• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Bev Smith Writes

An Insider's Look at Figure Skating by Beverley Smith

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

Blog

Keegan Messing: A Fond Farewell

October 20, 2022 By Beverley Leave a Comment

Keegs

It’s going to be hard to say goodbye, says Keegan Messing as it became clear this week that this season will be his last as a competitive figure skater. He’s 30 and has other irons in the fire. During a pre-Skate Canada conference call, Messing sat beside his toddler son, Wyatt, at a breakfast of […]

Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Grace Kelly, Keegan Messing, Lance Vipond. MIKA, Skate Canada

New faces, new beginnings for Canadian skaters

August 31, 2022 By Beverley Leave a Comment

  For the first time in years, athletes at the national team training camp in Mississauga this week, are bunking up with roommates in the hotels, like in the old days. And having buffets. It seems, well, rather normal. COVID-19 hit Canadian skaters harder than many, as dominos of competitions were cancelled domestically. They hit […]

Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Brooke McIntosh and Benjamin Mimar, Conrad Orzel, Corey Circelli, e, Madeline Schizas, Michael Slipchuk, Roman Sadovsky, Stephen Gogolev

Alone

February 18, 2022 By Beverley Leave a Comment

I did not realize, until I watched the NBC broadcast in the evening of Feb. 17, just how deeply ran the emotions of an Olympic women’s figure skating event gone wrong. I had not seen all of Kamila Valieva’s tears when she finished. I had not seen how, when she came off the ice, her […]

Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Alexandra Trusova, Anna Shcherbakova, Eteri Tutberidze, Kamila Valieva, Kaori Sakamoto, Olympics

Tough Decisions

January 9, 2022 By Beverley Leave a Comment

The tough part: Canada has only two Olympic pair skating spots. The even more tough part: Canada had three teams that wanted those two spots. This decision was the most difficult to make for Skate Canada about the 13 skaters that would make up the Olympic team, and also the most controversial. Dance, singles: easy. […]

Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Evelyn Walsh and Trennt Michaud, Keegan Messing, Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro, Olympics, Vanessa James and Eric Radford

Moore-Towers and Marinaro: Sweet Victory

January 9, 2022 By Beverley Leave a Comment

The beleaguered Canadian pair skaters talked of “noise.” There was “noise” they had to overcome to do their best. And their best hadn’t been at hand all season. Of course, there is plenty of noise every day about the dangers of COVID and how easy it is to catch. And who has it? And who […]

Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Deanna Stellato and Maxime Deschamps, Evelyn Walsh and Trennt Michaud, Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro

Madeline Schizas: Queen of Smarts

January 9, 2022 By Beverley Leave a Comment

Madeline Schizas is a smart cookie. After she won her first Canadian title, and is poised to become an Olympian, her biggest goal has less to do with putting a blade to ice than self-preservation. “My biggest goal is to avoid catching COVID,” she said Saturday after decidedly winning by 27.59 points. “That’s my biggest […]

Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Gabby Daleman, Madeline Schizas, Michelle Long, Veronik Mallet

Gilles and Poirier Dance to the Olympics

January 9, 2022 By Beverley Leave a Comment

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier aren’t on autopilot yet. That will be their next step on the Olympic journey. The ice dancing duo won their third national title on Saturday, testing out their “Long and Winding Road” free dance for judges and virtuals. (They would have won a fourth, had the event not been cancelled […]

Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: e, Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen, Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier

Keegan Messing: Canadian Champion.

January 9, 2022 By Beverley 1 Comment

Keegan Messing finally did it. After nine seasons skating for Canada, Keegs won his first national title, doing it the hardest way possible: in a pandemic, with skates that didn’t arrive (at first), with his best friend suffering from COVID, with a trip from hell to get to the national skating championships in Ottawa. Somehow, […]

Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Canadian Tire National Skating Championships, Keegan Messing, Nam Nguyen, Roman Sadovsky, Wesley Chiu

Wanted: Standing Ovations

January 8, 2022 By Beverley Leave a Comment

Standing ovations were needed in the pairs short program at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships. They were not there, of course. Nobody was there, but skaters and officials and coaches. The yawning rink seats echoed in their burgundy stillness. After a season of miscues and slips and lifts aborted, and jumps gone awry, Kirsten […]

Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Canadian Tire National Skating Championships, Deanna Stellato and Maxime Deschamps, Evelyn Walsh and Trennt Michaud, Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro

Keegan Messing: Keeping the Butterflies in Check

January 8, 2022 By Beverley Leave a Comment

In the annals of Canadian figure skating, there never has been such a buffalo-checked, adventure-seeking, resourceful, colourful, candid patineur of the north as Keegan Messing. The 29-year-old skater proved it this week after a 33-hour trip to the Canadian skating championships from Alaska with his wife and child, only to find that his skates didn’t […]

Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Canadian Tire National Skating Championships, Joseph Phan, Keegan Messing, Wesley Chiu

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 33
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Your Support is Appreciated!

You can encourage me to write more and to maintain this website with a donation in any amount.
Thanks in advance!

Recent Comments

  • Sally Rehorick on Kurt Browning Farewell
  • Beverley on Patrick Chan Reborn
  • Meagan Vande Vooren on Patrick Chan Reborn
  • Beverley on Kurt Browning Farewell
  • Carol Hopper on Kurt Browning Farewell
  • Sonja on Karen Magnussen passes the torch
  • Amelia on Yuzuru Hanyu: Higher and Higher

Archives

Copyright BevSmithWrites.com 2014-2018