2024–25 Canadian Men: News and Updates

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Rob Brodie's latest interview with Wesley Chiu: https://rwbrodiewrites.substack.com/p/im-hoping-to-ride-that-momentum
Already, that work has begun in earnest. His choreographer, Joey Russell, has already crafted a new short program for him. While Chiu isn’t ready yet to divulge all of the details about it, he does reveal this: “It’ll be different than what I skated to in the past. I haven’t done this style of music since I was really little; I think it’ll be really cool to have a more mature take on it.”

On the technical side, Chiu said the main goal for himself, along with coaches Keegan and Eileen Murphy, is refining the product he puts out on the ice.

“The quad Sal(chow) was sort of a struggle at the beginning of last season; we’re putting that back in and hopefully this year, it’ll be a lot stronger,” said Chiu, who is based at the Connaught Skating Club in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond, B.C. “Overall, I think my focus for this season will be refinement and details, and improving the quality of what I can already do.”
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Wesley also discusses the positive impact working with sports psychologist Anne Muscat has had on his skating:
Over the past two years, Chiu has worked with Anne Muscat, a sports psychologist based in Vancouver who has been a mental performance consultant for Swimming Canada’s powerhouse program since 2021. Chiu credits her with being a huge difference maker for the mental side of his skating.

“A lot of visualization, breathing, just creating a routine that I’m comfortable with. That helps me stay calm and feel sort of at home mentally … I think that has played a big role in helping me translate my training into competition,” Chiu said in detailing what he’s learned. “Just being able to stay relaxed … That’s sort of the most important part. I think I’ve really been able to grasp that this season, whether it’s through mental training or the maturity of having a different perspective on competition.”
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Anthony Paradis shared 1 minute of his “chair-ography” exhibition program (filmed by Jordan Cowan) at Marjorie Lajoie’s “Patinage Atypique” fundraiser show last Saturday:

Instagram

www.instagram.com www.instagram.com

Grayson Long, 16 (placed 7th in Junior at 2024 Nationals, 4th in FS) recently worked with Tom Zakrajsek in Colorado Springs for 2 weeks with a focus on the 3A:
www.instagram.com

Tom Zakrajsek on Instagram: "It’s been a great two weeks working with @graysonrlong on his 3A. 💪His participation in my training program and daily effort was extraordinary! A special thank you to @brianorser for your trust in me and my team which inc

463 likes, 3 comments - coachtomz on May 25, 2024: "It’s been a great two weeks working with @graysonrlong on his 3A. 💪His participation in my training program and daily effort was extraordinary! A special thank you to @brianorser for your trust in me and my team which included @peacelovefuzzy...
www.instagram.com www.instagram.com
 
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Thanks for the local article link @shutterbug! I will post the Lake Placid comp. results link in the 2024 U.S. Club Competitions thread in Kiss & Cry when the starting orders are published online next week.

Grand Prix assignments were published on June 9, 2024:
Wesley Chiu: #1 Skate America & #6 Cup of China
Stephen Gogolev: #2 Skate Canada International & #4 NHK Trophy
Roman Sadovsky: Skate Canada International
Aleksa Rakic: Skate Canada International
 
Rob Brodie interview with Alexa Rakic: https://rwbrodiewrites.substack.com/p/it-was-like-a-dream-year
Rakic expects he’ll be better prepared for Skate Canada this October, being that he’s already on the entry list and has a full summer to prepare (this time, his competition schedule won’t be as jam-packed. Right now, it includes a summer event at the end of July in Philadelphia, followed by the B.C. Summer Skate in August).
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He’ll take a new long program into the 2024-25 campaign, while retaining his short program from last season, skated to “Biblical,” by Calum Scott, and “Epiphany,” by Karl Hugo. It was crafted by his long-time choreographer Mark Pillay (“Been with him since first-year junior, back in 2018, I think. Long relationship with him”).

For the free skate, he and McLeod chose to team up with renowned French choreographer Benoit Richaud. Rakic loved the experience.
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The program features three pieces of music: the first from the soundtrack of the 2005 French movie, “Va, Vis et deviens,” by Armand Amar. “Then it switches into a contemporary piece of music called “Steppe” (by Rene Aubry), and the last piece is, I think by a quartet, and it’s another instrumental piece (“Uncovered,” by Joseph William Morgan),” said Rakic. “The music really builds to the end, and the last piece is a step sequence and powerful.”
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Top Summer 2024-25 Scores
updated 8/18

SENIOR MEN
Stephen Gogolev 233
Roman Sadovsky 224
Aleksa Rakic 216
Wesley Chiu 216
Bruce Waddell 193
Alec Guinzbourg 188
Matthew Newnham 187
Anthony Paradis TBD (has competed junior)

JUNIOR MEN
Grayson Long 204
Anthony Paradis 200
John Kim 192
David Bondar 191
David Shteyngart 179
David Howes 176
Jake Ellis 175
William Chan 174
Parker Heiderich 174
David Li 168
Edward Nicholas Vasii 165
 
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Re-posting from the Trophy Metropole Nice Cote d'Azur competiiton thread in the Kiss & Cry section:
Sylvia said:
Parker H. goes into 1st with 61.76 - he's 18 according to Skate Canada's press release. It's great to see a late bloomer (4th in Novice last season) making his international debut :) Scott Davis is with him.
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Parker Heiderich's 1st place Junior SP on Oct. 16 (from FFSG's livestream): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv6jJsoGudE
His 2nd place FS (126.10) the next day from the same source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO0VhEPSOZM
He won the gold with a total score of 187.86! :)
 
Meagan Duhamel certainly had something to say about that recently ;): https://x.com/mhjd_85/status/1845636152088301605
After Circelli medaled at Tayside Trophy, his first international for Italy:
Corey winning the long at a Senior B …. For Italy. Because Canada didn’t think he was good enough for senior B’s. 👊
To be fair, he got a lot of opportunities for Canada. Until he didn’t. But I find the whole situation amusing.
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Rob Brodie's Substack articles about the Canadian men in Halifax - this one focuses on Stephen Gogolev's successful SP and includes quotes from Lee Barkell (also includes quotes from Aleksa Rakic and Roman Sadovsky):
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com

#SCI24: Sharp dressed for some success

Stephen Gogolev reminded everyone in Halifax of his bountiful talent in the men's short program. And he seems to have found a situation that suits him well.
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com rwbrodiewrites.substack.com
While Barkell said there had been “some issues” in dealing with his back during the off-season, all is well for the moment and the decision was made to scale down his programs this week to protect his health (the short program will eventually have two quads. Gogolev has been landing quad loops in practice, and Barkell said either that or the quad toe will be added down the road in the combination. The long will be similarly watered down, with the plan to have three or four quads in it by season’s end).
“It’s been kind of on and off,” Gogolev said of his back health. “We took it very carefully leading up to this competition.”
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“This program is really fun. It’s the short program I’ve enjoyed the most doing in the past couple of years,” he said, adding he’s already halfway to his goal at Skate Canada. “Short and free, clean skates. So I got the first part of that done. Overall, I’m pretty happy and I just wanted to enjoy this experience.”
The enthusiastic audience at Scotiabank Centre did its part to make that happen. “There was a lot more people than I expected and it was louder, which was nice to see,” he said.
Both his programs this season are Richaud creations, and Gogolev decided he wanted to expand the Frenchman’s role this season. “I work with him as a choreographer and I really like his work ethic and his strategies, and I thought it would be a good idea to add him as a coach.”
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Scroll down to "Rakic Makes the Big Leap" for post-FS quotes: https://rwbrodiewrites.substack.com/p/sci24-a-high-five-for-canadian-ice
His program component scores were also very much on par with the technical — something he credits choreographer Benoit Richard with helping improve. “I’ve put a lot of work into it (improved PCS) … Benoit Richaud, he helped a lot,” he said of the creative Frenchman, a former ice dancer. “I think he’s just brilliant. His mind, the way he works, is amazing. He can also move really well, probably better than me. He’s also demanding in a good way, so he really pushes me to the max of my ability.”
En route to his silver medal at nationals in Calgary back in January, Rakic won the free skate by a convincing margin (Wesley Chiu had built a double-digit lead after the short and it held up). The days of a Patrick Chan dominating men’s skating in Canada for an extended period are long gone, and the duel for gold at 2025 Canadians in Laval, Quebec, should be a doozy.
“Very much an opportunity. I feel like in the past seasons … Patrick Chan was dominating for a long time, so maybe for others, it felt like it was impossible,” he said. “But for me, it’s like I can do this. Sometimes when there’s bad days or stuff, the pressure, it can get to you. You know what can happen, and you really want it so bad, but today was important in setting me up a little closer to being the top man. Who knows?”
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Brodie's "Some guys have all the (bad) luck" section is about Roman's injury withdrawal:
“He tweaked his back on Monday before getting here,” Skate Canada high performance director Mike Slipchuk revealed Sunday after the competition was done. “It’s nothing major long term, but he wasn’t able to rotate. That’s why you saw the first three days, he didn’t jump here on practice. He did no jumps. He got treatment while he was here. The day of the short was the first day he jumped. It wasn’t 100 per cent but there was some discomfort.”
After practice Sunday morning didn’t go well, Sadovsky and his coach Tracey Wainman made the difficult call to withdraw.
“They made the decision, Tracey (Wainman) and Roman, in his best interest. He was disappointed because he’s had a good season. He was trained and ready,” said Slipchuk.
“This morning, he came out and did stuff, but it’s just not where he wants to be. It’s not anything we see long term — we saw improvement this week — but it’s better to get him healthy, because we have him slated to go to Tallinn (Trophy, a Challenger Series event) in two weeks, so we’d like him to be healthy to get out and get that experience there.”
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Elvis Stojko, Patrick Chan weigh in on state of Canadian men's figure skating
No Canadian man has won a world or Olympic medal since Chan in 2014
By Daniel Rainbird · The Canadian Press (Oct. 28): https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/...e-skating-elvis-stojko-patrick-chan-1.7366185

Quote from Patrick:
The 33-year-old says the sport has changed drastically since he retired in 2018 because of a new generation pushing the boundaries "at a rate that I've never seen before."
"The bar has been raised by the likes of Ilia Malinin so high that it's almost like anything below him is noise," Chan said. "Elvis Stojko, Kurt and Alexei Yagudin — these are like my idols — even they would be like middle of the pack in this current era.
"If I was starting as a junior skater right now and I was watching the field ahead of me, I'd be like, `maybe I should start looking at a different sport,' because it's just so crazy."
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The skating quality of John Kim is extraordinary! Shame the jumps are so inconsistent because if he could tame it, he has national medalist quality for sure, and he actually does have a 4t and 3ax.
 
haribobo said:
SENIOR MEN from BC, Ontario, Alberta, Quebec sectionals, scoring 180+

Anthony Paradis 223
Edrian Paul Celestino 197
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This YT account has posted Paradis' and Celestino's (back from representing PHI) Quebec Sectional programs from the livestream:
Paradis' SP (78.67): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjpkQaMgqOg
FS (144.41 in Fs with 81 PCS): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP2nKlEPm1c

Celestino's SP (72.53; kept last season's music): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-FapUfCTO0
FS (125.28): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=378HMP4hHSA

David Bondar's 1st place Junior SP at the Ontario Sectional (73.59; landed an excellent 3A, 3F, 3Lz+3T, all L4 spins):
He won with a total score of 194.00; David Shteyngart finished 2nd with 191.95 (scored 131.59 in his 1st place FS). Skate Ontario is uploiading videos on demand now - if I find the Junior Men's FS I will post a timestamped link.
For now here's Shteyngart's October Sectional Series 2nd place FS (112.77): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5K-Enm3Bsc

ETA - reposting here from the Kiss & Cry competion thread for Canadian Sectionals:
Sylvia said:
Parker Heiderich (gold medalist in his international debut in Nice, France last month: https://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs00120699.htm) won the [Alberta] Junior Men's event with a total score of 169.67 (114.10 in FP) - his FP to Les Miz, choreo. by Jeff Langdon, starts here: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x98gbjm?start=1464
Heiderich turned 18 yesterday (Nov. 4).
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From earlier in this thread:
Sylvia said:
Re-posting from the Trophy Metropole Nice Cote d'Azur competiiton thread in the Kiss & Cry section: ...
Parker Heiderich's 1st place Junior SP on Oct. 16 (from FFSG's livestream): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv6jJsoGudE
His 2nd place FS (126.10) the next day from the same source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO0VhEPSOZM
He won the gold with a total score of 187.86! :)
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Also, here's excerpt from Rob Brodie's Nov. 1st Substack article post-SCI24 (linked here https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/threads/canadian-figure-skating.111461/page-10#post-6676653) - in the section titled We’re still looking for “the guy” among Canada’s men:
We saw some very good long programs from some people, but not quite the same in the short, and vice versa. But it’s the belief that it still could happen — that somebody could turn in the kind of back-to-back effort Schizas showed — that has Slipchuk still talking optimistically about his top four competitors in this discipline.
“This is a season … there’s a spot there for Worlds and it’s there for the taking. It’s up to someone to step up and grab it.. And it’s going to be an ongoing battle all season with Stephen (Gogolev), Wesley (Chiu), Aleksa (Rakic) and Roman (Sadovsky),” he said. “It could come down to as far as Four Continents before we sort this out (it actually did last season). I have a lot of faith in our men. We haven’t yet seen them come out with those two performances. I think you saw it with Wesley at Four Continents last year where he came seventh. We have a lot of faith, we just need to see that in competition, those two performances that show what they can do.
“We saw it in the short with Stephen (at SCI), didn’t see it in the long. We saw it in the long with Aleksa … we just keep seeing it in pieces here and there.” [...]
“I thought Aleksa had a very good week. Last year, it was his first Skate Canada and it was like his welcome to the Grand Prix,” said Slipchuk. “He did what we usually see from Aleksa in training and what we saw in the summer events. I thought it was two good skates and one of the best scores he’s put up internationally. I think he did everything he could … one mistake in the short, maybe, a small mistake there. But the scores are what we kind of have him tracking at, so I thought it was a very good week for him for sure.”
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Relevant excerpt re: Davey Howes from the latest Laurie Nealin Winnipeg Free Press article posted by @Skate Talker in the Kiss And Cry forum (email required to access full article): Manitoba quartet qualifies for skating championships

Junior men’s competitor Howes, 17, who claimed bronze a year ago in the qualifier, upgraded to silver this time with a stellar performance of his Sound of Silence long program, choreographed by Canada’s multiple world medal-winning ice dancer Kaitlyn Weaver.

“I really love this program. It’s been a really great vehicle for me to begin to add more difficult choreography, as well as adding more jumps. I love skating it,” said Howes, who now trains in Richmond, B.C.

“I felt relaxed today. It felt exactly like training and I was able to execute all the elements like in training. A big relief was when I got the (triple)lutz-(triple) toe done and I was able to just settle into the rest of the skate. That’s my main risk element.”
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A brief interview with Davey also aired last night on our local Global News dinner time broadcast. :)
 
A little “where are they now” article from The Hamilton Spectator on Jeremy Ten: Burnaby skating champion to star in PNE Winter Fair
“I spent about 11 years representing Canada, and then I went on to touring professionally and performing in front of an audience. In this stage of my life, it just feels so amazing to be able to still be doing it because I’m over 30, and it just gives me an opportunity to keep doing what I love without the pressures of trying to win a medal or doing the crazy jumps I used to do,” Ten said.
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Since retiring from competitive figure skating in 2015, Ten toured the world performing on Royal Caribbean cruise ships for three years. He then joined Cirque du Soleil Axel in the role of the antagonist Vi. His time with Cirque du Soleil was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the show was never brought back after the pandemic ended.
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Copying out the 2025 Canadian Nationals men's entries as of Dec. 10, 2024 (Skate Canada Challenge placements added):

Category: Senior Men
Name Section
Damien Bueckert SK
Edrian Paul Celestino QC [Ch-6]
Brian Chiem AB/NT/NU [Ch-12]
Wesley Chiu BC/YK
Stephen Gogolev ON
Antoine Goyette QC [Ch-13]
Alec Guinzbourg ON [Ch-11]
John Kim ON [Ch-10]
Shohei Law BC/YK [Ch-8]
David Li BC/YK [Ch-7]
Grayson Long ON
Rio Morita ON [Ch-5]
Matthew Newnham AB/NT/NU [Ch-4]
Anthony Paradis QC [Ch-2]
Aleksa Rakic BC/YK [Ch-1]
Roman Sadovsky ON [Ch-3]
Bruce Waddell ON [Ch-9]
Number Entries: 17

Category: Junior Men
Name Section
David Bondar ON [Ch-1]
James Cha ON [Ch-13]
William Chan BC/YK [Ch-4]
Nico Conforti BC/YK [Ch-8]
Jake Ellis ON [Ch-6]
Louie Fukuda-Wu BC/YK [Ch-10]
Vladimir Furman QC [Ch-12]
Parker Heiderich AB/NT/NU [Ch-7]
David Howes MB [Ch-2]
Étienne Lacasse QC [Ch-11]
Tehryn Lee BC/YK [Ch-16]
Christopher Manis BC/YK [Ch-18]
Jonathon Moravec ON [Ch-17]
Kole Sauve AB/NT/NU [Ch-15]
Liam Schmidt QC [Ch-14]
David Shteyngart ON [Ch-3]
Neo Tran BC/YK [Ch-9]
Edward Nicholas Vasii QC [Ch-5]
Number Entries: 18
 
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Relevant excerpt from Rob Brodie's Skate Canada International article (Oct 26, 2024): https://rwbrodiewrites.substack.com/p/sci24-sharp-dressed-for-some-success
Add it all up, and we saw the very good side of Gogolev on Saturday in Halifax. With a clean skate that included a quad Salchow and triple Axel, he posted an 82.70 score that landed him in fifth place after the short program. Best of all, he exited the ice with a smile on his face — not the forlorn look of the 2024 Canadian Championships in Calgary, when a flareup of a previous back injury scuttled his short program and forced him to withdraw.
While Barkell said there had been “some issues” in dealing with his back during the off-season, all is well for the moment and the decision was made to scale down his programs this week to protect his health (the short program will eventually have two quads. Gogolev has been landing quad loops in practice, and Barkell said either that or the quad toe will be added down the road in the combination. The long will be similarly watered down, with the plan to have three or four quads in it by season’s end).
“It’s been kind of on and off,” Gogolev said of his back health. “We took it very carefully leading up to this competition.”
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Wesley Chiu is recovering from a “badly sprained right ankle he suffered during a practice session at the Cup of China Grand Prix event back in November” - article by Rob Brodie (Jan. 11):
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com

#SCNats25: 'There's a lot of uncertainty'

Wesley Chiu would dearly love to win a second Canadian title next week in Laval. The question is whether his ailing ankle will allow him to have a fair shot at doing just that.
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com rwbrodiewrites.substack.com
Another plus for Chiu is this: unless someone blows their socks off in Laval, it’s a safe bet Skate Canada won’t be making any World team decision until after the Four Continents Championships, set for Feb. 19-23 in Seoul, South Korea (they did the same before 2024 Worlds in Montreal).
That’s two weeks later than the originally scheduled date for Four Continents. So that would give Chiu another month or so to get healthier for that event and put his best foot forward there with a World team berth on the line.
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ICYMI the irrepressible Anthony Paradis has a YouTube channel (he vlogged about his JGP experiences in Riga & Gdansk earlier this season) - his latest vlog on Challenge in Winnipeg was uploaded on Dec. 31st: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-RPcGvCTeQ

ETA: Also featuring Hetty Shi (a different side of her than we're used to seeing ;)) and David Li ("You're going to cut all this out, right?"). :D

ETA 2: Also Chloe Nguyen/Brendan Giang who confirm they are a couple off ice :) and Edrian Paul Celestino (who is no longer representing Philippines internationally as of this season), and a shuttle cameo by Sandrine Gauthier/Quentin Thieren.
 
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Sylvia said:
Wesley Chiu is recovering from a “badly sprained right ankle he suffered during a practice session at the Cup of China Grand Prix event back in November” - article by Rob Brodie (Jan. 11):
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com

#SCNats25: 'There's a lot of uncertainty'

Wesley Chiu would dearly love to win a second Canadian title next week in Laval. The question is whether his ailing ankle will allow him to have a fair shot at doing just that.
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com rwbrodiewrites.substack.com
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He's now listed as WD in the nationals start order.
 
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