Canadian Championships: Welcome to the deep freeze
Winter has descended upon Calgary with a blast of Arctic air, but there should be plenty to warm the insides of skating fans here this weekend
CALGARY — You know that old sports phrase “the competition is heating up.” Given the icebox we’ve entered for the Canadian figure skating championships this week (and I’m talking about the conditions outside the rink, not the shivering inside of WinSport Arena), all I have to say is this …
I sure as hell hope so.
If you haven’t checked the weather forecast for Calgary this week, allow me to inform you a little bit this way. It’s minus-22 today in the Alberta city often known as Cowtown and you know what? That’s going to seem positively balmy by the time the last medals are handed out Saturday night.
Read a story last week (when I first caught wind of this Arctic blast of air descending upon our fair host city) that suggested this might be the coldest stretch of weather seen in these parts in 20 years. Hey, lucky us.
Now, I should have known what I was getting myself into covering this sport way back in 1992 (yes, I’m that old), when I attended my first Canadian championships in Moncton, New Brunswick. Damn, that one was cold, too (at least that’s what I remember). Cold outside, cold in the rink … heck, cold in the hotel room, too. But at least there weren’t any weather delays getting in or out of that friendly Maritime city (certainly nothing to match the dastardly winter storm that stranded us for two extra days back in 2019 in the Port City of Saint John, New Brunswick) and as I noted later on, it snowed for days on end the following week in Moncton (as in, a couple of feet of the white stuff). Lesson learned there: it’s never really as bad as it seems.
It’s a mindset I’m going to try to keep front and centre over the next few days, as I do my level best to enjoy the competition and the camaraderie at my favourite skating event of every year (annual reunion that I see it as). And there should be a number of interesting storylines to follow, although some of them a changed (in one case, rather dramatically) since I authored this column way back at the end of Grand Prix season.
We’ll start with these ones …
The ice dance event in Calgary is going to be … different
As those who follow this sport faithfully (and hopefully, take time to read this Substack. Hint, hint …) well know, Canada had half the ice dance entries at the Grand Prix Final in Beijing last month. And it was suggested in this space (and probably elsewhere) after that bit of history happened, things were setting up for one heck of an ice dance event at nationals.
Um, well, not so fast, my friends.
First came the news the Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha (and all that energy they bring) had withdrawn. The official word is that Lajoie is currently in Skate Canada’s concussion protocol and cannot compete here.
It is hardly the same story for defending champions Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen, pulled out of the competition in the wake of a USA Today report last week that Soerensen is under investigation by Canada’s Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC) in regard to allegations of sexual assault by an American skater. Here’s what Soerensen posted on Instagram about their decision not to compete this week.
Given those withdrawals, expect this week to be a coronation for Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, the reigning World bronze medallists who earned a medal of the same colour at the Grand Prix Final back in December. Mind you, the veteran skaters from Ice Dance Elite in Toronto would have been big favourites to win in Calgary this week anyways, so maybe we should all look at this instead as a chance for them to show us more of their boundless creativity on the ice. As the saying goes, that’s not nothing.
Based on experience alone, one would expect Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac to be the frontrunners for the silver medal spot (they were third at nationals a year ago in Oshawa, Ontario). But the battle for the bronze could be quite the duel between three teams — Molly Lanaghan-Dmitre Razgulajevs, Alicia Fabbri-Paul Ayer, and last year’s junior national champions, Nadiia Bashynska and Peter Beaumont. Maybe we’ll see some drama in this event after all. Just a different kind.
A season debut in the men’s event … finally?
Cross your fingers (and maybe your toes), but we think this is the weekend we finally get to see Roman Sadovsky compete this season. Assuming both he (and his skates) made it to Calgary this week.
We’ve detailed some of this previously, but Sadovsky had to skip Skate Canada International in October because of the lingering effects of an ankle injury he suffered during the summer. There were plans for him to get his competitive feet wet this season at a pair of Challenger Series events in Poland and Croatia, but travel issues scuttled both of those opportunities (he got to the event Poland, his skates didn’t). So here we are at the Canadian Championships, which is one helluva place to make your season debut.
We think. We hope. We’ll see later this week.
Hat trick time for Maddie?
Ever since the dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic, WinSport Arena — which is located in Canada Olympic Park, a legacy winter sports venue from the 1988 Calgary Games — has become a popular place for big events of many sporting stripes. Curling played an entire season’s worth of events here in 2021 (the Scotties Tournament of Hearts Canadian women’s championship is back at WinSport Arena next month). Hockey Canada has brought the world junior championship here. The world women’s hockey championship was played at this venue in 2021. And hey, it’s a great facility in many ways.
With the last thought in mind, this might be the week Maddie Schizas makes it three straight Canadian women’s titles — a hat trick of national crowns, if you will. And based on what we’ve seen this season, there’s a good chance we’ll see it this weekend. This event also represents another ‘home’ event for Calgary’s Kaiya Ruiter, who trains in this building full time and competed in the world junior championships here in March 2023 (she placed 10th in that elite field). She was the silver medallist in Oshawa last year.
Keep an eye on a couple of up-and-coming young skaters here: 15-year-old Hetty Shi, last year’s Canadian junior champion from Mississauga, Ontario, and Quebec’s Fee-Ann Landry, who won Skate Canada Challenge in Winnipeg. Both could be podium contenders in Calgary.
Juniors in the spotlight
The first few days of the Canadian championships are a chance for the country younger talents to get some of the spotlight in the same building in which the senior stars compete. And that’s what we had Wednesday, with champions declared in all four disciplines.
Terry Yu Tao Jin of Vancouver started the day off by winning the junior men’s title, moving up from fourth place after the short program. It was also a quantum leap from the seventh-place finish he earned a year ago in Oshawa.
The junior women’s title went to 14-year-old Lulu Lin of Mississauga, who had been ninth and eighth at nationals the previous two years. Lin moved up from third after the short program to seize the gold.
In junior pairs, the brilliant season continued for Winnipeg natives Ava Kemp and Yohnatan Elizarov, who went wire to wire to win their first national title in convincing fashion (they were silver medallists a year ago in this event). It was a golden conclusion to a season that also included gold at a Junior Grand Prix event in Poland, and silver at the Junior Grand Prix Final.
In junior ice dance, Scott Moir and the team at the Ice Academy of Montreal’s satellite school in London, Ontario, have a national champion in Layla Veillon and Alexander Brandys, who moved up from second place after the rhythm dance to edge Chloe Nguyen and Brendan Giang for the gold.