Silver this. Silver that. That’s the colour linked perennially and always to Yuma Kagiyama’s name. But that pile of shiny metal bits doesn’t come close to explaining what the world saw in the men’s free skate at the world figure skating championships in Prague on March 28. Kagiyama’s free skate was epic. Homeric. Classy. The […]
Stephen Gogolev
Pairs: the Astronomical Clock is Ticking
Timing seems to be everything. The only times in history that the world figure skating championships have previously been held in beautiful, historic Prague, Canadian pairs and men’s skaters have excelled. Make that four world gold medals at two events, separated by 31 years: 1962 and 1993. It’s now another 33 years […]
Gogolev: Finding his Spot in the Sun
Suddenly, Stephen Gogolev was just there. Tall, lanky, a master of understatement, a greater master of quick rotation, Gogolev emerged during the Olympic season like a bursting bud that had been buried for a long demoralizing winter. He’ll be going to his first world championship in Prague next week as a player, after having […]
Men Meet Friday the 13th
Friday the Thirteenth. That’s all you need to know. The men’s Olympic final was on this day of black cats, and blood moons, and things that go bump in the night. Unfortunately, so many of the men went bump in the night. But nobody, just nobody, even into the far corners of this earth, imagined […]
Keegan Messing Unretires.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. Keegan Messing is now 33, with a fine spiderweb of white hair among his dark locks. And he’s just caused a rumble by deciding to unretire and set his sights on the Milan Olympic Games next February. You see him on ice, slipping around an ice pad with great speed, trying out a […]
The Men’s Short Program: A Slippery Slope
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 […]
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 […]
Run boy, run
Yes, Stephen Gogolev is still only 12 years old, a ghost-like little form who expresses his intent on the ice. Photo by Danielle Earl He’ll be 13 in December, too young yet for the Junior Grand Prix circuit, but nationally, he’s making the huge leap from junior to senior. “It was kind of an easy […]
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 […]