Friday November 1st, 2019
Last night (Thursday October 31st 2019)wasn’t just Halloween but also the finals of the CBC series Battle Of The Blades Season 5 https://www.cbc.ca/television/battleoftheblades at Toronto’s The Mattamy Athletic Centre www.mattamyathleticcentre.ca (formally Maple Leaf Gardens). Battle Of The Blades combined athletes from two of Canada’s favourite sports, figure skating and hockey as they paired up in a live, high-stakes figure skating competition for the charity of their choice. The Hockey Players participating were Amanda Kessel, Brian McGrattan, Bruno Gervais, Colton Orr. P.J Stock, Natalie Spooner & Shelden Kennedy. The Ice Skaters were Amanda Evora, Andrew Poje, Ekaterina Gordeeva, Eric Radford, Kaitlyn Weaver, Vanessa James and Violetta Afanasieva. The three finalists were Ekaterina Gordeeva https://www.instagram.com/katiaagordeeva/?hl=en & Bruno Gervais https://twitter.com/bruno_gervais27?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor , Natalie Spooner https://twitter.com/natspooner5 & Andrew Poje https://twitter.com/weaverpoje?lang=en and Shelden Kennedy https://twitter.com/search/Sheldon+Kennedy & Kaitlyn Weaver https://twitter.com/search/Kaitlyn+Weaver . 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 Olympic Champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. And as the evening and Season 5 came to a close it was Ekaterina Gordeeva & Bruno Gervai who came in third place ( their charities were Heart and Stroke Foundation https://www.heartandstroke.ca & The Gervais-Talbot Foundation https://my.charitableimpact.com/charities/fondation-gervais-talbot ), in second place was Natalie Spooner & Andrew Poje (Their charities were Fast and Female https://www.fastandfemale.com & Right To Play https://www.righttoplay.ca ) and the winners were Shelden Kennedy & Kaitlyn Weaver. They won 100 thousand dollars for their charitiy Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities https://jumpstart.canadiantire.ca . Rudy Blair Entertainment Media rudyblairmedia.com was on location at Toronto’s The Mattamy Athletic Centre to speak with the 2nd place finishers Natalie Spooner https://twitter.com/natspooner5 & Andrew Poje https://twitter.com/weaverpoje?lang=en on taking part in the competition, their amazing and natural chemistry together, Natalie Spooner growing during the competition as a figure skater, their charities Fast and Female https://www.fastandfemale.com & Right To Play https://www.righttoplay.ca and their “future” plans together as figure skater pairs .
(Natalie Spooner and Andrew Poje perform to ‘Canadian Girls’ | Battle of the Blades https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6tkvsiThj0 )
(Battle of the Blades Season 5 Episode 7 Finals https://gem.cbc.ca/media/battle-of-the-blades/season-5/episode-7/38e815a-011de1af16f )