Perhaps we can’t technically call Madeline Schizas a Canadian champion. The national championships were cancelled. But effectively, she is, after her decisive win Saturday in the Skate Canada Challenge. The Challenge is all we’ve got to figure out who is tops in the country right now. Schizas, 17, won the women’s event at Challenge with […]
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Light in a Dark Place: Seniors
Reigning Canadian champion Roman Sadovsky found it hard to watch himself, remotely, at home in front of a screen, competing at the Skate Canada Challenge – which being that the national championships have been cancelled due to COVID-19 – remains the closest thing to it. When Sadovsky performed his virtual routines about six weeks […]
Just a Fleeting Glimpse
Were we dreaming? Was it a mirage: the vision of young men classified as juniors sliding down the ice to impress? It all happened last weekend at the Skate Canada Challenge, an event with no venue, no spectators, no judges, no skaters, except by way of online streaming, firmly in the virtual world. They skated […]
“The Blower’s Daughter” Version Two
For two-time Canadian pair champions Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro, it was tricky this season: should they make the attempt to get new programs, even though there was a chance they would be seldom seen? And should they stray onto sacred ground and use music from other skaters they revered? The answers were yes and […]
Moore-Towers, Marinaro in a Virtual World
An injury, a pandemic, and all that entails, proved to be the sticky points for two-time Canadian pair champions Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro during a season beyond compare. COVID-19 scuttled their hopes of competing at the world championships in Montreal last March. Then, during the first wave of the pandemic, Marinaro’s grandmother died […]
Nathan Chen Toiling in a COVID World
Finally, hearts are pumping: There is a real figure skating competition coming up. Who knows how many more there will be? Nathan Chen hopes to become a five-time U.S. figure skating championship next week, in a bubble at a Las Vegas rink. He’s competed sparsely this season, winning Skate America with 299.15 points, far short […]
OBITUARY: Edith A. Smith, Diary of a Knitter
Edith Anne Smith was Mom to us. Maybe Momsie in a moment of abandon. She died Nov. 5 at the home in which she was born 88 years ago. She started out life at six pounds, 14 ounces, and by the time she was 13 months old, her parents, Lillian (nee Creech) and Wesley […]
Skate America: an Oasis of Skating
For a moment, just before Keegan Messing was about to begin his “November Rain” long program at Skate America on Saturday, he thought about others. “This is for you guys in Canada, to everybody who has to stay at home,” thought the Canadian skater, the only competitor from the land of the maple leaf to […]
Skate America Happens!
Keegan Messing turned his back to the camera and pointed with both hands to the CANADA emblazoned across the back of his team jacket: the only Canadian figure skater to compete at any of the Grand Prix events this season. He has become the beacon of the Canadian side, through unfortunate circumstance as the […]
World Figure Skating Championships: Cancelled
At last, the hammer came down. There will be no world figure skating championships this year, for the first time in 59 years when a plane crash killed the U.S. team and scuttled the most important event of the year. The Quebec health ministry decided to spare spectators and competitors and officials and […]