Battle of the Blades III Review: Tessa and David crowned champion

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Tue Nov 15 02:14am EST

Battle of the Blades III Review: Tessa and David crowned champion

Battle of the Blades III Review: Tessa and David crowned champion It took three seasons for Battle of the Blades to feature its first female hockey player. It took substantially less time to crown one champion, as Tessa Bonhomme and her partner, David Pelletier, took home the BotB trophy as the big winners of Season three.

Bryan Berard (notes) and Marie-France Dubreil were the runners up, while Tanith Belbin and Boyd Devereaux (notes) finished third.

Tessa and David -- Olympic gold medallists, the both of them -- took home the other prize, too: $100,000 towards their charities, the CIBC Run for the Cure and Ronald McDonald House.

And that's what Battle of the Blades was really all about, a fact that the show made absolutely clear during tonight's finale. The results themselves only took up the final five minutes of the program; the rest of the telecast featured a closer look at the causes, motivations, and persons each of the show's contestants skated for.

It was difficult not to admire and be inspired by the work the contestants put in throughout this competition for their charities.

As a half hour of television, however, it was much less inspiring. I've been slagging this show from the get-go, primarily it's never been good, and tonight's finale was just as excruciating as I expected it to be.

The synchronized skate in the middle, which featured all 8 of the program's hockey players-turned-figure skaters doing listless semicircles behind Kurt Browning while Peter Gabriel droned "Don't Give Up" for what felt like ten minutes, was mind-numbing. The announcement of the winner was the least suspenseful thing the show has done to date. And heck, Kurt Browning's microphone didn't even work during the signoff.

So yeah, the show was still bad.

But it did a lot of good.

That's it for Puck Daddy's coverage of Battle of the Blades. I hope you enjoyed reading a great deal more than I enjoyed watching.