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 […]
Shoma Uno
“Pretty danged cool”
LAVAL, Que. Keegan Messing is chalking up the good times. They keep rolling in, like a wave. Last Saturday, he got engaged on a windy mountain ridge. He forgot the matches to light up the stove for soup. Everything went wrong. But Lane Hodson said yes. “If she says yes when everything goes wrong, you […]
Patrick Chan's new plan of attack
It’s as if Patrick Chan is sweating his way through a nightmare. Just as he is about to grasp the golden ring, it slips out of his reach. He’s running as fast as he can but it feels like slow motion, as his opponents pull away. We know how it feels, when the bottom suddenly […]
The quad fest at Four Continents
Is Nathan Chen for real? Has he been bundled onto earth somehow by a shiny space ship bearing gifts? Is he the lottery ticket somebody lost, then pulled triumphantly out of a drawer? Is this all a fairy tale? Injured after last year’s U.S. nationals, Chen was competing at only his second major international event […]
Chan's game plan in the face of all quads
About 3 ½ months ago, at Skate Canada International, Patrick Chan felt the heaviness in his legs during the long program and wondered why. Yes, he won the gold medal at Skate Canada last fall by almost four points over Yuzuru Hanyu, but it hadn’t gone as well as hoped in the free skate for […]
Gary Beacom: Blade Master
Around the rink they flew, all manner of skaters executing unusual shapes and steps, all in the mold of blade master Gary Beacom, a 56-year-old pied piper of sorts. There were falls. There were smiles.Giggles to be sure. A tiny girl clearly unafraid of the odd slip – who undoubtedly had never heard of Beacom […]
What Yuzuru Hanyu said
Yuzuru Hanyu. Star of the show. Sometimes removed from the rest of the world by a language barrier. At Skate Canada International this week, the Japanese media – who do understand him of course – liven up the place and fill it up too. There are at least 90 media accredited for this event, […]
If lightning strikes, it's probably Yuzuru Hanyu
At the end of a busy December Saturday, Shae-Lynn Bourne finally had a chance to watch history unfold at the Grand Prix Final in Barcelona. On her Smartphone, Bourne could see just enough from the tiny little figures to know that Yuzuru Hanyu, for whom she had created the free skate, could make no errors. […]
If lightning strikes, it's probably Yuzuru Hanyu
At the end of a busy December Saturday, Shae-Lynn Bourne finally had a chance to watch history unfold at the Grand Prix Final in Barcelona. On her smartphone, Bourne could see just enough from the tiny little figures to know that Yuzuru Hanyu, for whom she had created the free skate, could make no errors. […]