You look at Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier – nametag Olympic bronze medalists – and you rub your eyes. They were always a couple of goofballs who didn’t care what anybody thought of their creative schemes. Now they are much more. Or rather, the world now recognizes them as much more. On the Olympic stage, […]
Paul Poirier
Gilles and Poirier: Ascending to Silver
MONTREAL The long road to the top in ice dancing is taken in long, agonizing inches. Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, bronze medalists last year for the second time, stepped up the podium to a silver medal this time, at home, in front of a wildly cheering crowd. They finished their intriguing “Wuthering Heights” routine […]
Rhythm Dance
MONTREAL Ice dance. Growl. Navigating all of its ins and outs and chilly winds is the stuff of a champion. The safe thing: defending world dance champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates, skating to Queen, of all important things, sit in first place with GOEs as high as an elephant’s eye. Their bonus points for […]
Gilles and Poirer: Ready for Gold
Two-time world bronze medalists Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier clearly skate for the love of it, to create shapes, to echo themes in their movements in completely artistic fashion, to leave memories few can forget. (Hitchcock, Vincent, Both Sides Now, Evita, Wuthering Heights). Those things come first of all. But they are coming into this […]
Fabbri and Ayer Break the Ice
Just before he had to leave the ice after warmup, Paul Ayer ran his fingers over the words “CALGARY” at centre ice at the Winsport arena. He had come home to Calgary. And now it was his time. Born in Calgary, Ayer moved to Montreal six years ago to skate with Alicia Fabbri. He had […]
Gilles and Poirier: A Wuthering Masterpiece
In a Vancouver rink last night, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier unleashed a flood of pink, billowing loveliness with an ominous undertone and created art out of a free dance. The two-time world bronze medalists displayed their new “Wuthering Heights” free dance for the first time this season, and judges responded by awarding them the […]
Gilles and Poirier: The Reveal
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier had the best of seasons and the worst of seasons last year. The Canadian ice dancers swept through with wins in both of their Grand Prix events and won the Grand Prix Final, too. Then the wheels came off for Gilles, who found she suffered from stage one ovarian cancer, […]
Gilles and Poirier: on a Quest for the Sun
“Now they only block the sun. They rain and snow on everyone. So many things I would have done, But clouds got in my way.” Indeed. Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier will skate to these Joni Mitchell words next week at the world figure skating championships in Stockholm, Sweden. No doubt, for them […]
A hair-raising experience
Think you’ve had a bad hair day? That somebody took the last Timbit? That you missed the last bus to Barbados in a snowstorm? That the television cable went out in the middle of the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships? So you think YOU have had a bad hair day? Just ask Piper Gilles. She […]
“Mack and Mabel” Back in Town
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier have strummed the dance strings of long ago, and what sung loudest to them was a classic: “Mack and Mabel.” “It’s one of our all-time favourites,” Gilles said, beaming after leading the rhythm dance at Autumn Classic International with 79.61 points, just .83 points short of their career best. […]