2024–25 Canadian Ice Dance: News and Updates

Not sure whether this should go here or not (I couldn't find another forum to put it in lol and she still technically represents Canada to my knowledge), but Dana Sabatini-Speciale and Daniel Kaye have a team Instagram page, but still no mention of country representation.

Instagram: dana_daniel_icedance

A vlog was posted today of their training with Barbara Fusar Poli's team in Milan. Looks like they have programs (having said that, they only showed a few elements), but I haven't seen them on any entry lists for anything...

I think they look pretty good, especially considering Daniel has not done partnered dance before, while Dana was on the JGP circuit :)

https://youtu.be/hwmyUnhTK_U?si=UIXBJiD7BbPsRgRJ
 
I’m a bit sick in bed unfortunately tonight …..and I’m watching that figure skating show podcast on the YouTubes right now. Piper Gillis got married? Her husband seems kind of hunky.

When did this happen? I mean I never ever ever go into the weddings thread. It’s just not my thing.

Holy moly, trusova got married to makar? I thought she was dating Mark…. Confuuuusedddddd

What the heck …Polina Edmunds got married as well? And I’m only two minutes in into a 25 minute podcast.
 
Honestly, I think Canadian ice dance is in a bit of trouble. Things are fine at the very tip-top with GilPoir and LajLag, but after that, there's a not-insignificant drop on the senior level and the juniors are a bit underwhelming on the JGP. Hopefully things will pick back up, but I'd be prepared for just one team reliably making the GPF post-2026 for a few years.
 
Karen-W said:
Honestly, I think Canadian ice dance is in a bit of trouble. Things are fine at the very tip-top with GilPoir and LajLag, but after that, there's a not-insignificant drop on the senior level and the juniors are a bit underwhelming on the JGP. Hopefully things will pick back up, but I'd be prepared for just one team reliably making the GPF post-2026 for a few years.
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I admire your optimism if you can identify most notably trouble in Canadian ice dance. Unless I am mistaken, I don't think any of our juniors qualified for the JGP final. Or maybe pairs. We seem to have the coaching staff that can do it for skaters from other countries. I have steadfastly remained positive since the retirement of so many of our medal winners but this is starting to feel brutal. I think I need to read more of Danafan's posts who always seems to be able to generate excitement for someone on the horizon.
 
puglover said:
I admire your optimism if you can identify most notably trouble in Canadian ice dance. Unless I am mistaken, I don't think any of our juniors qualified for the JGP final. Or maybe pairs. We seem to have the coaching staff that can do it for skaters from other countries. I have steadfastly remained positive since the retirement of so many of our medal winners but this is starting to feel brutal. I think I need to read more of Danafan's posts who always seems to be able to generate excitement for someone on the horizon.
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Well, I was trying to be kind, plus ice dance is a discipline where, especially at the junior level, things can look kind of dire one season and the next season the ship has sort of righted itself. Canada won 3 medals on the JGP series in ice dance, so it's not as though there is no talent there, but the rest of the world is catching up - France and now Italy are back in the medal hunt in juniors.

But, the competitiveness of the Canadian teams below GilPoir and LajLag is not up to the same level it was just a couple years ago. This has been a strange Olympic quad, though, IMO, so maybe things will look completely different (better) in another two years. :)
 
puglover said:
I admire your optimism if you can identify most notably trouble in Canadian ice dance. Unless I am mistaken, I don't think any of our juniors qualified for the JGP final. Or maybe pairs. We seem to have the coaching staff that can do it for skaters from other countries. I have steadfastly remained positive since the retirement of so many of our medal winners but this is starting to feel brutal. I think I need to read more of Danafan's posts who always seems to be able to generate excitement for someone on the horizon.
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Maybe I got mixed up with the phrasing, but you know that two junior pairs have qualified for the final?
 
pointbleu said:
Maybe I got mixed up with the phrasing, but you know that two junior pairs have qualified for the final?
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Yes, my mistake. After I typed that I thought about pairs and was just was rushed and didn't take the time to look that up. I think the last JGP was without pairs and so they did not show up on that list.
 
Sylvia said:
Glad to see that Nadiia Bashynska & Peter Beaumont have another CS at Warsaw Cup (Nov. 20-24), along with Marie-Jade Lauriault & Romain Le Gac: https://skatecanada.ca/events/#international
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Wow they were one of my favs from Juniors, hope they can resolve their issues as they are getting beaten by teams they woukd have been ahead of in junior.
 
I just don't have faith in the skaters coming out of the Scarborough club actually making their mark. G&P are an aberration, not the promise for future teams. jmho...

Skate Canada needs to decide who is getting attention & funding after L&L, now that FB&S are done. Seems to be Fabbri & Ayer, who I keep waiting to break out.
 
Andora said:
I just don't have faith in the skaters coming out of the Scarborough club actually making their mark. G&P are an aberration, not the promise for future teams. jmho...

Skate Canada needs to decide who is getting attention & funding after L&L, now that FB&S are done. Seems to be Fabbri & Ayer, who I keep waiting to break out.
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I agree with the sentiment about Scarborough. They have a bunch of mid Jr teams that don't seem to be making much stride in the past couple of years. There seems to be much more momentum being picked up at Mariposa and Kitchener, and of course, the IAM developments branch.
 
I didn't mean the performance: I meant the interaction between them leaving the ice and in KnC. They seemed to be on different pages. They've had not great performances before, but I don't remember them not being supportive, however disappointed they were. Maybe I missed it, and that's their way.
 
All impressions are subjective, I suppose, but they looked supportive to me. Shocked and upset by the fall -- and Peter looked like he was beating himself up a little -- but supportive.
 
Robert Brodie leads off his Oct. 24th Substack article with Marjorie Lajoie's latest concussion recovery and also quotes Piper & Paul re. their multiple Barbie & Ken RD costumes (scroll down to the "Changing their look" section):
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com

#SCI24: 'I can't have a concussion after this'

A freak accident in training brought back bad memories (and symptoms) for Canadian ice dancer Marjorie Lajoie. But she's now '100 per cent' and ready to compete in Halifax.
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com rwbrodiewrites.substack.com
Added Lajoie: “And I still had symptoms, so I said we won’t push it. It was the right decision, and now I’m 100 per cent.”
Lajoie estimates they missed two full weeks of training in the wake of the concussion, and her return to the ice after that was slow and deliberate (something her recovery from the first one no doubt taught her).
“The way we trained, I couldn’t do 3 1/2 hours on the ice. So we trained two 45 minute (sessions) or two one hour. It was just the last week that I kind of did full training,” she said. “That’s the main thing we changed, more the hours, and at the beginning I couldn’t turn. So we didn’t do twizzles and spins, but quickly after I could turn and we could do twizzles.”
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More about Piper/Paul in the "There’s no turning back now" section of Brodie's Oct. 18th Substack article (based on their pre-SCI24 media call) as well as about Piper's wedding celebration earlier this month:
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com

#SCI24: Some thoughts on the road to Halifax

Skate Canada International is almost upon us, and the host country's top entries at the annual Grand Prix event had a few things to share before heading east to Nova Scotia.
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com rwbrodiewrites.substack.com
But the cat is out of the bag now, so to speak. Milan, here they come.
“At this point, I would say you can expect us shooting for our third Olympics. We’re so close (to it) … it’s really only a year and a half (away). And so for us to not consider taking that opportunity to go to our third Olympic Games and, you know, push for a medal, I think would be silly,” Gilles explained earlier this week. “We already kind of know what we want to skate to, so it kind of feels like we’re already preparing (for 2026) and it feels exciting. [...]
Beijing was also a Winter Games with no spectators in the stands, meaning no chance to perform before your family and friends. Gilles and Poirier have talked about how much it meant to them to have most everyone they love at the Bell Centre in Montreal to watch them skate to a silver medal at 2024 Worlds. Now they’d like to share that same feeling at Olympics in Milan.
“We can finally celebrate skating in front of people, and our families and everybody can be there in those moments,” said Gilles. “Yeah, I think you can definitely expect (seeing us at) the next Olympics and pushing for a medal.”
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Great ice dance competition at Skate Canada reminded me why I love skating all over again. i am no where near knowledgeable enough to get many of the finer points of ice dance which I think I am glad about as I can just enjoy it and respond as it makes me feel. I am amazed at the work coming out of Montreal and remember not so many years ago Patrick and Scott dreaming of a Canadian dance school so they would not have had to train so far from home. Piper and Paul touch me with their skating and I am glad they have continued. Lots of really impressive younger teams and lots to look forward to.
 
puglover said:
Great ice dance competition at Skate Canada reminded me why I love skating all over again. i am no where near knowledgeable enough to get many of the finer points of ice dance which I think I am glad about as I can just enjoy it and respond as it makes me feel. I am amazed at the work coming out of Montreal and remember not so many years ago Patrick and Scott dreaming of a Canadian dance school so they would not have had to train so far from home. Piper and Paul touch me with their skating and I am glad they have continued. Lots of really impressive younger teams and lots to look forward to.
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Agreed Piper and Paul were amazing and we still need them but LaLa really impressed me with their free.
 
Rob Colling ("The Skating Music Guy") on his idea behind Piper and Paul's FD music: "While we were putting it together I was thinking of it as a tango in the afterlife, or in limbo, or during that moment in a near-death experience when your life flashes before your eyes. (They didn't suggest that, that's just where I was coming from.)"

x.com

x.com x.com
 
Rob Brodie’s Substack articles from Halifax - first part of this FD one focuses on Piper/Paul, then Marjorie/Zachary and Alicia/Paul:
open.substack.com

#SCI24: A high five for Canadian ice dancers

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier matched a record with their latest triumph at Skate Canada. It's further evidence of this country's continued excellence in this discipline.
open.substack.com open.substack.com

Scroll down to "Bopping with The Beach Boys" for Brodie's RD section: https://rwbrodiewrites.substack.com/p/sci24-sharp-dressed-for-some-success
ETA an excerpt re. their different costumes:
Now, about those outfits … as Gilles and Poirier noted earlier this week, they’ve got four sets of them lined up for this program for this season (they actually unveiled a second one during practice earlier Saturday. “We wore scuba outfits this morning. Like wetsuits,” she said). As to what they’ll wear at their next competition (the Grand Prix of Finlandia in November) … well, it’ll depend how they feel on the day.
“Overall, we really wanted to showcase that we really were trying to create a little Barbie moment and rotating costumes. Especially here, we felt that was really important,” said Gilles. “(People might think) why do they keep changing their outfits? Maybe they don’t believe in what they’re doing. So we wanted to make it very clear that this is what we’re doing. We’re just going to make a decision on the day and make it fun for people. In the end, they’re going to think ‘what are they going to wear today?’”
Have they chosen a favourite themselves yet?
“I always feel like I have a favourite and I put another one on and we skate in it and I go ‘ohhh.’ Then we put another one on and … now I’m confused,” said Gilles. “They’re all great.”
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Also - CBC Sports' 3-minute interview (uploaded on Oct. 25):
 
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Colonel Green said:

Nadiia's lastest vlog, where she reveals that she sprained her ankle while walking to the rink for the free dance in Nice, which would explain a lot about how that went down.
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By chance, I just watched it. She also talked about being "iron deficient" in the early part of it which made it sound like she wasn't that healthy to begin with and the horrible ankle sprain was just the capper on it :(
 
victorskid said:
By chance, I just watched it. She also talked about being "iron deficient" in the early part of it which made it sound like she wasn't that healthy to begin with and the horrible ankle sprain was just the capper on it :(
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where can we see the program?
 
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