Okay, it’s early in the season. We get that. The Olympics took the starch out of a lot of athletes last season and it’s so hard to pull up the bootstraps after that. But the men’s short program at Skate Canada International Grand Prix was….a learning experience for most. It was hard. Really hard. For […]
Conrad Orzel
New faces, new beginnings for Canadian skaters
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 […]
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 […]
Boys to Men
One thing leads to another. Keegan Messing finished fifth at the Canadian championships last season. That landed him on the national team. That meant he got some financial help for training. And it means that this season, he is actually a full-time skater. Skate Canada photo All of these upticks in his personal situation rolled […]
The magic of Canada’s junior men
OTTAWA Stephen Gogolev looks like somebody’s lost little brother who wandered up on the medal podium for junior men, slipping out unnoticed from the cheap seats, looking for ice cream. But no. The 12-year-old with the shy glance won the darned thing. He could have taken his opponents out by the knees, because he stood […]