The TV screen shows the lights lower in the Maple Leaf Gardens.
Two male skaters dressed in tuxes emerge onto the ice. They skate circles around each other in front of a cheering crowd. The camera cuts to a close-up of the performers’ feet as they stop in unison — one is wearing hockey skates, the other, figure skates. Hosts Ron MacLean and Kurt Browning know how to get the crowd going.
Battle of the Blades pairs retired NHL greats with sweetheart championship figure skaters (here, Marie-France Dubreuil and Stéphane Richer), to create a truly Canadian reality show.
And so it begins.
Battle of the Blades, Canada’s latest attempt at reality-show success, takes hockey tough guys, pairs them with figure skating sweethearts and has them churn out weekly ice dance routines on live television.
The eight couples are judged after each Sunday night performance show using traditional figure-skating scoring by former skating champions and choreographers — with a little help from legendary Canadians like Lanny McDonald and Don Cherry. Viewers cast votes for their favourite couples, and on Monday nights one pair is eliminated from the show.
The simplicity of the concept is almost laughable.
There’s no way people will watch this, right? Imagine hockey fans calling the guys over for a game night that involves pizza, beer and Claude Lemieux in tight pants. Or lifelong figure skating devotees envying the grace and style of an aging hockey player’s death spiral.
Well, judging by the ratings, it isn’t that unrealistic. An average of 1.5 million viewers tune in to the show weekly. So what is it about this show that has Canucks glued to their television screens week after week?
It’s all in our image
The show is quintessentially Canadian, and we can’t get enough.
“It fits with the image of Canada which is all about hockey, figure skating, Tim Hortons, kids skating on a frozen pond in the winter, Ron MacLean’s terrible puns, and Stephen Harper wearing a sweater,” says John Doyle, television critic for the Globe and Mail.
The show has nation-wide appeal because it hits on elements of Canadian culture that everyone can identify with, he says.
Millions of Canadians have connections to hockey and figure skating in one way or another. And in a star system that has more sports figures than actors, the mass appeal is obvious.
“Before it premiered, I said I’d eat my skates if Canadians didn’t eat up a hockey and figure skating competition reality show,” says Diane Wild, contributor to the blog TV Eh?, an information portal for Canadian television shows.
Wild describes Battle of the Blades as being the perfect fit of audience and content. There is just something fun about seeing the worlds of hockey and figure skating collide, she says.
Host Ron MacLean prepares to eliminate one pair on the Blades finale. Salé and Simpson (in black) eventually came out on top.
The Canadiana concept certainly draws in the audiences, but to keep them there, the show needs to entertain, says Denis McGrath, a television writer who has written episodes for Canadian shows like The Border and Rent-A-Goalie. He says Canadian television is often guilty of preaching to its audience.
“You mix in the familiar reality competition format which we’re all used to by now, and figure skating. And then you add the surprising — how will these hockey players and figure skaters mix and work together?” he says.
This combination is undeniably entertaining. You see retired tough guys wearing flashy costumes, Continue reading “CBC scores, with Battle of the Blades”