Friday October 4th, 2019

Last night (Thursday October 3rd, 2019) was the 2nd elimination of the CBC series Battle Of The Blades  Season 5  https://www.cbc.ca/television/battleoftheblades .  Battle Of The Blades  combines athletes from two of Canada’s favourite sports, figure skating and hockey as they pair up in a live, high-stakes figure skating competition for the charity of their choice.  The Hockey Players participating are  Amanda Kessel, Brian McGrattan, Bruno Gervais, Colton Orr. P.J Stock, Natalie Spooner & Shelden Kennedy.  The Ice Skaters are Amanda Evora, Andrew Poje, Ekaterina Gordeeva, Eric Radford, Kaitlyn Weaver, Vanessa  James and  Violetta Afanasieva  (Eric Radford  &  Amanda Kessel are no longer in the competition).  Hockey Night In Canada’s Ron MacLean returned as host and  four-time Canadian and four-time World champion figure skater Kurt Browning was also back as head judge. Also on the guest judging pane this week were former NHL player Colby Armstrong  and two-time World ice dance silver medallist Marie-France Dubreuil . The competition was fierce and entertaining but there has to be an elimination and it was Six-time French pairs champion, 2018 Grand Prix Final champion and 2019 European champion Vanessa James https://twitter.com/vanessajamessk8?lang=en  and her partner, NHL veteran Brian McGrattan https://twitter.com/bigern10?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor  .  Rudy Blair Entertainment Media  rudyblairmedia.com  was on location at Toronto’s CBC building to speak wth Vanessa James &  Brian McGrattan about taking part in the completion, their charities Alzheimer Society of Canada https://alzheimer.ca/en/Home  and Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society https://aarcs.ca ,  who they think will  eventually win  Battle of the Blades and how they performed so well despite their height difference.

(CBC Gem Battle of the Blades Episode 3 https://gem.cbc.ca/media/battle-of-the-blades/season-5/episode-3/38e815a-011bfdb4e8f )