All eight pairs took to the ice Sunday night and performed songs that followed the theme of "passion". For the first time this season on Battle of the Blades a pair would be cut, and no one wants to go home first.This week's guest judge was none other than Theo Fleury, see I told you, CBC's Battle loves ex-Avalanche players (in fact Theo and Curtis have said they want to see a certain Joe take part in it next year!) Last week the leader was Tessa and David, surprisingly they were knocked out of first place on the leaderboard with a tremendous skate by Tanith and Boyd.
Tanith and Boyd skated to "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri, and earned the high mark of 17.1 out of 18. Jeremy Roenick gave high praise "There's no question. For the first time in the show I actually had goosebumps, watching.", and it was quite fantastic, you almost forgot that Boyd was a hockey player, not a figure skater.
Anabelle and Brad skated to "I'm a Natural Born Lover" by David Wilcox, and earned 16.9 for their performance. Brad seems to be enjoying skating more now that he has gotten over his annoyance with the toe picks, he even came up with a move for this skate!
There were three pairs tied for third place, with a score of 16.6, Marie-France and Bryan, Marcy and Todd, and David and Tessa. Of these three my favorite was Marie -France and Bryan, this week they took to ice to the musical stylings of "Lost Together" by Blue Rodeo. Their connection is pretty incredible and once Bryan becomes more comfortable with the lifts, he seems to be nervous lifting her, they will certainly be a pair to watch out for. Marcy and Todd had a fun performance, but it didn't quite sizzle. They skated to "Apologize" by OneRepublic. Finally, David and Tessa skated to "Cold as Ice", and the judges didn't see eye to eye as to what the scores should be. Head judge Sandra, wanted to see more from Tessa.
In fourth place was Curtis Leschyshyn and Elena. They skated to "Crow and the Butterfly" by Shinedown, and got a score of 16.5. This was the second week that Curtis had low scores. Considering that his partner was gone for a good part of the week they did well, but there is certainly room for improvement. Tied with this was Russ and Kim. They performed to "Buttons" by the Pussycat Dolls, and Russ had his shirt ripped off. I was glad that he had an undershirt on!
This left the dreaded last place, which Cale and Violetta filled with their skate to "Love to Love" by Jill Scott, which they earned a 16.4 from the judges.
As the dreaded Monday night happened, teams were told they were safe, or if they were part of the bottom two, they had to go to the "penalty box" and have a skate off. Ron McLean announced that this year there will not be a "comeback week", instead the judges can choose to save a couple. They can only do this once for the duration of the competition. After all the pairs that were safe were announced, there was two pairs Cale and Violetta and, somewhat surprisingly, Todd and Marcy that were left with the uncertainty of being in the bottom two. Each pair had to redo their skate from the previous night. Cale's performance was much stronger than Sunday night's performance, while Todd's was weaker than the previous night. In the end, the Judges decided unanimously to vote off Todd and Marcy. Theo Fleury seemed to have trouble doing this, stating that he had played with both of these men. The judges also elected not to use their save this week, instead they want to save it for a bit later in the competition.
If you want to see any of the performances, you can go to Battle of the Blades youtube site.