The Olympic team figure-skating event debuts: could be a free-for-all

If the Summer Olympics is trying to cut down on the number of events, it's precisely the opposite at the Winter Games, where far fewer sports are on display.

Hence, the figure-skating team event, which in its debut incarnation could end up a combination of tag-team wrestling and a supermarket dash, all culminating in a gold medal.

But hey, a medal's a medal, right? And fans loooove their figure skating. The more, the better.

This competition gets under way before they even light the Olympic flame - i.e. Thursday (men's short program at 10:30 a.m. ET, pairs at 12:10 p.m. ET), and ends Sunday.

Many countries are sending more than one singles or pairs/dance skate team to the Games, but they only have to announce which ones will be participating by 10 a.m. the day before the event.

So on Wednesday, Canada announced that Patrick Chan would be skating the men's short program on Thursday, and Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford will skate the pairs short program.

The women's and ice dance short program goes Saturday, so those nominees won't be announced until Friday morning, Sochi time.

These events also have team captains, which is another new concept. For Canada, it will be

Vancouver champion ice dancer Scott Moir. Not to be left out, partner Tessa Virtue gets to be assistant team captain, in charge of Kleenex and skate guards.

But here's where everyone could get confused, especially the viewing public. A country can substitute in another skater or pair if it makes it to the final five. Many viewers, unused to the concept of pulling for a country rather than an individual skater, might be confused and even disappointed if their favorites are M.I.A. for the final.

But they can only do it in two of the disciplines, which seems a little arbitrary.

Freestyle skiing is the only other discipline to hold events Thursday. Before the Opening ceremonies, it might seem as though it's not even truly the Olympics yet.

The pairs start their actual competition two days after the final, the men three days. Certainly it remains to be seen what impact it might have on those. They could be awfully flat.

The adrenaline of going for gold, and the new emotion of skating as part of a team – look for plenty of camera shots of fist-pumping teammates – is a completely new wrinkle for athletes who have long been used to doing things a certain way. The same way.

It runs counter to all those long-standing, traditional mores like "peaking for the right moment" and "saving it all for that one performance." The notion that skaters will use this event as a warmup for their individual events is an interesting one, but with gold on the

line, Olympic costumes donned, and a far larger crowd than would be the case on the practice rink, can that really happen?

Another thing: how many of their toughest elements will the skaters leave out, for fear of falling on them in competition so soon before their individual events? Conversely, how many might go for it, adding extra-tough elements they might not attempt in their own events where the scoring system rewards consistency and volume?

What will the fallout be if a skater gets injured on the ice, just a few days before the most important events of their careers?

And where are they going to put all of their fur-clad coaches? This is going to be one huge kiss-and-cry area.

There's no doubt Canada has a good shot at the gold in this one, being strong across all the disciplines. And only 10 teams will take part, with three medals on the line for the five that make the finals.

Even the scoring system, which is sort of a hybrid of new-school and old-school, will be interesting. There will be short and free programs in each of the five skating disciplines, and they'll use the regular scoring system. But then, the top five teams will advance by where they rank in the final tally, not the actual scores. And again in the final phase, the five finalist teams and medal winners will also be determined by those rankings.

Chan will skate second-to-last in the men's short, which also includes a first look at Russian Evgeny Plyushchenko. Duhamel and Radford will skate eighth out of 10.

It could be a whole lot of fun. It also could be one hot mess.