PJ Kwong

Favourite skating moments, and we all have one or two, are not always about the making of today’s champions…they sometimes say as much about the speaker, as they do about the skating event or skater featured in that moment…in today’s Edgework:

PJ KWONG

Technical Merit - Personal and professional highlights

· PA announcer for live figure skating events in Canada and beyond, including 2 World Championships and one Olympic Games and lots of National, International and Professional figure skating competitions.

· Coach, with a particular love of ice dancing, for almost 20 years.

· Co-creator with Tricia Morgan, of the all male synchronized skating team (now retire) Ice Nightmare, who raised funds for breast cancer research.

Artistic Impression - The essence of their story

‘I was announcing at the Grand Prix Final in December of 2001 in Kitchener, along with fellow announcer, Mike Surrette of PEI. We split the disciplines, with me being responsible for the Men’s and Pair’s events. There had been a mix-up in the display of the final standings at the conclusion of the Dance event, as a result of an accounting glitch, and it was not clear if France’s Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat , or Canada’s Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz were the winners. The next event had to start, without letting the audience know what was the final outcome. About 20 minutes after the initial problem, I was handed a sheet by ISU Technical Delegate, Joyce Hisey, and told to read it at the first appropriate moment. I looked down, and read over what I was going to say, and felt the adrenaline rush through my system as I anticipated the explosive reaction of this, mostly Canadian, audience. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the final results of the Dance event are as follows…in first place…from Canada…Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz”…I didn’t even get the whole thing out before the audience went wild…they were so loud, that I had to read the remainder of the names without, I am sure, anyone hearing what I was saying. It was a thrill. Mike tapped me on the shoulder, and told me that I had gotten to say the one thing, as an announcer, he would have loved to say. We just smiled at one another.’