Gordeeva and Grinkov, pairs skating nostalgia

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Longing for the old days in most sports just makes one seem cranky and provincial and, well, old.

But as I watch the pairs skating now at Skate America, where all that seems important is how far the man can throw the woman without the woman flying out of the arena or landing on her bottom, it seems obvious. Pairs skating used to be much better.

Here’s the gold-medal free skate of Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway. It gave me goose bumps when I watched it in person in Hamar, and it gives me goosebumps now. So did their 1994 short program -- then and now. That was pairs skating.

-- Diane Pucin