Battle of the Blades skates to a 2nd season

Battle of the Blades will be back for a second season, CBC Television announced Wednesday.

The series featuring world-class figure skaters coaching former NHL stars on how to figure skate will return in the fall of 2010.

The first 14-episode series was a hit with Canadians, with CBC reporting an audience of more than 1.7 million turning in for the one-hour finale on Monday. Tickets to see the skating live at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto also sold out every week.

Olympic gold medallist Jamie Salé and former Edmonton Oiler Craig Simpson won the first competition, earning $100,000 for their favourite charity, northern Alberta's Spinal Cord Injury Treatment Centre Society.

CLICK HERE to download the song featured in the finale as sung by Barb Underhill's daughter Sam Gaetz and Mark Masri, "Time".

"Syrup-sucking Canadian iceholes"

The city that will play host to long-track speedskating during the 2010 Winter Olympics has waded into a cross-border confrontation, offering satirical talk-show host Stephen Colbert a job for the Games — monitoring the ice time of the U.S. speedskating team.

Colbert, who recently announced he's sponsoring the cash-strapped U.S. speedskating team during the upcoming Vancouver Games, has condemned Canadians, saying they are denying the American squad ice time for training at the Olympic oval in Richmond, B.C.

On his popular TV show The Colbert Report, the comedian recently called Canadians "syrup-sucking Canadian iceholes" and urged his viewers to send in letters demanding the country cease its icehole-ish behaviour.

In response, City of Richmond spokesman Ted Townsend sent a letter of his own to Colbert's studios in New York, offering the former Daily Show correspondent an olive branch.

"We have always welcomed our friends from south of the border with open arms (well, except in 1812). In fact, we've always fondly considered you as our American 'cousins' and politely tolerated you, even when you were in an imperialistic mood."

Townsend wrote in the letter that international skaters have never been barred from the Olympic oval, though they have been asked to follow rules to get on the ice.

To show there are no hard feelings, Townsend, who calls himself "chief syrup sucker," has offered Colbert a position as ombudsman of treatment for U.S. speedskaters during the 2010 Games.