'I'm grateful for every opportunity'
You become a Canadian champion, you get lots of perks. Kaiya Ruiter has enjoyed plenty of them, but now it's time to bring a new, improved look to a new season.
Kaiya Ruiter could rightly use the word “wondrous” to describe her recently completed season of firsts, filled with so many new experiences that kept opening the Canadian teenager’s eyes wider to what might still lie ahead.
It’s a derivative of that word that explains what you’ll see next from the Calgary-based figure skater who will enter the 2024-25 season as the reigning Canadian women’s champion (and yes, she’ll tell you, hearing that title attached to her name still feels a little bit surreal).
We’re still very early in the formative stages of a new campaign for most every skater, but the 18-year-old Ruiter is already over the moon enthused about the free program choreographer David Wilson is building for her. It’ll be skated to music from the soundtrack of the 2017 superhero movie Wonder Woman. And while she’ll tell you that she is “very much” into that genre, she credits Wilson with presenting the idea to her.
“It was David that had the idea and I’m full on board with it, for sure,” said Ruiter, whose previous two long programs were crafted by Wilson. “So I love the character. It’s really fun. I love it and what David has done in just a few days … I’m already in love with it.
“We wanted to do something a little more character driven because last year, we had the more modern orchestral or modern classical style (with Inspiration, by Florian Christl & The Modern String Quartet). That was really cool, too, but we wanted to really switch it up and put me in character, so that’s exactly what we’ve done. I’m excited to show it.”
(on whether she might wear some sort of superhero costume, Ruiter offers up this: “We’ve already been working up ideas for costumes and I think it’s going to be really cool, it’s going to be really unique”).
While Ruiter says they’re “over halfway” through the creative process, the short program work is still in its infancy. For this season, she’s turned to Montreal-based choreographer Julie Marcotte to create that program.
“She did my show program for Stars On Ice and we had such a great time that we’re going to do a short program … which is really exciting for me.”
Ah, yes, Stars On Ice. Now might be as good a time as any to veer this piece in that direction. It was back in the middle of May that Ruiter got to be a guest skater with the annual tour across Canada, performing in the show at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa — the city in which she was born and first learned to skate on the capital’s venerable haven of winter fun, the Rideau Canal (she still has plenty of family there).
“It was a dream come true. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to be on Stars On Ice,” she said of the experience. “Neither of my parents figure skated, or my grandparents, or anybody in my family. It was my older sister that fell in love with the sport first and it was from seeing Stars On Ice shows. My grandma would take us every year and we’d sometimes get the front row seats, and it would be such a big deal. To me, the greatest skaters ever were the ones that went to nationals and that went to Stars On Ice. So just to get to be a part of that was a dream come true, and to get to do it with my family there in Ottawa was just so special. It was something I’ll never forget.”
While Ruiter has lived in Calgary for nearly half her life — her family moved to Alberta (first Edmonton, then Calgary) when her father, Kris, got transferred out west with his federal government job — doing the Stars show there just didn’t work out for her timing wise. But she was more than happy to instead do the show in Ottawa, “which truly is my hometown. Every time I get to be there, it feels like home. I love it there.”
The tour’s current director and choreographer, four-time World champion Kurt Browning, once told me in a previous column here that Stars presents a unique opportunity for “amateur” skaters such as Ruiter to become better at what they do. And she was a veritable sponge for every moment she was there, soaking up every new thing she could learn for a tour cast she described as “wonderful” and “inclusive and kind.”
“I got so much out of that experience. For one, it was just getting to watch the cast rehearse the group numbers. And Kurt was amazing. He was such an incredible choreographer and leader, and took me under his wing and showed me all the performances and all the numbers before it even started,” she said. “And he pointed out exactly what he was trying to go for with it and all the transitions. He showed me everything and it was so cool to see it from his angle and from that producer’s standpoint. I really appreciated that experience. And then getting to perform at the beginning of the show so that I could watch the rest of it right next to him, which was so cool. I really enjoyed the experience and just the storytelling was incredible.”
There was also the chance to swap stories with cast members who had competed at the recent 2024 World Championships in Montreal. Most notably, that included two sets of Canadian medallists: the golden duo of Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps in pairs, and silver medal-winning ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.
“I definitely asked about that. I heard that it had been a really great event. Got to congratulate Deanna and Max for their incredible performance,” she said. “It was cool to ask questions, (listen to) stories, get to hear it all. Just about the tour as well and get to see what they do day to day. It was amazing just to get to learn from the best, really. I look up to them all so much. I have so much respect for everything they do.”
Ruiter watched the happenings from afar during that magical week at the Bell Centre, which brought into closer focus one of her biggest skating dreams.
“I watched a lot (of it) ... that’s a competition I want to be a part of someday soon. I’m really wanting to work up and earn that spot one day,” said Ruiter, who trains under the tutelage of former U.S. champion Scott Davis with the Calalta Figure Skating Club. “So yeah, I definitely took a lot out of it and so many inspiring moments as well. It was a great event. The energy looked really great. It seemed really special.”
While she could use that word to describe a lot of things that happened to her in the past season, it no doubt best applies to that bone-chilling week in Calgary when she won her first Canadian senior title (she is also a previous national champion at the junior and novice levels). Ruiter keeps that gold medal in a glass case in a “special spot” in her family’s home. Just looking at it makes her smile and brings back so many memories for her of that week at WinSport Event Centre in Calgary (the rink where she trains every day).
“It shows me it’s for real. Even sometimes I’ll be in a change room at WinSport and I’ll think back to a memory from nationals. It’ll bring me back to that special time,” she said. “The entire week, the whole competition, the exhibition after, everything … I just had so much fun. Definitely one that I’ll remember forever.
“It was so cool being there for the entire week at nationals because that doesn’t typically happen. When you’re there for junior, you’re there for the first couple days and then you leave. Or when you’re there for senior, you compete at the end. It was fun to be there the entire week and you just had that energy building and that anticipation. And competing on your home ice in front of a home crowd and your family is always so special.”
It got even better from there. At the end of January, Ruiter was part of the Canadian team sent to the Winter Youth Olympic Games in South Korea. The figure skating competition was held at Gangneung Ice Arena, the same venue used for the 2018 Winter Olympics, in which Canadian skaters brought home an historic harvest of medals, two of them gold.
“The exact same arena where Team Canada won the gold in the Team Event. The same one where Yuzu (Hanyu) won his second Olympic title in a row. The same one Kaetlyn (Osmond) won bronze in the individual (women’s event),” said Ruiter. “That was such a special Olympics for figure skating, with so many historic moments. Just to touch my blades on that ice honestly felt surreal. I couldn’t believe it.”
Osmond, as you may well know, is Ruiter’s skating idol and yes, she had a thought about her the first time she stepped on the ice in Gangneung.
“That was my first thought. Just leading up to it, I thought ‘oh my gosh, I get to skate on that ice where she skated the best she’s ever skated,’” said Ruiter. “All those incredible moments were on that exact same ice. So I just wanted to make some incredible moments of my own. And I think especially in the team event, we really did. We had a great time.”
Ruiter placed 11th in the women’s event at the Youth Olympics (she had been sixth after the short program) but performed a strong free skate to help Canada earn the bronze medal in the Team Event’s debut at the competition.
“I think the team is what contributed to having a much better free skate, it’s just having the energy and the team excitement — we helped each other rise up and it was a very special moment,” Ruiter said at the time after the medal presentations. “I still can’t believe we won a medal. Wearing this medal around my neck with the Olympic rings, it’s just so surreal, it’s crazy! And so much fun to do as a team.”
It also fuelled her desire to skate across an even bigger set of rings.
“They do such a wonderful job at making (Youth Olympics) the perfect stepping stone for something like that. Honestly, this made me hungrier for an Olympic experience. It just gave you that experience, that little taste of what it’s like,” she said. “There were definitely a lot of great moments and a lot of great learning moments as well, which is why I’ve just been so inspired especially since that experience to work really hard to earn a real Olympics, like a senior Olympics opportunity. I really want to earn one. I want to work as hard as I can to put me in the best place to earn that opportunity.”
Her Asian experience had one more stop — the World Junior Championships at the beginning of March in Taipei City. It’s an event in which she placed 10th in 2023, another big moment at her home rink in Calgary. But the result wasn’t nearly as good this time, with Ruiter finishing 21st overall. Upon first glance, that might seem like step backward, but she takes a different perspective of the overall experience.
“I got a lot out of both experiences. Calgary at home, that was definitely one for the books because … everything about it, right? It was similar to nationals in that it was some really special performances there at home,” she said. “But I’m really proud of what I put down in Taipei City as well. Regardless of results, it’s always about what you take out of it. And I took a lot out of it. I’m really proud of how I skated and I’m really excited to take what I need to improve upon and work for it for next season.”
Several weeks back, when we had our “state of the union” chat with Skate Canada high performance director Mike Slipchuk, the suggestion was made that perhaps Ruiter may have run out of gas at the end of a long season that finished with back-to-back jaunts across the Pacific Ocean. But he dismissed that thought, pointing instead to the things you can’t do at such a high-level event.
“With Kaiya, she had some errors and when you have errors, they add up fast. I don’t think it had anything to do with back and forth trips. It’s just that any deductions in singles are costly,” he said. “We’ve seen that with all of our athletes. When you have a few things called for jump rotations or features in spins, it adds up. She got a bit caught on that and it’s hard to make up ground. I don’t look at it as more than that.”
It’s also fair to suggest that Ruiter knows she simply has to better in certain areas. That certainly was her big takeaway from Taipei City.
“Oh, there’s a lot, and that’s what is so fun about this sport, that it’s pretty much impossible to reach perfection. I think every skater can attest to that … there’s always something to work on, right, and that’s what makes it so special,” she said. “It’s not just technical, it’s not just jumps, it’s not just spins. It’s performance as well, it’s skating skills, it’s transitions, it’s everything, and that’s why I just want to take everything, every little weakness that I have and turn that into my strength. Definitely some technical issues that I’m looking to resolve, and always trying to make my skating smoother and my performance extra special. I’m really excited to work really hard over the summer and try to make something really special this season.”
Ruiter laughs when she’s asked what it felt like to go through a season largely healthy (the first time that’s happened in a while). She called it “a key for this training season, just being healthy … It definitely brings extra joy.” What it also did was allow Ruiter to gain a better sense of where she stands in her development, and where she wants to go.
“It’s just when you get that awareness of what you want to do with your skating, that kind of helps (get you) where you want to go. Now, even more than last year, I feel I know what I need to focus on and I’m excited to really put that into action,” she explained. “There’s a lot technically (to work on), obviously, because that’s a pretty heavy part of skating, the technical side. It’s always spins for me, I always want to have better spins.
“I’ve been working on flexibility, extension as well … that’s a pretty strong weakness of mine. I’ve been working on that a lot as well as making the technical side a little stronger, smooth. And then overall performance as well, because that can always be better. I want to make that a true strength.”
And the lay of the land will be different for her in a new season. When the 2025 Canadian Championships are held next January in Laval, Quebec, Ruiter will be the skater with a target on her back as the defending champion. Not that she sees it that way. At least not right now.
“Honestly, that’s just really cool to me that you would put it that way. But really, I’m just going into it the way I always do, which is just to do my very best with everything that I’ve trained for. I know how hard I’ve been training and what I put into it. And just enjoy it like I always do,” she said. “I’m just so grateful to have the opportunity to compete at a championship … that’s a really exciting thing. That’s just how I like to approach it, that’s how I love to compete, and that’s enjoy it. This is what I love to do.
“I’m grateful for every opportunity that I get to compete on that nationals ice. When you’d had injuries and you’ve had those kind of setbacks, it gives you that kind of gratitude of, it’s just amazing to be there. You go in, you trust yourself, you do what you do in practice and just enjoy it. That’s kind of how I’m looking forward to it.”
All of that is for another day, though. For now, there are new programs to build and refine, and high school to finish. Ruiter does all of her studies online (she says the flexibility of it is a good fit around her training) and is in her graduating year. While she does see university in her future — her mother Victoria’s alma mater, McGill in Montreal, is her dream school — right now it’s about chasing her skating dreams.
It’s about gaining even more of the feeling she gets when the words “Canadian champion” are attached to her name, like the way she was introduced during Stars On Ice. Even if it still seems a little much to her.
“That’s surreal every time someone says it. Every time that’s said, it’s that pinch me moment. Really, you’re talking about me?” she said. “It’s crazy and it just takes me back to when I was a little kid watching icons like Kaetlyn Osmond be introduced like that and always looking at them with starry eyes, and then just feeling ‘oh my goodness, I accomplished something special like that.’ It just kind of gives me goosebumps sometimes. It’s really cool. And then, at the same time, it makes me want to work extra hard to earn more cool things like that. Super motivating. Super exciting.”
Especially for someone with a certain superhero mindset, right?
Couple of corrections: her dad's name is Kris.
(Jeff Langdon is her sometimes coach when she's training in Toronto. He was previously in Calgary.)
Also, her senior title wasn't her first national title, although that was the way CBC reported it. In fact, it was her third national title, previously capturing Novice and Junior Women.