Discovered a new, favourite FS Commentator

In Praise of PJ Kwong's Commentary, whom I discovered while watching Winter Universiade on Eurosport Player, who did an absolutely fantastic job. Hope we can hear more of her commentary in Europe in the future. I've heard/read her blog/podcast in past seasons, but this was my first time hearing her Commentary, and I was hugely impressed. (I speak as someone who often finds FS Comms deeply irritating and usually prefer no commentary).

She did the entire games alone, and never ran out of interesting things to say. She was informative and technically enlightening on both Figure and Dance (I appreciate she was a Coach) and was respectful to all skaters, like Ted Barton, finding something positive to say, but also pointed out technical mistakes. Ofcourse, as a linguist, her pronunciations of names was wonderful - though she did say "You-ler" instead of "Oil-er" as Ted does for Euler.

PJ gave full introductions of each competitor, naming coaches, choreographers, before allowing the viewer to hear the music and enjoy the performance without talking all over it. She also has a pleasant sounding voice, which helps a lot, and isn't grating.

Most of all she was completely au fait with all the technical requirements and able to explain clearly what they are and recognize every movement and element. Something, I'm afraid, most of Eurosport's other English language commentators are increasingly unable to do, as they are often out of touch with current skating.

Respect PJ!

La Rhumba said:

In Praise of PJ Kwong's Commentary, whom I discovered while watching Winter Universiade on Eurosport Player, who did an absolutely fantastic job. Hope we can hear more of her commentary in Europe in the future. I've heard/read her blog/podcast in past seasons, but this was my first time hearing her Commentary, and I was hugely impressed. (I speak as someone who often finds FS Comms deeply irritating and usually prefer no commentary).

She did the entire games alone, and never ran out of interesting things to say. She was informative and technically enlightening on both Figure and Dance (I appreciate she was a Coach) and was respectful to all skaters, like Ted Barton, finding something positive to say, but also pointed out technical mistakes. Ofcourse, as a linguist, her pronunciations of names was wonderful - though she did say "You-ler" instead of "Oil-er" as Ted does for Euler.

PJ gave full introductions of each competitor, naming coaches, choreographers, before allowing the viewer to hear the music and enjoy the performance without talking all over it. She also has a pleasant sounding voice, which helps a lot, and isn't grating.

Most of all she was completely au fait with all the technical requirements and able to explain clearly what they are and recognize every movement and element. Something, I'm afraid, most of Eurosport's other English language commentators are increasingly unable to do, as they are often out of touch with current skating.

Respect PJ!

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I totally agree. Informative and technically enlightening as well as respectful to all skaters.

I remember her from watching Worlds 2012 on the CBC stream. Back then everything was more easy accessable - idk why she stopped commenting or if she really did. She's also the english-speaking announcer in the arena at the Vancouver & PyeongChang Olympics (and other big competitions), so I believe she really studies the pronounciation of the names.

MaiKatze said:

I remember her from watching Worlds 2012 on the CBC stream. Back then everything was more easy accessable - idk why she stopped commenting or if she really did. She's also the english-speaking announcer in the arena at the Vancouver & PyeongChang Olympics (and other big competitions), so I believe she really studies the pronounciation of the names.

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I'm sure I heard PJ's voice doing the English Announcements in the Stadiums during the Football World Cup in Russia last Summer too!

I had heard PJ commentating before, but it was so long ago that I didn't actually recognise that it was her at first during the Universiade Pairs SP. Somebody else pointed it out to me afterwards.

I agree with everything you say about her – she was great! It just showed how wasted her talent is doing rink-side announcing.

Canada really does have some great commentators at the moment, between PJ and Ted. And, to extend what you said about PJ to Ted as well, they are both very pleasant to listen to.

I am currently in a dilemma. I am planning on watching the Men's FS tomorrow, and I really don't know which coverage to watch. PJ on the World Feed, or Simon Reed and Louise Walden on Eurosport?

I have always loved the British Eurosport guys, but I unfortunately have to agree with you – they are not as good as they used to be. And I feel really bad saying this because she really does know what she is talking about, but I am finding that Louise Walden's voice is too sharp for my taste in commentary.

All this meant that when I opted to watch Eurosport's coverage of the Pairs FS when it was LIVE last week, I was kinda missing PJ.

So, I am actually leaning towards watching the World Feed for the Men's FS.

Actually, I have been watching the World Feed coverage for the other sports I am following from the Universiade, for the simple reason that they all started too early in the morning for Eurosport to broadcast them LIVE, and so the TV coverage is only highlights.

Here is the summary of the commentary:


I always admire Simon Golding. He may be a general sport commentator, but he clearly does a lot of research before commentating on anything. Remember how good he was commentating on figure skating for the World Feed at the last Youth Olympics?

And then you compare that to the other general sports commentator from America that we had during the last Universiade. He knew absolutely nothing about figure skating!

But, much as I like Simon, the Eurosport highlights are cut up so much that it is impractical to piece them together with the World Feed. So, I am just watching the full coverage.

CaroLiza_fan

La Rhumba said:

I'm sure I heard PJ's voice doing the English Announcements in the Stadiums during the Football World Cup in Russia last Summer too!

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Yes, I remember her posting about it on Facebook. Because I remember going "Huh?!"

By the way, she is covering the Special Olympics in Abu Dhabi this week.

CaroLiza_fan

La Rhumba said:

In Praise of PJ Kwong's Commentary, whom I discovered while watching Winter Universiade on Eurosport Player, who did an absolutely fantastic job. Hope we can hear more of her commentary in Europe in the future. I've heard/read her blog/podcast in past seasons, but this was my first time hearing her Commentary, and I was hugely impressed. (I speak as someone who often finds FS Comms deeply irritating and usually prefer no commentary).

She did the entire games alone, and never ran out of interesting things to say. She was informative and technically enlightening on both Figure and Dance (I appreciate she was a Coach) and was respectful to all skaters, like Ted Barton, finding something positive to say, but also pointed out technical mistakes. Ofcourse, as a linguist, her pronunciations of names was wonderful - though she did say "You-ler" instead of "Oil-er" as Ted does for Euler.

PJ gave full introductions of each competitor, naming coaches, choreographers, before allowing the viewer to hear the music and enjoy the performance without talking all over it. She also has a pleasant sounding voice, which helps a lot, and isn't grating.

Most of all she was completely au fait with all the technical requirements and able to explain clearly what they are and recognize every movement and element. Something, I'm afraid, most of Eurosport's other English language commentators are increasingly unable to do, as they are often out of touch with current skating.

Respect PJ!

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Thank you so much for this thread! When I saw the title, I was hoping it would be about Winter Universiade because I have been wondering who the commentator is! I like her quite a bit and agreed with what you and the other posters said. She sounded vaguely familiar -- and a little bit like Tracy Wilson -- but I just couldn't place her. I checked out the Synchro coverage, and she did that, too! i'm not very familiar with Synchro, and I really appreciated her commentary, just like I did for Dance and Pairs, which I know much more about (although still lots to learn LOL). I'm watching the Men's coverage now, and I'll enjoy it even more because I won't be struggling to figure out who the commentator is. LOL

PJ Kwong. Love her.
She has actually been an on and off commentator for CBC for a while.
She did all the commentary for the former CBC Bold channel, before the time of livestream.
I remember her mainly commentating 2010 four continents.

La Rhumba said:

PJ gave full introductions of each competitor, naming coaches, choreographers, before allowing the viewer to hear the music and enjoy the performance without talking all over it. She also has a pleasant sounding voice, which helps a lot, and isn't grating.

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Yes, this is what I appreciated the most. She gave factual information, didn't talk through the performance, and named all elements for those of us who cannot recognize them. I'd appreciate that for commented streams without the score/element info box. She was also easy to understand: I've been watching the archived Universiade Ladies LP stream with my mum whose English is so-so, and even she can understand Kwong. Good job by Kwong, I hope to hear more from her!

Please excuse my tech ignorance, but can someone tell me how I can access the "World Feed"? I have a paid subscription to Eurosport (from the UK), if this helps. Thanks for any help.

Ruthypegs said:

Please excuse my tech ignorance, but can someone tell me how I can access the "World Feed"? I have a paid subscription to Eurosport (from the UK), if this helps. Thanks for any help.

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You'll need to subscribe to Eurosport Player - I assume your Eurosport subscription is the TV channels via Sky or VirginMedia or BTTV or something like that.

There's actually an offer on at the moment £19.99 for the full year, ends March 17th.

Allows you to watch all world feeds from things like GPs, Championships and odd things like Winter Universiade. Hence can watch all skaters including early ones from all disciplines. Don't get commentary though except on rare occasions, Winter Universiade was an exception, as was Olympics.

World feeds are stored for a month afterwards on their On Demand section (Winter Universiade still available), TV programmes just for a week.

IMO a bit of a no-brainer for a dedicated fan - picture quality is excellent even with my rubbish internet connection.

Ruthypegs said:

Please excuse my tech ignorance, but can someone tell me how I can access the "World Feed"? I have a paid subscription to Eurosport (from the UK), if this helps. Thanks for any help.

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As Miller has said, for the events that Eurosport have the UK and Ireland rights to, you can watch the raw World Feed coverage on the Eurosport Player. However, the archived videos of the additional streams only remain up for 30 days after they were first broadcast (for things that were broadcast on Eurosport 1 or Eurosport 2, it is even worse - only 7 days).

HOWEVER, you can also get the World Feed coverage for free elsewhere. And these videos do not expire after 30 days.

For the Universiade, you can watch the archived World Feed livestreams with FISU's own commentary for free on FISU's channel on Livestream.com:

https://livestream.com/fisu

For ISU events (such as Junior Worlds), you can watch the archived World Feed livestreams with no commentary for free on the ISU's channel on Eurovision Sports:

https://www.eurovisionsports.tv/isu/figure-skating/

Incidentally, if you like Biathlon, you can watch the archived World Feed livestreams with the same commentary as British Eurosport for free on the IBU channel on Eurovision Sports:

https://www.eurovisionsports.tv/ibu/

Hope this helps

CaroLiza_fan

Ruthypegs said:

Please excuse my tech ignorance, but can someone tell me how I can access the "World Feed"? I have a paid subscription to Eurosport (from the UK), if this helps. Thanks for any help.

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Thanks so much to Miller above who gave all the details.

I had the TV Eurosport coverage for decades via the Astra satellite. When digital came in, I lost it, and began buying monthly subscriptions to watch on my computer during the Skating season, then realised an annual subscription worked out better value for money, and I was lucky enough to get deals on the past 2 Black Fridays for renewing my annual subscription. As Miller says, you get the full broadcast of all the major events, much more than is shown on the TV. During Euros I was enjoying no Commentary, went to Chris and Nicky for the Free Dance, was so disgusted as they criticised Fear & Gibson, I returned to no commentary. It's great to have that option, but also nice to find a new commentator who is fabulous like PJ.

Thank you, Miller and Caroliza for the explanation - I'm on the Eurosport Player subscription as I don't have a TV, so watch through my computer. I didn't until now know the reason why certain programmes had an "E2" label, or why there were seemingly two identical versions of the same programme, so your comments have clarified this. Caroliza Fan mentioned watching the world stream tomorrow (today) but I don't see any skating coverage on Eurosport until the World Champs - am I missing something?

Thanks again everyone for taking the time to help me out!

Ruthypegs said:

Thank you, Miller and Caroliza for the explanation - I'm on the Eurosport Player subscription as I don't have a TV, so watch through my computer. I didn't until now know the reason why certain programmes had an "E2" label, or why there were seemingly two identical versions of the same programme, so your comments have clarified this. Caroliza Fan mentioned watching the world stream tomorrow (today) but I don't see any skating coverage on Eurosport until the World Champs - am I missing something?

Thanks again everyone for taking the time to help me out!

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Ah.

What I meant was that I was going to watch the archived video of the Men's FS from the Universiade today, as I didn't get watching it last week because I decided to watch the Short Dance from Junior Worlds LIVE instead. And I was planning to watch it today as the Eurosport 2 coverage expires from the On Demand service tomorrow, and I don't want to take any chances of it disappearing on me!

But, since I've decided to watch the World Feed with PJ Kwong's commentary instead, I'm not working against that deadline any more. (It is available for another 3 weeks on the Eurosport Player, and forever on the FISU channel on Livestream.com)

So no, you're not missing something.

Sorry about the confusion.

CaroLiza_fan