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Well, as you all know by now they pulled a fast one on us and did the draw *way* ahead of the scheduled time and you also know what Todd drew. I haven't talked to either him or Richard about it, but I know them well enough to know what their answer would be if asked how they felt about that draw. They would wish it had been better, but know there's not a darned thing they can do about it and also know that it's really up to Todd to do what we all know he can do, no matter when he's slated to skate. We all know he's perfectly capable of finishing in the top three.

The good news is that he had a fairly good practice session today and seemed rather happy with how it all went. The practice session in question was of course the freeskate practice at the GM Place that started at 4:40 pm. Prior to his program run-through, he warmed up most of the other jumps (except the salchow, of course <g>) and then landed a nice quad/double toe, this time on only the fifth attempt (it's getting better!). Then his run-through went like this: no quad attempt (wisely, I thought), then a triple loop, a nice triple flip, a double axel (really an aborted triple axel/triple toe when another skater interfered with his setup for it), a lovely triple lutz/triple toe, an absolutely gorgeous second triple axel, but then a botched (doubled) salchow (so what else is new?). In spite of the flaws, the program got a fabulous reception from the audience, a partial standing O in fact, an indication of the kind of response he could receive if he skates this program really well. He spent the rest of the session working on the jumps he'd missed (including the salchow), as well as the triple axel/triple toe and, for good measure, a nice triple flip/triple toe.

To recap tomorrow's schedule for Todd: He has a pre-qualifying round practice session, scheduled for 8:40 am at the PNE practice rink. Your fearless reporter will not be there, however, because she'll be busy watching the first qualifying group compete at GM Place. Then, skating first in the second group, he is scheduled to take the ice at approximately 12:25 pm (3:25 pm Eastern Standard Time).

A few notes about Todd's competitors:

Honda is still looking very uneven to me, popping his axel and tripling his quad during his run-through and evidencing lots of other jumps problems throughout his session.

Dmitry Dmitrenko was really *on* today, showing no sign of any remnants of the ankle injury that took him out of Europeans this year. He landed two triple axel/triple toes in a row and landed most of his other jumps in the course of his session. His new long program, to Gounod's Margarethe, is innovative and original and promises to be another real winner.

On the whole, Chengjiang Li looked fairly good today although the Chinese, like the Russians, never do complete run-throughs at practice sessions.

Stojko's runthrough was a mess. After landing his opening triple flip, he tripled both quad attempts (producing a triple toe/triple toe for the combination attempt). He doubled the loop that followed, then doubled both triple axels (producing a double axel/triple toe for the combination), then completed a nice triple salchow prior to ending with a double lutz. From this viewing, I have doubts as to whether this program will be viewed favorably in comparison to Yagudin's but a better performance certainly might improve it. After this less than promising start, Elvis did go on finally to land a quad/double toe and eventually another quad/triple toe/double loop.

Sandhu's run-through was even worse than Elvis', with a triple salchow and a triple axel being the only clean jumps of three or more revolutions landed.

After missing both practice sessions yesterday, Stanick Jeannette appeared this afternoon sporting a cast on his left hand. As he wasn't wearing this the day before, one can only conclude he suffered some kind of mishap the day before. It is an open question how much this set back is going to affect him this week.

Lindemann, meanwhile, is still looking fairly good, while Goebel is looking very uneven to say the least. Plushenko and Yags spent most of their session playing one upmanship in the jump department, to the great entertainment of the audience.

Finally, Patrick Meier gave us a tantalizing glimpse of his new, totally brilliant free skate program. He had a fairly decent session, landing a couple of nice triple lutzes and triple axels before calling it a day.

More from the trenches tomorrow, after the pairs short and as soon as I return from the bar <g>.