By Sandra Loosemore
SportsLine Sports Writer

Another season of skating has come to a close, and it's time for fans and journalists alike to make lists of the best and worst of the year. So, here are one observer's nominations:

Best news of the year

So much for the theory put forward by many kibbitzers that youth is everything in women's skating. After facing questions all season long about whether she was over the hill at the ripe old age of 18, Michelle Kwan was defeated at the World Championships -- not by some 13-year-old pre-pubescent, but by the 26-year-old veteran Maria Butyrskaya, now the oldest ladies' world champion in history. Don't write off Kwan just yet, either; she has another two Olympiads before she catches up to Butyrskaya's record.

More good news

Robin Cousins, producer of two of the better made-for-TV skating specials this past season -- Improv Ice and A Skaters' Tribute to Broadway -- has announced plans for at least four more specials next season. Cousins deserves credit not only for coming up with more creative concepts for TV skating events than the ubiquitous cheesy pro competitions, but also for having the business know-how to sell his ideas to the networks.

Worst news of the year

It's bad news for the athletes when the ISU establishes such an ambitious schedule of competitions that the athletes have to be bullied and threatened into participating in them.

It was obvious early on that the ISU's new series of lightweight pro-am or "open" competitions was going to be in direct competition for both skaters and TV contracts with the established Grand Prix series of serious competitions held under Olympic-style rules. The whole mess culminated in a strange brouhaha in which the ISU unsuccessfully attempted to blackmail Michelle Kwan into participating in both series, paradoxically by banning her from the one Grand Prix event she attempted to enter.

For next season, the ISU has tightened the thumbscrews on the athletes even further by announcing a new requirement that all seeded skaters must participate in at least two Grand Prix events to be eligible to compete in any of the more lucrative open competitions. Kwan, however, might get the last laugh once again: she plans to attend UCLA in the fall, and isn't likely to attempt a full competition schedule at the same time.

More bad news

The ISU also blew its chance to impose some order on the world of professional competitions. It abandoned the rules they had specifically created for open competitions and instead sanctioned events with a bewildering variety of formats and rules, some of which were at least as hokey as any of the unsanctioned pro competitions of the past. Depending on the event, skaters had to perform one, two, or three programs, some of which were limited or restricted in jump content and some which were not.

At some events the rules were vague enough to permit some eligible skaters to use their regular ISU-regulation short program while others were using their regular competitive long program. That's probably not what the promoters or the ISU originally had in mind in trying to establish a separate circuit of "artistic" competitions. It's not surprising that skaters and fans alike were put off by the resulting confusion.

Most tasteless off-ice episode of the year

Fans soured on Alexander Zhulin and Pasha Grishuk when they rehashed tales of their extramarital affair.(Allsport)

Before last December's World Pros competition, ice dancers Pasha Grishuk and Alexander Zhulin put together a press release retelling the soap opera of their extramarital affair of some years back, "when youth hormones were raging."

The affair eventually led to the demise of their previous partnerships as well as of Zhulin's marriage.

Raging hormones apparently didn't do much to help their skating -- they finished last at this event -- and their publicity scheme also backfired by alienating audiences who were turned off by the whole sordid business.

Grishuk and Zhulin have since ended their on-ice partnership. Does anybody care what they do off the ice?

Most tasteless on-ice episode of the year

Whoever came up with the idea of pairing 16-year-old Tara Lipinski with 32-year-old Kurt Browning for a steamy duet in Lipinski's made-for-TV special? The show otherwise seemed to be aimed at an audience of teenyboppers, as Lipinski's handlers continue to market her in a way that capitalizes on her youth and often seems to present her as being even younger than she actually is.

Lipinski and Browning are both fine skaters on their own, but this pairing had a serious "yuck" factor. Surely they could find Lipinski a more age-appropriate partner than a grown man twice her age -- or, better yet, pick program themes more suitable for a teen-ager.

Three-cheers award

To Brian Orser, for turning in some of the best skating of his long pro career this season. Orser had the guts to take on skaters many years his junior, with far more jumps in their arsenals, and competed with them as an equal.

Worst news for couch-potato fans

American fans had to suffer through a season in which only one of the six international Grand Prix competitions received any coverage at all on television in this country.

Best news for couch-potato fans

ABC has picked up the broadcast contract for the entire Grand Prix series for the next five years. Hallelujah!

And finally ...

Here are some choices for the best programs and performances that were never seen on U.S. television this year, in no particular order:

JUSTIN DILLON'S FREE SKATE at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, featuring seven clean triple jumps and the best layback spin of any male skater, combined with engaging choreography and presentation.

BRITTNEY McCONN'S FREE SKATE, also from the U.S. championships. McConn had had a dismal week in Salt Lake City, with bad practices and a disastrous short program with two falls. Somehow, she managed to pull off a clean free skate with five triples, including the lutz that had been giving her particular trouble all week long. Her joyous reaction at the end of the program was priceless.

JAMIE SILVERSTEIN AND JUSTIN PEKAREK'S waltz original dance. These junior-level skaters had what might have been the best-constructed waltz of any dance team -- junior or senior -- this past season. It had striking choreography with changes in tempo, level, and intensity; and they delivered it beautifully.

YUKA SATO AND JASON DUNGJEN'S debut as a pairs team. Sato was the 1994 world champion in ladies' singles, and Dungjen was a two-time U.S. champion in pairs with his former partner Kyoko Ina. Now Dungjen has taught Sato pairs skills, and she has taught him to improve his presentation and line, and together they make a delightful team.

EMANUEL SANDHU'S FREE SKATE from Trophee Lalique. Sandhu, an elegant, classical stylist who has twice finished runner-up in the Canadian championships, unleashed an amazing program with nine triple jumps to claim his first medal at an international competition in France last fall.