Revisiting a summer's worth of questions
We had off-season queries about certain Canadian skaters heading into a new campaign. And at least some of the answers are starting to come into clearer focus.
Way back in August, when Canada’s top skaters were still a month or so away from dipping their toes onto competitive ice, we developed a series of questions in this space about what we might witness in the season to come (remember those, dear reader?).
With said skaters now taking a bit of time to catch their breath before embarking into the second half of the 2023-24 season, the thought here was now might be a good time to dig back into those queries and see if we’ve come close to answering any of them. Let’s just say we may still have to wait a bit longer in some areas.
With that thought in mind, let’s dive in a little bit, shall we?
Will Canada land on the podium at the World Championships in Montreal?
It was written here that this was THE biggest question of the season, and I think we can all agree that sentiment hasn’t changed — especially with the season’s premier event returning to Canada for the first time in 11 years (it’s essentially a do-over for the COVID-cancelled 2020 Worlds that were supposed to grace the ice at the Bell Centre).
Back in August, the answer in this space was a “cautious yes,” and that still might be the opinion here — and as was mentioned back then, the ice dance event in particular had my attention, that being because of the bronze medal produced by Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier at 2023 Worlds in Japan. I’d still say that remains Canada’s best medal shot in Montreal and after what we just witnessed at the Grand Prix Final, the word “cautious” might need to be dropped from that evaluation.
It’s been a stellar year for the thirtysomething ice dance team from Ice Dance Elite in Toronto. Gilles and Poirier won both their Grand Prix events and had the world-leading score (219.01) until Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates, the reigning World champions, surpassed that number with a 221.61 to seize the gold in Beijing. There was a real battle for the silver at the Final, with Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri edging Gilles and Poirier by less than two points for that spot on the podium. That’s precisely how they sat in the final standings at 2023 Worlds, and it’s easy to see that duel carrying on right to Montreal.
Here’s the thought we had back in August on this event at Worlds:
“We’ll see how much difference a year makes in what should be a true battle among five or six teams for the podium in Montreal.”
There was a clear gap between the top three and bottom three in Beijing, but that was largely determined by the rhythm dance. Great Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson were 2.38 points back of Gilles and Poirier in the free dance, suggesting they might be a team to challenge for the podium in Montreal, where they live and train.
It’s probably safe to say that the two other Canadian teams in Beijing — Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen, along with Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha — would both tell you they weren’t at their best in the final. If it really is going to be battle between “five or six” teams for the podium in Montreal, these are the two teams who could be among them. Both couples are part of the Ice Academy of Montreal powerhouse ice dance program, and the hunch here is that both will be very ready when Worlds rolls around in March. That’ll just add to the competitiveness of the event.
As far as any other medal possibility at Worlds, we rightly turned our gaze toward the pairs event, where Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps were coming off a season that produced a Canadian title and a fourth-place finish at Worlds. And they looked like the best pairs team on the planet for much of the fall season, claiming gold medals at all three of their events, two of them on the Grand Prix circuit. But in the tightest competition at the Final, the Canadian duo had to settle for the bronze medal behind the rising German team of Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin, and Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii of Italy. Only 2.13 points separated the top three teams, and then it was another 12-plus points down the fourth.
The wild card here, of course, is the status of Japan’s Rika Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, who missed the majority of the fall season through injury. But they are the reigning World champions and, if they regain top form by March, it should be a four-way battle for the podium in Montreal, with a Canadian team right in the thick of it. And another Montreal-based team at that.
There was also a thought in the summer that Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, the still relatively new team who had placed sixth in the Worlds debut in Saitama, would continue their ascent this season. A pair of silver medals on the Grand Prix and an appearance at the Final, where they placed sixth, would indeed suggest more growth did indeed take place. But as things now stand, there’s a fair gap between them and the team at the top. That, however, is more a statement on the kind of brilliant season Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps have enjoyed so far.
Can Maddie Schizas make it a Canadian Championships three-peat in Calgary?
Right now, the answer here is a resounding yes. As we posited a few weeks back, a new-look Schizas has clearly separated herself from the rest of the women’s field in Canada. Let’s just the events to date are making this statement from August look just a little silly right now.
“All of which is to say that if a three-peat is in the cards — it would be the first such streak in the women’s event since Joannie Rochette won six in a row from 2005-10 — it isn’t going to be a walk in the park.”
Nothing we saw this fall suggests that “walk in the park” can’t happen. And the Schizas we witnessed at Skate Canada International, in particular, might finally be ready to crack the top 10 at Worlds for the first time.
Which Stephen Gogolev will we see this season?
This question spawned out of the Jekyll and Hyde act we saw from Gogolev at the 2023 Canadian championships, where he went from dreadful in the short program to positively brilliant in the free. And the latter showing led to this statement about what might happen in the season to come …
“If that Gogolev shows up regularly in the season ahead, he’ll be a major contender to win his first Canadian title in Calgary. But that remains a very big ‘if’ until we see it for real consistently.”
I’m not sure we can say yet we’ve seen that consistency “for real.” On the plus side, Gogolev produced the two best short program scores of his senior career (86.25 at Autumn Classic International being the best of the two. As a point of reference, the number at Canadians last season was more than 36 points lower). There were a couple of decent long programs, but nothing spectacular. That being said, given what we saw this fall from the Canadian men as a group, Gogolev still very much belongs in the picture as a potential national champion when the best in Canada convene in Calgary in less than a month’s time (yes, January is indeed right around the corner).
Is it time for Wesley Chiu to take the next big step?
This is a query that kind of relates to the one above. And here is the thought from the summer as a jumping off point:
“With Keegan Messing now retired, the door is wide open in the men’s event in Canada, and it says here there may be no better time than the present for Chiu to make his move and ascend to the top of the podium for the first time.”
The “wide open” part still remains very much true. Among the top contenders, both Chiu and Gogolev had seventh and 11th place finishes on the Grand Prix circuit. But at least they got to skate. Roman Sadovsky, the 2020 national champion, had to bow out of the Grand Prix because of the lingering effects of a summer injury. He had hoped to skate at a pair of Challenger Series events later in the fall, but both tries were scrapped by travel issues. So his season debut will come in Calgary, which he would tell you is hardly ideal.
In other words, the answer to this question is still very much a TBD. As in, “to be determined” about a month from now in Alberta.
Are Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha ready to join the world’s best?
It’s been well documented that Lajoie and Lagha’s previous season didn’t include an appearance at Worlds merely because Canada only had two ice dance spots to fill in Saitama. But there was plenty of good in their campaign before that, with a medal earned at every event by this duo, who pushed hard for a Canadian title but came up a whisker shy of earning that distinction.
But I think we can safely say that Lajoie and Lagha are well on their way to making the answer to this question very much a yes. Consider their season to date: a pair of medals on the Grand Prix circuit, which set them up for a first-ever appearance at the Final. While the were sixth out of six in Beijing, their mere presence at the event suggest Lajoie and Lagha are indeed on the verge of being among “the world’s best.” And it won’t be a shock if they push for a top-eight finish (at least) when the world comes to Montreal in March.
So to sum up, I’d say we’ve made some decent progress on these pre-season questions, but the biggest events of the season are yet to come for Canadian skaters. It won’t be long until the calendar flips to 2024, and that’s where the race to the finish line truly begins. No question about that.