I remember arriving late to a local competition one year and asking a friend afterward how her skate went. She replied, "I cleaned the ice." Perplexed for a moment, I didn't know what to say, but she explained that she fell so many times there was essentially no need for a Zamboni. Ouch. Maybe the rink was cursed for the ladies skating in Kitchener, Ontario because in the Free Skate, they cleaned the ice.

Everybody needs a good top ten list. Here's mine... ten reasons to watch (and love) figure skating: 1. Athleticism. You try doing a triple axel. No really... go ahead! 2. Drama. No, not the Tanya Harding vs. Nancy Kerrigan kind. I'm talking about the emotional depth and dramatic performance by some of the world's best actors on ice.

Every Olympic season, skaters up the ante and the best of the best come out to play, 2010 being no exception. This weekend, some of the top competitors competed at the Cancer.Net Skate America event in Lake Placid, NY, the fifth in the Grand Prix series, a carefully planned collection of international events across the globe that lead to one final event where only the top skaters compete having qualified by medaling at each of the individual Grand Prix events.

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.