Joannie Rochette opens (Twitter) mouth, inserts big, white boot (updated)

Retired figure skater Joannie Rochette, working for the CBC in Sochi, sent Twitter abuzz for a brief moment Friday with her Tweet in the aftermath of countryman Patrick Chan's failure to grasp the men's figure-skating gold.

She backtracked immediately, of course, pledging her eternal support and undying love for her fallen camarade.

There's always a danger in people attempting to be clever. And Rochette's twist on a very common Québécois play on words went over like a leaden skate blade.

Her English version ended up being deleted. But here's a translation:

"He had the gold on a silver platter. He took the platter."

If she were of a mind to be catty, Rochette has some cred to back up the words. At the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, she was skating under incredible duress, her 55-year-old mother having died of a sudden heart attack two days before the short program, thousands of kilometres away in Île Dupas, Qué.

With all that weighing on her heart, Rochette took the bronze medal in the ladies' event – overachieving where Chan underachieved Friday night – and becoming one of the most heartfelt stories of the Games.

And in her first Olympic appearance in Torino in 2006, she skated two terrific programs, finishing fifth overall.

Still, we couldn't let the opportunity pass by without pointing out that Rochette herself has been there, done that.

Here she is during the long program at the 2006 world championships, with home-ice advantage at in Calgary. The leader after the qualifying round, Rochette finished eighth in the long program, seventh overall after doing this, twice.

Here she is during the Canadian championships in 2010:

So she knows it happens.

(A photo originally in this space showing a fallen Rochette on the ice during an exhibition in 2008 was, in fact, a photo of Rochette getting back up after a planned element, a split. Yahoo! Sports Canada regrets the error).

Rochette truly still doesn't seem to think she typed anything wrong, that it was just a commonly-used expression and meant nothing by it.

Then she asked her francophone Twitter followers to try to "explain it to the English people."

But they still weren't buying it. Twitter is not a medium for subtlety or clever word play, partly because there's no "I'm just being witty" font.

Later, at 2:19 a.m. Sochi time, Rochette returned to Twitter to let all know that she'd spoken to Chan, and that he wasn't offended.

Then, about 6:30 a.m., she posted this pic - in both official languages. All is well.