'The opportunities we need to take'
They might be the world's busiest ice dancers so far this season, but their heavy competition slate is something Canada's Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer know can help them reach their long-term goals.
Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer are big on reaching out for opportunities when they are presented. The kinds of opportunities they know can help them build toward dream-making moments over the long haul.
So it is that the Canadian duo, now in their seventh season together, might just be the busiest ice dancers in the world so far this year. When they arrive in Estonia next week for Tallinn Trophy, a Challenger Series event, it will mark their sixth outing of the young season (and third in four weeks).
Let’s just say they’re mighty comfortable in their skates already.
“We knew this year is going to be a good year of taking opportunities and we’re really happy that we’ve been given some,” said the 21-year-old Fabbri, a native of Laval, Quebec. “We went from two internationals to four this season already and hopefully, we’ll keep going after nationals.”
All of this is being pointed toward a giant-sized opportunity in March 2025. That’s when the World Championships are held in Boston and — thanks to Canada having two of the top five teams in the World (Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, the reigning World silver medallists, and Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha) — this country has three entries in ice dance at that event.
The battle for that third spot should come down to a duel at the 2025 Canadian Championships between Fabbri and Ayer, and the veteran couple, Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac. Both teams train at the powerhouse Ice Academy of Montreal under the direction of Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon and Romain Haguenauer.
No wonder, then, that when Fabbri and Ayer were offered the chance to compete at the Denis Ten Memorial in Kazakhstan in early October, they jumped at the opportunity. The bronze medal they earned in Astana opened the door for the couple to fill an available spot at Skate America in Allen, Texas, which happened to fall one week before Skate Canada International, which had been on their planned schedule for months.
It’s been a whirlwind, to be sure, but one they’re happy to take on.
“Considering it wasn’t planned at all … very exciting,” Ayer, a 26-year-old from Calgary, Alberta, said in Halifax of the chance for them to do back-to-back Grand Prix events. “We know it’s the opportunities we need to take, knowing where we want to be in the next two years.”
All of this has been crucial in terms of making themselves more in the way of household names in the world of ice dance.
“For us, especially, knowing that we have to climb the rankings (to gain) international points and then the high scores, just so we set ourselves up nicely for next year … absolutely, it’s important,” Ayer said of the busy schedule (they had already done the Lake Placid Ice Dancer International and Quebec summer provincials before the calendar flipped to September).
Added Fabbri: “We definitely want to get more known internationally. What the coaches have also noticed with us competing more is we actually get more comfortable with our programs and we project more, which is actually helping our scores. So we’re really improving from competing that much. We’re looking forward to a little break, though … it’ll be fun. We’re just so excited. We don’t even have time to think about how tired we are.”
At Skate Canada, Ayer indicated he felt the duo had taken steps in that direction over the past three competitions, saying “Those who hadn’t turned their heads for us have now turned their heads. We plan to continue to turn everyone’s heads because we know if we want to be on that Olympic team in two years, we have to keep progressing.”
(an aside: Noticed this comment from a skating fan about them on YouTube. “I never paid attention to this couple before but I think I’m starting to like them.” Sounds like someone whose head is indeed being turned their way).
Once they get home from Estonia, Fabbri and Ayer will have an extended period of time to refine their programs before the all-important nationals in Laval. Practice time has been in shorter supply, to be sure, given their frenzied schedule over the past few months.
“We’ll have a little bit of a dip and then ramp things back up to make some tweaks to the programs, when we finally have some time to do so,” said Ayer.
This year’s two programs feature music that’s been bouncing around in their heads for quite some time — at least in terms of tunes they’d like to build something around. Their rhythm dance includes a trio of Elvis Presley tunes: “Jailhouse Rock,” “Suspicious Minds” and “Blue Suede Shoes.”
Ayer and Fabbri have been after their coaches for quite awhile now to skate to music by the “King of Rock ’n Roll.” When this International Skating Union unveiled this season’s theme for rhythm dances (“Social Dances of the ’50s, ’60s and 70s”), they saw their opportunity to make it happen.
“Paul and I have been skating together for seven years. Our second year together, this was already music we wanted to skate to,” said Fabbri. “We kept trying to bring it up (with their coaches), even though it wasn’t working at all. When we saw the opportunity this year, it was so obvious. It was like, we just have to do this.”
Now, selecting exactly which pieces of Elvis music to include … that wasn’t exactly an easy chore, they admitted.
“We had three versions of different pieces. It was like ‘oh, we love this one’ and ‘we love this one,’” said Ayer. “Marie actually found the last one we have, which is ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’ but a different version that is a little more upbeat. Which is hard to believe because this is already so upbeat. But we felt it would really engage the crowd for a strong finish.”
Dubreuil was positively giddy about that particular piece of music. It’s when they knew for sure she was all-in on their music choice.
“It was fun to see that Marie was super excited to bring that last piece,” said Fabbri of the program, which was choreographed by one of their former training mates, American ice dancer Zachary Donohue. “We hadn’t heard that music when she showed it to us and she was like ‘oh, my God, this is so fun. Wait until you see it!’ She was super excited, and it made the process of creating the program even more fun.”
It’s probably no surprise when you hear that particular program was a hit with the American fans in Texas at Skate America.
“They loved it. I wanted to have a moment to say ‘Elvis has left the building,’ but obviously there’s no way to announce it to the rest of the crowd,” Ayer said with a grin. “But we knew, when we heard we were going to Skate America … doing an Elvis program, we were pretty stoked to perform it in front of that crowd.”
Their free dance, skated to “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World” and “You Don’t Own Me,” is intended to display the strength and support they bring to each other as a team. It’s a creative process they’ve truly enjoyed.
“It’s about the woman power without being ‘we don’t need men.’ It’s really just about the equality of men and women, and how men can support women,” said Fabbri. “We can learn to lean on each other without being ‘I don’t need you, you don’t need me’ or ‘I can do this on my own.’ So really, bringing that forward. We have a good man and woman energy when we skate, so I think we really wanted to use that this year.”
Again, it’s a piece of music they’ve had in mind for some time.
“It’s also a song we’ve been wanting to skate to,” said Fabbri. “We’ve got a version, it’s a girl singing (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), so it’s more modern (the original version was recorded in 1966 by James Brown, the legendary Godfather of Soul). It’s not like a bluesy one, but it kind of carries that vibe. ‘You Don’t Own Me’ (by Brenna Whitaker) is very powerful.”
Said Ayer: “It showcases our power and our flow, and our deep connection. Trying to use what we’re good at and then boost that.”
Fabbri and Ayer first joined forces back in 2018, after each had a previous partnership dissolve. Following a tryout, Ayer made the move to Montreal to train with his new partner, who was just 15 years old at the time. They had some immediate success as juniors, placing second at the 2019 Canadian Championships in New Brunswick behind Lajoie and Lagha, who would go on to become World Junior champions a few months later (Fabbri and Ayer placed ninth at that event in Croatia).
It was in the summer of 2019 that the duo made the decision to join the training group at I.AM. It was indeed an eye opener for them seeing the level of world class talent around them, most notably France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, who would go on to strike gold at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing after winning five world championships.
“Honestly, it’s not an environment I thought I would ever see in skating,” admitted Fabbri. “It’s super competitive, but when we get to training, we push each other. It’s a really weird thing to train with your competitors but also being friends with them. It’s so much fun when you get to an event; it feels like home because half of them are just our teammates.
“And you learn a lot by watching. We trained with Gaby and Guillame, Maddie (Chock) and Evan (Bates, the current world champions), Maddie (Hubbell) and Zach (Donohue) … the first year, we were kind of looking around and thinking ‘what’s going on?’ But you see that it doesn’t work the same way for everyone. Everyone is different and you have to find your own way.”
Added Ayer: “The more you’re in that environment, the more you realize … it’s just the mentality that’s different. The more time you spend with the top of the world, the more you realize you belong up there with them. It’s not like you shouldn’t be on the ice with them, because you’re on the ice training with them every day. Coming out to a Grand Prix and being with the best in the world (seems normal for us now).”
While the couple is in its seventh season together, it almost seems like they’re just introducing themselves to the skating world. But the ride hasn’t always been smooth for them. The COVID-19 pandemic basically took away the 2020-21 season for most Canadian skaters, and 2022 nationals in Ottawa ended up being an event with no fans in the building.
Then the issue became injuries. Ayer separated his shoulder just before their Grand Prix debut at MK John Wilson Trophy in Britain and while they managed to grit their way through the event and finished eighth, surgery shortly afterward cut short their entire season, including 2023 nationals.
“It was very tough. You’re on a great wave and then something happens and it’s oh, we’ve got to start again,” explained Fabbri. “We got our first Grand Prix and Paul dislocated his shoulder the week before, and it was like ‘are we going or are we not?’ It’s not a fun way to compete. But we dealt with that together, even though it’s always one of us that’s injured (most recently, she twisted an ankle at Skate America a few weeks back, but they showed up in Halifax a week later determined to perform well).
“Whenever something like that happens, it’s the both of us. It’s like (at Skate America), even when I made a mistake … we win together and we lose together. We’re injured or we’re not injured. The way we reacted to this, we did the best we could on and off (the ice).”
Things finally took a turn in the right direction back in January, when Fabbri and Ayer skated to their first senior medal at the Canadian Championships, one spot behind silver-medal winning Lauriault and Le Gac. Sure, the competition was missing the injured Lajoie and Lagha, and Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen. But again, opportunity knocked and they took advantage of it in a big way in front of Ayer’s hometown crowd.
“It was confidence booster, for sure,” admitted Ayer. “Honestly, the mentality we had going into nationals last year was just to focus on ourselves and forget about everything going on around us. Improve on what we’ve been doing the day before and do that every day. This year, we’ve continued that.”
The result in Calgary helped build momentum, something they’ve carried forward since then. At the end of February, they were rewarded for their efforts with a trip to the Netherlands for the International Challenge Cup, where they earned a bronze medal and ended the season on a high.
“At nationals, it was a tough competition even though some people weren’t there. We still went there, performed super well, earned our medal, and we got rewarded by going to the Netherlands later on, which was very fun,” said Fabbri. “It was also a great experience … we didn’t know we were going to the Netherlands until the week before, so we were glad that we kept training because we were alternates for Worlds.”
That last-minute experience has come in handy on more than one occasion already this season. Heading to Kazakhstan for the Denis Ten Memorial was a late decision, and all Fabbri and Ayer did there was win the rhythm dance, finish with a bronze medal and record personal best scores across the board (73.66 for the rhythm dance, 109.32 for the free and 182.98 overall, which is just under eight points behind the PB of Lauriault and Le Gac).
Skate America was another last-minute call — “we found out two days before the flight we were going,” said Ayer — but one more time, they answered the bell when offered the opportunity. Like we said at the beginning, they’ve become adept at this sort of thing.
“We’re not going into (competitions) anymore being ‘I want to place here’ or ‘I want that score.’ That’s not something you can control at the end of the day,” said Fabbri. “We can only control how we skate and our goal is to come out and do the best that we can every day. Have fun, show a great program to the crowd, to the judges, and do our best. Obviously, when we get rewarded, it’s so fun, but in Kazakhstan, we were so not going for podium and we ended up on the podium. And it was like, ‘whoa, that’s cool.’
“We’ve been taking opportunities and showing up, and I think we react well under pressure. It will be a nice competition at nationals to get the third spot. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re definitely really happy that it’s there.”
It’s given them a sense of control and well, self belief, that maybe they haven’t had in previous seasons. It why they can look at World Championships or the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics and not think they’re completely out of reach. And they feel they’ve got just the right mindset for the tests ahead.
“It feels amazing to have the power in our hands to get to where we want to go. You can say we’ve always had that power, but now with the doors opening, opportunities are really in place for us to really take it ourselves,” said Ayer. “Our goal is always to improve on the last day that we did, and we feel like if we do that consistently, then there’s no reason that we shouldn’t be able to reach our goals.”
Taking the Challenge
While the next two weekends beyond this one might be super exciting for fans of a certain superstar singer (gee, I wonder who?), a group of Canadian skaters have reason to be pumped up about something else. Sixteen of them in all will take part in a pair of Challenge Series events.
We’ve already mentioned Tallinn Trophy, which gets underway Tuesday in Estonia. In the ice dance event, Fabbri and Ayer will be joined by Lily Hensen and Nathan Lickers, who train at I.AM’s satellite school just outside of London, Ontario.
Former Canadian champion Roman Sadovsky, who had to withdraw early from Skate Canada International because of an injury, will be back on the ice in the men’s event. There are three Canadian entries in the women’s competition: Sara-Maude Dupuis, who finished 10th at SCI, and junior-aged Reese Rose and Aleksa Volkova.
A week later, another Canadian contingent will head to Poland for Warsaw Cup, which runs from Nov. 20-24. The event will mark the international debut of the newly-formed pairs team of Fiona Bombardier and Benjamin Mimar.
Canadian women’s champion Kaiya Ruiter will continue her quest to achieve the technical qualifying score for 2025 Worlds (she finished eighth at SCI two weeks ago), and is joined in the event by Katherine Medland Spence, another skater making her international debut.
Lauriault and Le Gac head the Canadian ice dance crew in Warsaw, coming off a pair of seventh-place finishes in their two Grand Prix events. They’ll be joined by 2023 Canadian junior champions Nadiia Bashynska and Peter Beaumont, who were seventh at Trophy Metropole in France last month.
Around the boards
NHK Trophy is underway this weekend in Japan and for the first time this season, Canada has zero entries at a Grand Prix event. This was supposed to be Stephen Gogolev’s second Series start of the campaign, but he was forced to withdraw because of an undisclosed injury (as an aside, his coach Lee Barkell did mention during Skate Canada International that has back had been “an issue” over the summer months. It’s why they scaled down the technical content in his program in Halifax). Canada originally had an ice dance entry in Japan, but Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen were scratched from the event for reasons we discussed here … As to whether Gogolev picks up another international assignment this fall … the word is, his health will determine if and when that will be considered … Canada will send three entries to the next Grand Prix in Finland from Nov. 15-17. They include two teams in pairs: reigning World champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, along with Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Ethier, and the country’s top ice dance team, current World silver medallists Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. They and the Stellato-Dudek/Deschamps tandem each won gold medals at SCI, meaning next week offers a chance to lock down berths in the Grand Prix Final for both. It’s set for Dec. 5-8 in Grenoble, France.
Beautiful! I do wonder about the scheduling though. Sometimes it seems like the skaters are the last to know which competitions they are going to? Competitor lists and start orders are being published later and later…