Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier - official site & blog updates

[Sylvia]

Their official site launched in November: http://www.skatetoday.com/gilles-poirier/

First 3 blog entries:

Paul's Welcome message: http://www.skatetoday.com/gilles-poi...-housekeeping/

Piper's "Thanksgiving Surprise": http://www.skatetoday.com/gilles-poi...ving-surprise/

Paul "On the Grand Prix": http://www.skatetoday.com/gilles-poi...he-grand-prix/

[~tapdancer~]

Thanks, Sylvia! I like this team and am glad to be able to follow what's going on with them.

[Sylvia]

Paul "On frivolous things" including chocolate: http://www.skatetoday.com/gilles-poi...volous-things/

... this is meant to be a long (but non-exhaustive) list of those small, unimportant things that just happen to make my day a little better, in no particular order. I also apologize if much of it pertains to food.

[LilJen]

He sounds hilarious and like he'd be totally fun to work with. I completely agree with him regarding so-called "white chocolate."

[Macassar88]

I like that he's so into classical music!

[museksk8r]

I <3 Paul! Love his witty and silly personality, his look, and his skating/dancing!

[Alixana]

"quoting Finding Nemo daily" .. that's my boy!

[The Observer]

Paul is adorable - there's no other way to put it.

And he is so smart. Taking a linguistics degree at U of T and fluently speaking multiple languages!

[Sylvia]

Paul "On school, languages, linguistics, and a syntactic exercise…" (Jan. 9): http://www.skatetoday.com/gilles-poi...ctic-exercise/

So here I am, studying linguistics. This year, I’ve dropped down to a 70% courseload. In light of not being able to travel next year, I thought it might be a good idea to get ahead and take a full courseload. And while I survived (barely!), I thought it would be a better idea to not give myself a near-suicidal amount of work this year. My classes are in the afternoon, so we train in the morning, I drive downtown, to go to class, and then in the evening I have off-ice or dance classes. There are some daily variations to the aforementioned schedule but that is the general course of my day. It’s a full day, it requires a lot of preparation, a (very) large lunchbox, and constant vigilance, not to mention a Sunday (my day off training) locked in my house doing schoolwork.
...
... Now, an analysis of English is great, but an analysis can be so much more interesting; there are so many great languages in the world that have fascinating phenomena to scrutinize. And so I do. A linguist learns languages not because they are useful or because they can speak to a lot of people, but because there is something specific about that language that they want to study… I have no interest in languages with regards to their use in the business world. My criteria are different. For those who are interested, the languages I’d like to work with are French, Spanish, Japanese, Turkish, Basque, Malagasy, and Mayan languages like Jacaltec, among others.

[flowerpower]

http://www.thestar.com/living/fashio...l2IUig.twitter

Canadian fashion maven Jeanne Beker meets Piper Gilles. Great article, and love her outfit (except maybe for the shoes).

[mirage]

It is absolutely astonishing how much media attention these two manage to receive. Whoever is doing PR for them is working really hard for their GOLD.

[nylynnr]

It is absolutely astonishing how much media attention these two manage to receive. Whoever is doing PR for them is working really hard for their GOLD.

Carol Lane is good at press relations, and Piper is pretty.

[The Observer]

It is absolutely astonishing how much media attention these two manage to receive. Whoever is doing PR for them is working really hard for their GOLD.

They aren't receiving THAT much media attention - you sound like a bit of a drama queen.

And why shouldn't they receive some media attention, anyway? Paul is one of the best ice dancers in the world and is a Canadian champion and Olympian. And Piper & Paul medalled at last year's Nationals and are likely to do so again this year.

[museksk8r]

It is absolutely astonishing how much media attention these two manage to receive. Whoever is doing PR for them is working really hard for their GOLD.

What a profoundly odd comment. What effect does it have on you how much media attention an ice dance couple receives?

[reut]

I'm not sure it's a correct topic to post...
But still a nice interview with them on artonice.it:
http://www.artonice.it/?q=en/node/13088

[The Observer]

What a profoundly odd comment. What effect does it have on you how much media attention an ice dance couple receives?

I was wondering the same thing myself above. We seem to have a couple of posters who like to bash Gilles & Poirier because they think they are overmarked or are being given special privileges by Skate Canada. I haven't seen much evidence of preferential treatment myself. Paul is one of the best ice dancers in Canada and was #1 with Vanessa Crone the year Virtue & Moir were out with injury. Piper isn't quite up to his technical level yet because she doesn't have the Olympic and World experience, but she is working hard to catch up.

What I was pleased to see is that G&P skated two good programs this week and ended up solidly in 2nd place behind V&M to earn a spot to Worlds. That probably makes the G&P haters mad.

[~tapdancer~]

Congrats to Piper and Paul on their silver medal!

[Sylvia]

Toronto Observer article: Worlds next stop for ice dance pair Gilles, Poirier

Poirier's most recent blog post (Feb. 3) is in French & English: http://www.skatetoday.com/gilles-poi...a-francophone/

[Sylvia]

Paul Poirier's latest blog entry titled "On the Worlds, last season, and some healing thoughts (April 9, 2013): http://www.skatetoday.com/gilles-poi...ling-thoughts/