Joannie Rochette triumphed, skating to "Summertime" and receiving a standing ovation, coming out 7 points ahead of Fumie Suguri, former world medalist, and Caroline Zhang, rising American star and former world Junior champion.