Skate Canada names 2020-2021 National Team

danafan

Canadian ladies über
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To be named to the National Team, a skater must finish in the top three in senior men, women, pair and ice dance disciplines at the 2020 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships and/or a ranking of top 24 in the ISU World Standings, and must be competing in the 2020-21 season. Athletes can be added at the discretion of Skate Canada based on new partnerships of current and former national team members.

My first thought it - poor Alicia Pineault. She's never been named to the national team despite competing twice on the senior grand prix and being named to worlds this year :(

MEN
Roman Sadovsky, 21, Vaughn, Ont.
Nam Nguyen, 22, Ajax, Ont.
Keegan Messing, 28, Sherwood Park, Alta.

WOMEN
Emily Bausback, 18, Vancouver, BC
Alison Schumacher, 17, Tecumseh, Ont.
Madeline Schizas, 16, Oakville, Ont.

PAIR
Kirsten Moore-Towers, 28, St. Catharines, Ont. & Michael Marinaro, 28, Sarnia, Ont.
Evelyn Walsh, 19, London, Ont. & Trennt Michaud, 24, Trenton, Ont.

ICE DANCE
Piper Gilles, 28, Toronto, Ont. & Paul Poirier, 28, Unionville, Ont.
Marjorie Lajoie, 19, Boucherville, Que. & Zachary Lagha, 21, Saint-Hubert, Que.
Carolane Soucisse, 25, Chateauguay, Que. & Shane Firus, 26, North Vancouver, B.C.
Laurence Fournier Beaudry, 28, Montreal, Que. & Nikolaj Sorensen, 31, Montreal, Que.
 

Sylvia

TBD
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Also unfortunate, funding-wise, for Joseph Phan, Nicolas Nadeau & Conrad Orzel (4th-6th at 2020 Canadians) who were on the National Team last year. At least Stephen Gogolev is on the NextGen team.

Madeline Schizas is the only skater named to both teams.

 

Colonel Green

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Basically they took the podiums + Laurence & Nikolaj - Liubov & Charlie (for obvious reasons).

I don't think there's anything remotely second-guessable about the pairs and dance picks.

Regarding the singles, I can understand just going with the podiums. For the men, there's a big gap between those three and the other guys (other than Stephen, but since he wasn't at nationals and didn't compete senior last year, that also makes sense; it was more unusual that he was on the team last season than that he's not now). The ladies field is a total mess, and with a few of the skaters that either have more historical track record or promise it'd be hard to design criteria to capture them without rendering the list completely arbitrary or broadening it a lot. Effectively this is a challenge to everybody left off to shape up this year.
 

danafan

Canadian ladies über
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I'll stop harping on this, but I feel like they could have easily added another criteria "and/or being named to the 2020 World Championship Team" to allow them to include Pineault. Of course assuming Pineault is planning to compete this season.
 

Foolhardy Ham Lint

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It seems like a slap in the face to Pineault - to be named to the world team and not the national team. She also has the second highest ISU season best score of the Canadian women (just behind Schumacher and just ahead of Bausback).

Wow. That's rough.

Pineault skated a fantastic free skate at Four Continents and held her own against top athletes from the USA, Korea and Japan.
 

barbarafan

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5,303
Also unfortunate, funding-wise, for Joseph Phan, Nicolas Nadeau & Conrad Orzel (4th-6th at 2020 Canadians) who were on the National Team last year. At least Stephen Gogolev is on the NextGen team.

Madeline Schizas is the only skater named to both teams.

also unfortunate. Alicia Fabbri/Paul Ayer not named to official team. Just noticed Sales/Wamseeker not there as well. So they have 10 ice dance teams on Next Gen but can only have 4 on High Performance. Put your glasses on Skate Canada.
Also Gogolev should be on senior team as well. You made off like bandits on pairs....only 2. I smell a rat at Skate Canada.
 

emilieh

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682
It's been my understanding that quite a bit of funding isn't directly related to being named to the national team in Canada: https://skatecanada.ca/skate-canada-high-performance-grants/

And the bulk of an athlete's funding comes from Sport Canada if they qualify. If they do qualify for one of the carding levels, they don't also get the grant/prize money that is tied to their nationals placement.
 

Rock2

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3,725
It's been my understanding that quite a bit of funding isn't directly related to being named to the national team in Canada: https://skatecanada.ca/skate-canada-high-performance-grants/

And the bulk of an athlete's funding comes from Sport Canada if they qualify. If they do qualify for one of the carding levels, they don't also get the grant/prize money that is tied to their nationals placement.

I got messaged from a skater 15 mins ago asking me to post exactly this point. In this person's words, "SC gives ZERO funding to the National team."....and "being on the National Team means literally nothing".

So yes, the funding comes from other sources - Sport Canada, Own the Podium, etc.
 

Colonel Green

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Skate Canada’s Instagram stories it seems there was a photo shoot of some kind in Toronto.

Piper alluded to the same in her Stories.

The senior Canadian dancers at IAM had some kind of photoshoot on the weekend that Romain Haguenauer tagged with #skatecanada, so maybe that's related somehow, though the Montreal photos were rather different than anything I've seen Skate Canada do, so perhaps not.
 

Judy

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5,527
I got messaged from a skater 15 mins ago asking me to post exactly this point. In this person's words, "SC gives ZERO funding to the National team."....and "being on the National Team means literally nothing".

So yes, the funding comes from other sources - Sport Canada, Own the Podium, etc.

My niece works for Own the Podium In Ottawa 😁.
 

greenapple

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