The King Is Not Amused

Well, you had to see this one coming.
Elvis Stojko sat through the men's free skate final on Thursday night, watched Evan Lysacek of the U.S. pull off a stunning triumph over Russian favourite Evgeni Plushenko and left the arena in utter disgust.
Then the former three-time former world champion from Richmond Hill, Ont., put his frustration against "the system" to words. In a scathing column for Yahoo! Sports titled "The Night They Killed Figure Skating," Stojko ripped into the "ridiculous" scoring by the judges that awarded the quad-less Lysacek the Olympic title by a razor-thin margin.
"Because of it, the sport took a step backward," wrote Stojko. "Brian Boitano did the same thing, technically, in 1988. There are junior skaters who can skate that same program.
"With that type of scoring, you don’t have to risk it. You can play it safe and win gold. In what other sports do you have to hold back in order to win? The International Skating Union has taken the risk out of figure skating and it makes me sick."
Stojko is a two-time Olympic silver medallist who probably deserved a much better fate on at least one of those occasions — at Lillehammer 1994, many thought he outskated Alexei Urmanov of Russia, who won the gold. Clearly, he still thinks skating favours style over substance.
"Figure skating gets no respect because of outcomes like this," he said. "More feathers, head-flinging and so-called step sequences done at walking speed — that’s what the system wants ... The sport is going backward. And it hurts me to say it because I love this sport. But the judges made a mockery of it by giving Lysacek the gold."
Stojko saved the most stinging thought for last.
"I am going to watch hockey, where athletes are allowed to push the envelope," he said. "A real sport."
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The fallout is already beginning from Elvis' bombshell.
Read this piece by Sun Media's Steve Buffery.
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The Olympic broadcast media consortium reports an audience of 12.1 million was tuned in to the finish of Canada's 3-2 shootout triumph over Switzerland in men's hockey. The average for the game was 6.8 million.
And think about it. That was only a preliminary round game.
Who knows how big this gets before it's done?