Amble into the Scotiabank Pond arena complex for a mid-August Skate Ontario summer competition, and a voice from a corner rings out greetings. It’s Nam Nguyen, and he’s helping to set up the displays for the Figure Skating Boutique booth. Really? Yes, really. The 20-year-old former Canadian champion (2015) has got a job, working […]
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Takahashi, Part Two: Choreography
At first, you could hear only this: pucks banging against the walls. It was Canada, after all, where hockey reigns supreme. But in a corner rink of a Toronto suburban arena complex on a hot, bright summer day, there was world champion Daisuke Takahashi, quietly walking in, skates in hand, clad in a track […]
Daisuke Takahashi: Heartfelt Comeback
Daisuke Takahashi will be the spice that warms your cocoa this season. The mulled wine. The Kobe beef. The autumn leaves kicked up into a new eddy in the sun. The jack of hearts. At 32, he has done the unexpected after a four-year absence, hobbled by a knee injury and an onslaught of competition […]
Denis Ten: The Artist. 1993 – 2018
So why of all people could a person like Denis Ten be felled by such ugliness in a country that he championed so hard to raise up? With his big heart, he wanted to help. How could such a singular life be worth so little? The tributes are pouring in world wide since Ten was […]
A letter to Marion
Dearest Marion, I wish I could talk to you and tell you all sorts. There is so much to say. I can’t because 12 years ago, you died at age 94, tilting at windmills until the end. So here I am, throwing my words into the wind. And hoping you catch my drift. You were […]
Javier Fernandez: A Promise
Love hurts. During the Stars On Ice tour that wends across Canada to the end of this month, Javier Fernandez will show you just how much. This is Javi Fernandez like you’ve never seen him (but knew him to be): the leading man, the gentle, sensitive soul, the man finally at home in his own […]
Patrick Chan’s Hallelujah Tour
Listen easy. You can hear Patrick Chan take a nonchalant breath. His time is his time now. Hallelujah. The 27-year-old skater, a 10-time Canadian champion and three-time world champion if you want to work the abacus, is hot-stepping his way across the country on the Stars On Ice tour. Toss that maddening abacus. The wild […]
Stars On Ice Becomes Hot Ticket
Outside the Air Canada Centre, there was sturm. Inside there was drama. A post-Olympic Stars On Ice had come to Toronto. But it wasn’t like any Stars On Ice we’d seen in years. The Air Canada Centre was packed. Stuffed right to the rafters. That means 17,000 seats sold. A sell-out in Canada’s largest city. […]
Karen Magnussen passes the torch
Karen Magnussen feels like she knows Kaetlyn Osmond. Now they are members of the same club: Canadian women who have won world figure skating championships. There aren’t many of them, mind: Barbara Ann Scott (1947 and 1948), Petra Burka (1965) and Magnussen herself, in 1973. Yes, it’s been 45 years since Magnussen won that last […]
Inside the heart of Moore-Towers and Marinaro
It was telling: Kirsten Moore-Towers burst into an ugly cry against the chest of her partner, Michael Marinaro, as soon as they took their final pose after the short program at the world championships in Milan on Wednesday. Surely they were tears of joy? They had just nailed it, big time: triple twist, whopper of […]