Awww, sure our Meg is cool to have around
@Karpenko. And Eric is so lovely and artistic. BTW, no one said anything about expecting Meagan to 'boss around' anyone, uhhh, excepting for you that is. Your phrasing.
Nor do J/C need Meg's presence to get their 'competitive fire' going more than it already is blazing hot I'll betcha! Quite possibly it will be a lot of fun for all involved as Meagan is known to be a fun and generous person to be around. Still, the dynamic would be different in that Meagan and Eric were top dogs at their training camp in Montreal. I'm sure D/R will be treated with due respect in Florida too, and extend respect themselves toward their competitors training in the same rink, as they did in Montreal, but it will be different. And apparently different is what D/R are looking for.
Anyway, it's not clear how much time D/R will be spending in Florida. Plus there are still questions to be answered, since the news release was so short. What will be the working relationship, if any, ongoing between Richard Gauthier and Bruno Marcotte? How will this move by D/R affect the other teams who have been training under Gauthier/Marcotte? Fans here appear to be acting as if this is just business as usual. While it may be usual for dramatic coaching switches to happen, it doesn't usually happen in this manner. Can anyone think of another time when a World championship pairs team (7-time Canadian champions no less) made a move in their final competitive season to split with one of their long time Canadian coaches in order to come to the United States and train with a U.S.-born pairs coach? Oh and they had to bring along one of their former coaches who's married to the female pair half.
And I am not talking about any pairs who came to the U.S. to train with transplanted pairs coaches who worked in the U.S. but hailed from Italy, Russia, Great Britain, etc. Thank you very much.
I know that the sport is more and more global. That's old hat by now and that's a good thing. It's not a big deal for competitors to train with each other, and of course JohnZ wants to build a roster of pairs skaters. Kaitlyn Weaver is from Texas. Tanith Belbin White is from Canada. Of course, John Kerr is Scottish, and Silvia Fontana-Zimmerman is Italian. Vanessa James was born in Canada of a Canadian mother and a Bermudan father, and she trained singles in the U.S. prior to moving to Great Britain to skate pairs, and then eventually to France where she joined up with Morgan Cipres. There are many other examples, and it's a wonderful thing for all of the cross-fertilization influences. Such cross-fertilization is partly what helped Papadakis/Cizeron achieve their rapid success.
It's not unusual for skaters to come to the U.S. to train singles and ice dance, especially with the many Russian coaches who have relocated to the U.S. But for an already well-established veteran champion pairs team to train in their final season with an up-and-coming U.S.-born coach, is something different. Particularly when we all know that the U.S. is not known for having world-renowned pairs coaches who are routinely shepherding U.S. pairs skaters to the international podium. It was Vanessa James who thought outside-the-box, and something wonderful happened that opened others' eyes. But then, Vanessa has trained in the United States before, and she was looking to make something happen for her and her partner to move up toward medal contention. Vanessa was not trying to move back into medal contention after suffering a precipitous drop at Worlds as a two-time defending World champion.
"Too early to be sexy in the mornings!" 
But I would add, if John Kerr and JohnZ can't manage that, Meagan is not gonna either! 
sex appeal and the vicissitudes of lifting pairs girls! 
. We don't see everything or hear everything, nor should we - or it would be an all-out WAR here 24/7. 
