Yuzuru Hanyu is My Emergency Contact

It’s official. Canada hates me.

Author’s Note: This was written in September of 2018. As much as I wish it was accurate to say that Yuzu is going to be skating in the Autumn Classic in 8 days, we all know that’s not the case. 頑張って, Fanyus!

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Not gonna lie. I don’t feel a whole lot of love toward it right now either. And I’m not alone. You know who else hates Canada right now? Everyone not living in it. Well, I should say, every Yuzu fan not living in it. In a mere eight days, our beloved Yuzu is going to skate in the Autumn Classic in Canada. This is his first competition since winning his 2nd Olympic gold medal, and his first competition since his rehabilitation from a career threatening injury. It’s the competition where he reveals his new programs; the competition where he reveals his new costumes; and, most importantly, the competition where he reveals his NEW HAIR. So what did Canada do? In all their North American wisdom, they said, “You know what? Our live stream of the competition will only work for people living in Canada…eh?” It was the shot heard round the Fanyu world. I could physically feel the heart dropping emptiness as the disappointing news swept through the Fanyuniverse. O, Canada. What have you done?  

In typical Fanyu fashion, there was a natural progression to our reactions:

Phase 1: Emoji Avalanche. Oh, did the exclamation point and crying face emojis roll in. Everyone was too stunned to actually use words to react to this deathblow. It was the best we could do to get one shaky finger to hit the right reaction. Even still, a few of us accidentally hit the dumpling emoji.

Phase 2: Rage. Once we got our bearings, we had to find someone to blame. And, boy, did we. Crying faces (and rogue dumplings) rapidly started turning into angry faces and words started to find their way off keyboards. “Outrageous!” “Illogical!” “SAVAGE!” I’m pretty sure I learned several new expletives in other languages, but my favorite reaction was one, simple, agonized, “Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy????????????????” I like to imagine that one came from Yuzu…sitting outside the Cricket Club taking a break and eating McNuggets while checking Facebook on his iPhone…and watching the 可愛い [cute] bees.

Phase 3: Deployment. Suddenly, the Fanyu Facebook wall started to read like the Geek Squad’s. The technical jargon was flying. VPN, proxy server, Chrome extension, hotspot shield (I think Chansung may need to  look into one of those if he ever gets within 1000 feet of my sister). Fanyus started tagging every techie they’ve ever known…all accompanied by one word: “HELP.” I imagine hundreds of lonely nerd boys round the world sitting in their basements playing World of Warcraft, suddenly having IMs pop up from girls they haven’t heard from since third grade. It may have been a dark day for the Fanyus, but boy did the IT nerds level up! (Don’t get me wrong. I love me some techies. It’s just a trope. I’m running with it.) I started to ask myself if any of us are truly tech-savvy enough to pull this off.  We would need someone super smart with some mad data skills and a serious dedication to figure skating…who lives in Canada. And the only person who came to my mind was going to be busy that day…

…revealing his new programs, new costumes and new hair.  

Taking a moment to step outside of the disappointment cloud, I will acknowledge that this news could have been worse. It wasn’t that Yuzu is retiring. It wasn’t that Yuzu was hurt again (I’m not sure how the Fanyus handled the Yuzu-on-crutches-footage when that happened. I’m glad I missed that era.) It wasn’t that Pooh-san had been kidnapped. It wasn’t even that Yuzu’s costume is going to be (yet again) blue. [Spoiler Alert: IT WAS!] Granted, we won’t know that as soon as we had expected. ありがとう、カナダ [Thank you, Canada.] So I’m trying to be realistic about how devastating a few hour longer wait really is. But we’ve seen how good I am at being realistic…so…

My only hope is Japan. (Sorry, Obi.) Are you actually telling me that no one in Japan gets to see Yuzu’s season premiere live? Every single person in that country (except for maybe Shoma Uno’s mother) has been living for this moment since Yuzu stepped off the podium in February. The news hit around 10 PM Eastern time last night. That means change the PM, add the one and change the day…it was 11 AM in Japan…the next day. Come on, Future Japan. It is now 10 AM Eastern time — 11 PM in Japan. They have had a full day to figure out a plan. Whether that plan is how to broadcast Yuzu’s performance live…or simply “borrow” Canada for the weekend…we’re yet to see.

At this point, as long as that plan enables me to see if Yuzu combs his hair to the side for his free program this season, I really don’t care.