Twizzles, a fall and the first elimination in Battle's Episode 2

For the Battle of the Blades competitors, Week 2 was where the first elimination of one of the seven competing teams was going to happen. In other words, things were about to get serious.

World ice dance medallist Andrew Poje and partner and Olympic champion Natalie Spooner were great in the season opener a week ago, but would it be enough after the fans at home voted online? 

"There are so many unknowns in this whole world," said Poje, "I am so comfortable to be in figure skates performing, but this is completely foreign to my partner."

Not only do the skaters have to learn to skate together, they have to do so at the highest level in order to be competitive. 

Coach Paul Martini has been turning hockey players into figure skaters and solo skaters into teams. It's an interesting and impressive transformation which Martini says — with tongue-in-cheek — that his job is "keeping them alive." On a more serious note, "If [the hockey players] have a previous athletic background, they know their bodies very well and it's just a matter of refining their skill sets," said Martini. 

As the teams hit the ice for the show, it was clear that the name of the game this week was going to be 'high risk elements.' Amanda Evora, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Vanessa James and their partners were all going to attempt to throw double flips in their programs. "When it comes down to it, everything is ramped up in this process as far as learning the pair moves," said Evora. "It wasn't until I was already in week seven with my former partner that we tried a throw, and here we are after only five weeks of skating together trying the same thing."

This was the first week in competition for Violetta Afanasieva and P.J. Stock. Stock was a last-minute replacement for injured competitor-turned-Blades-judge Colby Armstrong. Due to his late arrival to training, Afanasieva and Stock were granted an extra week to catch up. 

The familiarity that Afanasieva and Stock have from being paired in Season 2, has helped them get up to speed quite quickly. "I didn't have to start from the beginning with someone new. We were already friends and that was very helpful," said Afanasieva. As for hopes for their debut? "I think that to breathe and get through the choreography would be our goal this week," Afanasieva continued. They skated first and their performance was a solid start to the competition.

World ice dance medallist Kaitlyn Weaver defined success as: "Having a blast on the ice. This program was built to make people laugh. It starts with us." For the second week in a row, Weaver and Sheldon Kennedy earned a standing ovation for an energetic and complex program including four challenging twizzles.

This commitment to solid pair skating was on full display in the battle to remain in the competition. The bottom two teams based on online votes and judges' scores were Amanda Evora with Colton Orr and Amanda Kessel with Eric Radford. The judges' scores for their performances would determine who stayed and who went home. There is no doubt based on the pairs' skates and the comments from the judges that it was a close call. Very close.  

Coming into this week's competition, Radford was clear about his team's goal. "For starters, the goal is always to have fun and to show improvement from last week. We have been working on Amanda's power and posture and we hope that people will notice."

In the final analysis, even with a fall on the landing of their throw double flip, it was the power of Evora and Orr that tipped the scales in their favour.

Host Ron MacLean has captured the spirit of Battle of the Blades perfectly. "This sounds so heavy, but sport has the chance to create more good intention in the world and can bring a community together."  

I can't wait to see where this community lands next week!

Pj Kwong has been writing, doing social media and occasional commentary for CBC Sports since 2006 with a focus on figure skating. Along with Kurt Browning and Carol Lane, she has been one of the voices in the Behind the Boards podcasts and Facebook Lives. She is an author and a former figure skating coach with 25+ years experience who makes her home in Toronto.