Don’t Save the First Dance for Him

Here’s a deal you don’t find every day in L.A.:

Parking for ice dance compulsories: $20.

It’s impressive, really, when you stop and consider the cold figures. You sit in your car, blinking over and over at those big red numbers blocking your entrance to the Staples Center parking lot, and you start thinking about what that $20 is buying you: The right to dock your car awhile so you can pay another $25 to $75 to watch 14 pairs of skaters perform the same set of moves, to the same two songs, for the next three hours.

Either that, or you can drive a couple more blocks and take that $20 to the Pantry for an early dinner. You’ll get change back too.

Not surprisingly, not many were buying into ice dance compulsories Wednesday. Word apparently leaked. A year ago, in Boston, the ice dance team of Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev won the U.S. championship. The team of Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto finished second. And those, ladies and gentlemen, are your 2002 gold and silver medalists. No need to make the trek up the 110. No need to pay the parking attendant $20. No need to actually hold the “competition,” as purists refer to it, at all.

Ice dance exists, not to surprise or excite, because the winners have been established months or sometimes years in advance, but, evidently, to give the Zamboni some practice before the women’s short program. In fact, the Zamboni break is where the ice dance really picks up steam. You wade through 14 renditions of the Ravensburger Waltz and you find yourself placing bets which side the rink the driver first picks to resurface, left or right.

Over the years, reporters covering ice dance have become as ritualistic as the event itself. Most of them stay in the workroom, pounding out their advance stories for the women’s short program and nodding when a publicity staffer hands them the final ice dance results. Those who actually venture out into the arena--they do so because they have a local ice dance team entered--come equipped, the same way ski writers arrive at the mountain with parkas and fur-lined gloves.

Vital equipment: Unread sections of today’s newspaper. Or yesterday’s. A crossword puzzle. A paperback novel. Magazines.

Did you know that Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio are the first Italian ice dancers to win a gold medal at both the European and World Championships, are known for their great speed and footwork and perform original dances that have been among the most authentically represented rhythms in recent years?

(That’s from “Blades On Ice” magazine.)

Did you know that accuracy, placement, style, unison, time and expression are the requirements ice dancers must observe when performing their compulsory routines?

(That’s from the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. 2001-2002 media guide.)

Did you know that “The Princess Diaries” just eclipsed “Rush Hour 2” as the No. 1 video rental in the country?

(That’s from “Entertainment Weekly.”)

Another good way to cover ice dance compulsories, I have found, is to take a walk around the concourse. Maybe pop into Fox Sports Sky Box and see how the Lakers are making out against Indiana.

Breaking news! The Sky Box is closed until Thursday. Tough break, sports fans.

Onto the food stands. Hmm, long lines. Lots of activity. Of course. The Ravensburger Waltz--sure-fire cause for the munchies.

A few feet away is a concession stand worker with time on his hands. He’s manning the figure skating souvenir kiosk. A big women’s handbag with a figure skating logo goes for $75. A small women’s handbag, with one extra strap, goes for $80. A hooded figure skating sweatshirt is listed for $50.

Conveniently located 30 feet away is an ATM.

I ask the young man behind the kiosk how business has been.

He shakes his head.

“Ice dance is not the most popular event,” he says. “It’ll pick up later tonight, when the pairs start. I guess each sport has its favorites.”

Above his head, a television monitor shows ice dancers going through the motions. The people milling around the lobby, heading for the pizza lines or the Laker souvenir stands, don’t even notice.

The man behind the kiosk shakes his head again.

“This is the only event where they leave the arena during the competition and don’t even watch it,” he says. “[Tuesday] night, with the men, no one was in the lobby.”

That’s because Timothy Goebel and Michael Weiss were on the ice, some of the time, spending much of it over the surface, spinning three times in the air and landing on a razor-thin blade of steel--or, in Weiss’ case, trying to spin four times in the air and landing on his pants.

Weiss, the 1999 and 2000 national champion and a 1998 Olympian, wound up fifth after Tuesday’s men’s short program, virtually eliminated from a return trip to the Winter Games two days before the start of the long program.

That’s something that would never happen in ice dance.

The top two ranked teams after Wednesday’s ice dance compulsories:

1. Lang and Tchernyshev.

2. Belbin and Agosto.

But you already knew that.