The Last Word
HAMILTON -- There once was a venerable bluesman, trying to explain the phenomenon that was Elvis Presley. "The world was ready for a good looking white boy who could sing like a black boy," the old man said.
"And I'll tell you something ... that was one good looking white boy."
At the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, Emanuel Sandhu stands out as the perfect emissary from the clannish and Byzantine world of figure skating world to the open market of celebrity greatness.
He is that good, that good looking, that well-spoken and there is a delicious irony in all of this.
Figure skating isn't like anything else. I have covered beach volleyball, plenty of hockey and girls' high school soccer where the kids wore no numbers.
I have tried to find something admirable in Barry Bonds, and have interviewed a rodeo clown.
This I can tell you: every passing day, sports is less about grace, less about elegance and more about power and testosterone.
The average NBA or NFL player is cut from granite, the product of years in the weight room and who knows how many chemical compounds. Does it sound old to say there was a time when only Ben Johnson looked like Ben Johnson?
High tech hockey shafts mean anyone can shoot the puck into Bobby Hull's neighborhood ... they just can't hit the net. The screened shot, considered so aesthetically hideous as to be somehow unworthy, now is considered the only way to score. Bobby Orr might have been the last guy to score off the rush in an NHL game and, you know, that was a while ago.
The only really ugly thing about figure skating is the judging.
Talent, so painstakingly gleaned, is impossible to hide, and charisma, last attributed to athletes from the 1960s and '70s, can be found in the oddest places.
Which brings us back to Sandhu, the 23-year-old from Richmond Hill by way of Vancouver.
Frustrated by his bad performance at the 2000 Four Continents championship, Sandhu dropped out of skating for two months and lost contact with his coach Joanne McLeod.
Bit of a perfectionist wacko, was our Emanuel.
No one should care that much about the Four Continents, a poorly attended event that couldn't attract more than 2,100 to Hamilton.
That's like drawing six flies to a horse farm.
Sandhu stands a perfectly respectable second this morning after his short program at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, having fallen on a performance opening quad.
"I feel so stupid," Sandhu said afterward.
He has been hitting quads in practice, in the parking lot -- everywhere.
But last night, the magic slipped a bit.
A misfire seemed natural enough. After all, Sandhu soared through his third Canadian championship a few days ago.
Somewhat geeky and an emotional quagmire, Sandhu suddenly has become crushworthy for the young girls who flock to the sport and possesser of a great, thoughtful quote.
"I'd like to use (the letdown angle) but I'm not going to."
It wouldn't be smart, he said. A smart athlete?
"Yes, I think emotion and intelligence are so important. That's a good point, I'm learning to put the two together."
So far so good.
The hockey players won't be playing next season. The Blue Jays would dearly love to corner the people who were turned away from the SkyDome in the World Series years, let alone the folks who filled the seats.
The Rock and Argos and Renegades and Als remain regional flavours.
Most of what really is left is the Olympics and the world championship.
And so, on a snowy night in Hamilton, the guy who could be Canada's next big thing took another step in becoming the athlete he wants to be.
The athlete, soon, we will all want him to be.
