January 14, 2010

Since I made this a little bit late, here are more of Evan's blogs, on his site, but just wanted to share them over here. :)

January 14, 2010

Ready for the competition in Spokane

Hi everyone.

I meant to check in earlier to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year but as you can imagine, things have been busy for me. Hope that everyone had a good holiday and 2010 is treating you well. Thank you all, especially the ELFFs, for all of the cards and packages. It's was nice of you to remember me.

I am writing to you from my hotel Spokane, Wash., where I am competing this weekend at the 2010 AT&T U.S. Championships, which will help decide the U.S. Olympic Team. I just wrapped up my second official practice at Spokane Arena, which went really well like the first one Wednesday, and the short program draw. I'm skating in a good position tomorrow, last in the third of four warm ups.

I have made a few changes to my programs since winning the Grand Prix Final in December. Although I have performed well without the quad, I decided to put it back in to the free skate because if I make the Olympic team, I know I'll need the quad in Vancouver. I'm pretty confident with the changes but if they don't work out the way that Frank, Lori and I wanted, I'd rather find out in Spokane than later on.

So far, Spokane has been just as amazing as it was when nationals was here in 2007. The city has really rolled out the red carpet again for nationals. Everyone is so friendly. Everywhere I go, people are wishing me "good luck" and asking about my skating. It's really nice to be someplace where people are so interested in our sport.

I can't wait to meet everyone that has come out to support me in Spokane. If you're going to the pairs short program at the Spokane Arena on Saturday morning, stop by the AT&T booth before it starts. I'll be doing an autograph signing from 10-11 a.m.

If you weren't able to make it out to Spokane, I hope that you'll watch on NBC and Universal Sports. (A nationals TV schedule is posted on the front page of my Web site.) I promise, you're not going to want to miss this one. There are so many talented men here, anything can happen.

I probably won't have a chance to write another blog while I am here but I'll be using my Facebook pageto keep all of you updated with what's going on here. Hopefully I'll have some good news to share in the next few days. Stay tuned.

Thank you for all of your support this season. It's been so hectic for me but your encouragement has definitely made everything a lot easier. All of the letters and e-mails are great. I don't always have the time to write back but I just want you to know, I really appreciate you reaching out to me. I am so thankful for everything that you guys do for me.