Johnny Weir at COI ( Champions On Ice ) Glendale , Phoenix, AZ

It's been a while since last post and today, I want to write about review of COI ( Champions On Ice ) Glendale, Phoenix , AZ and our phoenix trip .

The purpose of my husband and I went to COI is to see Johnny Weir of course !

I've never been to see figure skating live show before even I love to see it on TV, because no one ever made me so crazy until I saw Johnny in last winter Olympic.

Johnny is just special for me, and my husband also feels the same way.

Anyway, before we left home, we made a big sign on a poster panel with the words " Johnny Weir We LOVE ( heart mark ) YOU " to support him.

We thought many of the other people will do the same things for their favorite skaters.
To our surprise, no one in the Phoenix audience had signs of support for
any skaters, I guess in Phoenix, the audience are not deep fans of skating,
just casual fans.

So we were the only ones in the audience of thousands of people who were
holding up a poster.

Our seat was Row B, at the edge of the circle rink and we could clearly see all the skaters faces when they came near our row.

At the opening, Johnny came into the ice with yellow costume and curly hair.

Beautiful !

I thought Johnny is much more beautiful and handsome than watching from TV. Johnny looked like he was planning a triple, but did a double jump, Johnny might have been a little bit tired from the hot Phoenix sun.

In the program, Johnny was the third to skate with program " My Way " .

He was incredibly gorgeous and romantic and feeling with the music. I love his tuxedo costume and he skated excellent !

All the details of his movement were extremely artistic . In the beginning, his movement was slow which fit with the music and with very deep feeling.

Actually, I don't like that song, but with Johnny's performance, it becomes very impressive music. Johnny changed the image of the music !

However during his performance , my digital camera didn't work in the dark place, I was really frustrated about it . It was working fine until the show started.

Luckily my husband's camera worked good and he was taking many pictures of Johnny's My way.

During each skater's program, they all were focusing on their skating
and Johnny was feeling with the music and our seat was far from the place
where all the skaters came in and out from back stage.

and when Johnny greeted to the audience after ending his program, he was in the center of the rink and it was far from our seat, and my voice was not loud enough to reach to Johnny even I tried to shout loudly.

So I thought Johnny may not notice our sign.

Then, my second favorite skater Stephane Lambiel, came in .

Stephane was great and very artistic and his spin was really incredibly fast and artistic and unique. But no one was clapping while he was spinning so I shouted " Stephan ! " and I was clapping loud. He looked smaller than I thought he was but very cute looking.

Evgeny Plushenko

Plushenko was very powerful and energetic , he is also better than watching from TV ! We felt he is like the boss of the skaters, because his strong personality comes through, and he just looks like a very elite top skater and very attractive looking. Johnny's charisma is so huge for me but I think Plushenko also has charisma a little bit.

Evan Lysacek

Evan was normal looking, no difference from watching on TV.
But he skated very well doing with three kind of songs. He is really funny.

Tatiana Totmyanina & Maxim Marinin pair

They were wonderful ! They were very beautiful and artistic. I didn’t know Tatiana Totmyanina is so beautiful and pretty with small face. She looked much better than TV.

Irina Slutskaya

Irina was great ! She is one of my favorite woman skater. but I thought her costume is not really fit her, looked little bit fat.

Sasha Cohen ,

Sasha was very pretty and shining ! Of the women skaters, she is the most impressive skater for us during the show. Sasha fell from one of the jump and it looked hurt but soon she stood up and continued. I hope she is okay.

For the populality, I thought Michelle Kwan seemed like the most popular for the audience during the show at Phoenix, everybody was screaming and clapping loud when her turn came . 

I know Michelle is a very strong energetic skater and it incredible she won US Championships 9 times, but for me her skating is not really impressive. I prefer Sasha 's beautiful choreography and amazing flexibility. I wished Johnny was the most popular star . .

But strange thing is no one was showing signs or posters for skaters even Michelle Kwan, and Sasha.

And we were the only people who were showing our poster . And it’s for Johnny
At the final part of the show,

finally, Johnny noticed our poster !!!!!!

This happened at the finale where all the skaters performed altogether, with beautiful romantic white costumes !!

I thought Johnny was the most fit with the costume, he looked really like a prince
who came from a romantic fairy story. Johnny is really fit with European or Russian castle.

When Johnny and several group of skaters came in front of our row , we quickly held up our poster and Johnny noticed our sign.

Then I could clearly see Johnny looked directly at my eyes and threw a kiss to me with
happy face and waving his hand, and he did it to me !!!!!!!!

Oh, my god, I lost all my focus since then, and almost fainted.

My husband later said that I was very excited and dropped the poster and he had to catch it so it wouldn't fall and he couldn't see Johnny's reaction at that time.

I know Johnny is very sweet and caring to many of his fans, who are nicknamed angels , since I read many of his angels experienced Johnny's hug and kiss, taking pictures for each of them if they could have chance to see him.

But for me this never happened before in my life, that my idol star looked at my eyes and threw a kiss to me . I will never forget this wonderful experience.

Johnny circled the rink and came to our row twice . and when he came to
our row second time,

he stood up in front of me and threw me a kiss with sweet
face elegantly and politely again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think most guys are not fit to do this attitude so elegantly and naturally like Johnny did.

I threw him back a kiss quickly and waved my hand alot to him !

After this Johnny noticed that my husband was with me, and Johnny looked at him
and again waved his hand to him with smiling face and my husband did the same thing.

My husband was very happy about it, especially for me.

I noticed Johnny didn't do the same things for any other people in the audience during the show, at Phoenix . 

I think this is because we were the only ones with a Johnny Weir poster, showing our support for him.

I'm sure there were many other Johnny fans in the show, but maybe they are
not really serious fan or didn't show they are fans of Johnny. and also music was loud and it's difficutl to hear something from audience.

But I felt little bit bad for other skaters, because our sign was for Johnny, not for other skaters, and when Evan Lysacek and Rudy Galindo and other skaters were coming to our row, and were looking at our poster ( My mind was already in a dream world and I forgot to hide the poster at that time ), they reacted like " oh, no ! What's that !! where is my poster ?? ! " and they were smiling ( or laughing ) but looked disappoited and and were looking at us. My husband noticed that Sasha also looked at us and was smiling.

Then that group went to other row which is close to our seat, and I noticed Rudy was still staring at me and my husband a long time until his turn to perform was coming.

I don't know why ??

Then I saw Rudy was throwing Johnny and Johnny did excellent triple jump and landed beautifully and perfectly ! It was really amazing !

I also wanted to see several other skaters more clearly but once Johnny was there, I lost all the interest for others and I don't remember where Plushenko , Sasha, Shizuka, Irina and other skaters were in the final show.

Only when Stephane 's group came near our row, I could see Stephan's face from the side but they all were facing to different row.

Many of the audience were looking at our poster and smiling at us ( some were whispering each other ) and talking about it. It was funny.

And people who were sitting behind our row were asking us " can we see
your poster ? " after the show ended.

I was already very satisfied, and very happy.

We had prepared a gift for Johnny, so we wanted to give it to him,
But we didn't have back stage passes , my husband tried to ask someone if someone
has extra back stage passes.

But no one had one.

But it's okay, I was getting really nervous, butterfly when I imagined to see and talk
to Johnny closely.

I thought it's enough for this time because I'm already very satisfied. Johnny gave me a great memory !

Johnny is amazing caring and sweet for his angels.

The security guard said they will bring our gift to the production and the
production will hand it to Johnny.
The guard looked like very responsible person, and said " trust me. "
My husband is usually very suspicious for people but he could feel we can trust this
guy because he was the skaters official security manager.

He went down stars with our gift to back stage.

I hope Johnny received our gift.

I knew all the skaters will not spend much time with their fans for security reasons,and besides, Phoenix right now is very dangeous especially during the night due to a crazy criminal who has not been arrested yet , so we just went back to our hotel.

My husband and I had really a wonderful time there because of Johnny !

Unfortunately, all the photos of Johnny and other skaters we took at COI were not well done, because it was too dark. Maybe we need to buy more high quality camera like SLR digital camera to take good pictures of Johnny on ice.

Johnny Weir Forever !!!