One Step Closer: AIDS figure skating fundraiser today in NYC featuring Oksana Baiul, Tai Babilonia, Elaine Zayak and many others

There's going to be a terrific skating exhibition today at 2:45 p.m. at Lasker Rink in Central Park, NYC. Produced by Tim David, an adult competitive skater and director of the Lasker Rink Skating School, the show is called One Step Closer and all proceeds will go to the AIDS Resource Foundation for Children. Tim is a great guy and with Brian Mancuso, Executive Director of One Step Closer, they are trying to improve the lives of children and families living with AIDS and HIV, well, one step at a time.

Among the folks who will be either speaking or skating are Oksana Baiul, Tai Babilonia, Elaine Zayak, Angela Maxwell, Parker Pennington, Lucinda Ruh, and Melissa Bulanhagui.

(Visit One Step Closer on Facebook here.)

Watching the ladies skate on NBC? Join us for a live chat beginning at 9 p.m. EST

Looks like there will be a good night of skating, with Alissa, Rachael and Caroline sure to make things competitive in the long program, which begins at 9 p.m. EST on NBC. If you want to share your views in realtime, saunter on over to the Lifeskate Network, where we will have a live chat beginning at 9 p.m. EST. I'll be there, with one eye on the TV and one eye on the laptop.

You can access the chat page here or if you want to check out some of the great conversations that fans have been having the past few days (and add your own comments), click here. Just a reminder that you have to sign up with Ning networks if you're not already registered (it's free and takes 1 minute) in order to participate.

Voice your opinions about U.S. Nationals

Figure skating fans are an opinionated bunch, and the crush of activity around U.S. Nationals and Worlds only serves to intensify the conversations. As part of our expanded hourly coverage of the results from Cleveland, we have launched the Lifeskate Network this week to give fans a place to sound off and chat with one another in real time about Nationals, post messages on forums, and create their own skating pages. Based on technology from Ning.com, which is used by more than 10 million people worldwide, the Lifeskate Network provides the most advanced figure skating forums on the web. The Network is brand new, so drop by and say hi.

Technical difficulties

As New York City prepares to get hit with our first snowstorm of the year, it appears that the bad weather has extended to cyberspace. We're having video problems this morning that are causing some of our video segments not to play properly. Our crack team is diligently working on the issue and we hope to have things back to working order within a few hours. Our video archives page, however, appears to be working OK, so if there's a piece you'd like to see, you can view it there. Thanks for your patience!

Skate America 2008 live on Universal Sports channel

I have channel 162? Imagine that! That's the Universal Sports channel where I live that will provide coverage of Skate America. I'm one of those TV watchers that grew up with five channels, so with the advent of cable and hundreds of channels available to me, you know rest, I still watch only five channels. Now I'll watch six.

I was planning on watching the competition on icenetwork.com, but hey, it's always nice to have another option. The times are a little strange (12-2 a.m. for men's free skate? For Johnny, I'll do it!), but that's why we have TiVo. I like watching skating with a group of friends, with several tubs of popcorn on hand, so I wasn't sure how we were going to crowd around my computer screen (as large as it is). Universal Sports answered that question for me.

Areas that Universal Sports channel is currently up on include New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Hartford, San Diego, Las Vegas, Omaha, Albany, and Reno. I hope you guys found the channel -- It only took me 25 minutes yesterday, and eureka! Snowboarding from 2007 was on.

Skate America coverage details are below (Note: All times are ET):

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24 – UNIVERSAL SPORTS CHANNEL
6-7:30 p.m. - Ice Dancing Compulsories
10:30-11:30 p.m. - Pairs Short Program
11:30 p.m. - 1:30 a.m. - Men's Short Program

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 - UNIVERSAL SPORTS CHANNEL
5-6:30 p.m. - Ice Dancing Original Dance
6:30 - 8:30 p.m. - Pairs Free Skate
10:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m. - Ladies Short Program
12:00 - 2 a.m. - Men's Free Skate

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26 - UNIVERSAL SPORTS CHANNEL
2-3:30 p.m. - Ice Dancing Free Dance

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26 – "REGULAR" NBC CHANNEL
4-6 p.m. – Ladies Free Skate (encore performance on Universal Sports Channel 7-9 p.m.)