Canadian Men 2018-19 season news & updates

[Tinami Amori]

Can a "Canadian in the know" tell me if Roman Sadovsky's parents are from USSR originally, and if yes, does anyone knows if his Grand-father's name is Pavel?

 

[Emdee]

Roman’s parents came to Canada from the Ukraine.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

Congrats to Keegan for owning the SP at Nebelhorn, 1st Place.

I can't remember how many seasons did he skate for the USA?

 

[Colonel Green]

I can't remember how many seasons did he skate for the USA?

His last was 2013-14; he’d done three as a senior internationally.

 

[screech]

Decent outing for Keegan - 90.63 points, with a minor mistake on the axel (that for some reason one of the judges gave a +1??). It's actually currently the 4th highest SP score under the new judging system (behind Uno, Hanyu, and Kolyada, and just barely ahead of Cha Jun-hwan).

While I really like some things about the program, like the hydroblading at the end of the footwork, and the Russian split into the triple lutz, as a whole I don't like this SP. I feel like even though the 'feel' of it is right in his wheelhouse, he isn't really selling/performing it as much as he has with other programs.

 

[screech]

Good outing for Keegan in the FP too - his first win since he's been skating for Canada, with a FP score of 166.53.

A few small mistakes - turn-out on the triple loop, and I'm assuming the 3T/3T combo was supposed to include a second quad, but overall well done!!
Wasn't he trying for a quad lutz early last year, or am I imagining things? In any case, it's been a triple.

 

[Colonel Green]

Wasn't he trying for a quad lutz early last year, or am I imagining things? In any case, it's been a triple.

He tried it in the early going last season (at 2017 SCI he both fell on it and got a downgrade) but abandoned it when it wasn't working.

He didn't attempt it at Nebelhorn earlier today, I'm guessing because he looked at his healthy short program lead and the way everybody else had skated up to that point and figured (correctly) that he didn't need to risk it.

Joseph didn't have a perfect free program today, but it was obviously a huge improvement over the disaster at Kaunas, and he got a bronze medal. Hopefully this will help with whatever confidence issues he seemed to be having since the summer, and he's now got a few months to just prepare for nationals. And he did Stephen a favour by pushing Kirill lower than Stephen in the GPF qualification standings.

 

[mackiecat]

He tried it at Summer Skate GTA. Landed it on warm up-fell in the program

 

[Dobre]

Keegan's fantastic growth as a competitor and a performer since his first Skate Canada invitation a few years ago just puts a HUGE smile on my face.

 

[paskatefan]

Yay for Keegan!

 

[Rock2]

Yes, yay for Keegan.
Not sure if this has been discussed, but anyone know if he has plans to integrate another quad?
I see he has 3Z in his program to start, possibly as a placeholder.

He needs 3 quads in the long to be seen as ongoing top six. And feel free to ditch the 3L in its place. I need to go back but I feel like he pops or otherwise fails on this jump a ton. An ideal jump plan (in any order) would be:

Quad #2
4T
4T+2T
3A
3A+2T+2L
3Z+3T
3F or 3S


For an added bonus, a Euler-Sal combo could get him even higher...but...baby steps.

 

[Colonel Green]

Yes, yay for Keegan.
Not sure if this has been discussed, but anyone know if he has plans to integrate another quad?
I see he has 3Z in his program to start, possibly as a placeholder.

We were discussing that above. He’s doing the 4Lz this year, which he also tried briefly to introduce in competition last year.

In the summer skate he got the rotations in but fell on it. At Nebelhorn he either decided not to attempt it in advance or popped it into a triple — my guess is the former, since he had a comfortable short program lead, and may have opted to play it safe.

 

[screech]

Yes, yay for Keegan.
Not sure if this has been discussed, but anyone know if he has plans to integrate another quad?
I see he has 3Z in his program to start, possibly as a placeholder.

He needs 3 quads in the long to be seen as ongoing top six. And feel free to ditch the 3L in its place. I need to go back but I feel like he pops or otherwise fails on this jump a ton. An ideal jump plan (in any order) would be:

Quad #2
4T
4T+2T
3A
3A+2T+2L
3Z+3T
3F or 3S


For an added bonus, a Euler-Sal combo could get him even higher...but...baby steps.

He had a 3T/3T combo later in the program at Nebelhorn, which I'm assuming was planned to be a 4T.

 

[Colonel Green]

Poor Conrad, he missed equaling Joseph's redemption bronze by 0.01 points.

That notwithstanding, he should be feeling good about where he is now. This was fourth place, but it was a very different fourth place from last event -- he's only off the podium because Slovenia ended up featuring what is probably the most consistent men's competition, junior or senior, so far this season; everybody in the top six skated mostly clean.

In Conrad's case, his first three jumping passes were a series of progressively more spectacular saves on the landing. Really bravura display of nerve there, as he didn't let it get to him. The free program still doesn't feel like a particularly good fit to me (especially in comparison to the perfectly-tailored short program), but I guess they're hoping it will push him to develop more performance range. He's got until Nationals to work on things and hopefully book another ticket to Junior Worlds.

 

[RoseRed]

It's too bad he missed a medal, but considering he was saying before the event that he didn't think he'd skate the FS clean because he never does in competition and generally sounding very unconfident in how the FS would go, I would call this a big win for Conrad. Hopefully it's some much needed confidence. He seems happy with how it went: https://www.instagram.com/p/BokQvnxDDNu/?hl=en&taken-by=conradorzel

 

[aftershocks]

Poor Conrad, he missed equaling Joseph's redemption bronze by 0.01 points.

Yes, that's by a whisker, and very unfortunate for Conrad when it's that close. I never like seeing it that close because it means there was no actual separation in the performances by these two competitors, and that politics and/or preference is the deciding factor. The difference in placements from sp to fp for a number of competitors is significant. Gummenik (the winner) and Hiwatashi (3rd in both segments but 2nd overall due to fluctuation in others' performances) were the steadiest competitors, apparently.

 

[mag]

I never like seeing it that close because it means there was no actual separation in the performances by these two competitors, and that politics and/or preference is the deciding factor.

What are you talking about? First off, any subjective, judged sport, has a preference component. That is not anything new or wrong. Most importantly though this result is much more likely to indicate the opposite of what you are saying. The judges gave the scores they thought were appropriate and the placements ended up where they ended up. If politics had played a significant role, the difference would have been much greater. It would be absolutely impossible for a judging panel to coordinate scoring to give one skater such a small lead over another. The system simply does not work that way.

 

[aftershocks]

What are you talking about? First off, any subjective, judged sport, has a preference component. That is not anything new or wrong. Most importantly though this result is much more likely to indicate the opposite of what you are saying. The judges gave the scores they thought were appropriate and the placements ended up where they ended up. If politics had played a significant role, the difference would have been much greater. It would be absolutely impossible for a judging panel to coordinate scoring to give one skater such a small lead over another. The system simply does not work that way.

Well true that it comes out like that sometimes, and I don't specifically think there was any special point maneuvering that hurt Conrad in this instance. The close result simply reminded me of some other high profile near ties in some senior competitions. Of course, there's preference and politicking in the judging usually all the time in figure skating, but probably not always as much of that going on in the lower competitive divisions, even though it still exists to the point where it's condoned by some fans.

I do believe the 10th of a point loss of a medal by J/C at Euros in Russia this year is highly suspect, particularly after they were unexpectedly in first place after the sp due to all the Russian teams making errors. Unsurprisingly in the fp, all the Russian teams prevailed in the scoring. Z/E are not that good a team in terms of connection and performance impact compared to J/C. There's no way to excuse that result, much less T/M winning Trophy de France with a terrible program and errors in their fp compared with J/C's wonderful skating in both their programs in their home country.

Preference judging in figure skating may not be new, but I personally do not feel that it's 'not wrong.'

 

[Rafter]

Loved Nadeau’s LP. Did Bourne do it?

He was really sucking air at the end of his program coming off the ice. Conditioning problem? Hope the PCS marks he received from the international judges will motivate him.

ETA: I just looked up the GP assignments and it’s too bad Nadeau only has one assignment. Interesting that SC gave the SCI spot to Sadovsky over Nadeau.

 

[RoseRed]

Loved Nadeau’s LP. Did Bourne do it?

He was really sucking air at the end of his program coming off the ice. Conditioning problem? Hope the PCS marks he received from the international judges will motivate him.

ETA: I just looked up the GP assignments and it’s too bad Nadeau only has one assignment. Interesting that SC gave the SCI spot to Sadovsky over Nadeau.

Better Nationals placement. And Roman was quite low on the SB list, probably would have ended up with none otherwise.

 

[Colonel Green]

This was the weekend of close brushes with the podium for Canadian guys.

Of the main senior men, Nic's free program has the lowest base value (at least among the big-money jumps), so he's going to have to bank on getting to a clean skate and the guys above running into trouble at nationals.

 

[Rock2]

Loving Nic's hokey long this year much more than the Elvis hokey long. And I'm also glad that he's packaging his personality differently from Keegan because he can't do Keegan as well as Keegan can.

He looks pretty good. 3L looks BIG. I'd like to see this become a quad. He's done it before....at least in practice.

 

[Rock2]

Poor Conrad, he missed equaling Joseph's redemption bronze by 0.01 points.

That notwithstanding, he should be feeling good about where he is now. This was fourth place, but it was a very different fourth place from last event -- he's only off the podium because Slovenia ended up featuring what is probably the most consistent men's competition, junior or senior, so far this season; everybody in the top six skated mostly clean.

In Conrad's case, his first three jumping passes were a series of progressively more spectacular saves on the landing. Really bravura display of nerve there, as he didn't let it get to him. The free program still doesn't feel like a particularly good fit to me (especially in comparison to the perfectly-tailored short program), but I guess they're hoping it will push him to develop more performance range. He's got until Nationals to work on things and hopefully book another ticket to Junior Worlds.

Bumping the Japanese dude into 4th might have also given Gogolev a distant shot at JGPF if things in Armenia fell his way. But with him sitting in 6th, forget it.

Conrad's 4S is massive. Yowza.

I thoroughly dislike his LP as well. When he asked for music on social media I recommended Saint Saens Symphony No 3 (Abbott's LP in 2010; Nathan has used parts of it, too, in Junior). Would have suited his brooding style with hints of intensity way better than this overcooked piece of genericness.

 

[barbarafan]

Loving Nic's hokey long this year much more than the Elvis hokey long. And I'm also glad that he's packaging his personality differently from Keegan because he can't do Keegan as well as Keegan can.

He looks pretty good. 3L looks BIG. I'd like to see this become a quad. He's done it before....at least in practice.

Sigh....before his injury his triple axel cleared the boards. I am wondering how much time he was able to work on skating with his school load. The CEGEP career programs in Quebec are very intensive . When you finish the (usually 3 yrs)program and get your Dec you are ready to embark on career, are experienced and have jobs lined up. Your days are power packed and each day you carry on yourself all evening and often into the night. My son has done 2 of those, one in computers and the other medical (biomedical technologies). From memory I think he was doing Kinesiology where he prob.has to study everything a doctor knows as far as the human body as well as what he would be doing. He is one of my fav. male skaters and I liked both his programs so I hope he is able to juggle everything.

 

[ChiquitaBanana]

Sigh....before his injury his triple axel cleared the boards. I am wondering how much time he was able to work on skating with his school load. The CEGEP career programs in Quebec are very intensive . When you finish the (usually 3 yrs)program and get your Dec you are ready to embark on career, are experienced and have jobs lined up. Your days are power packed and each day you carry on yourself all evening and often into the night. My son has done 2 of those, one in computers and the other medical (biomedical technologies). From memory I think he was doing Kinesiology where he prob.has to study everything a doctor knows as far as the human body as well as what he would be doing. He is one of my fav. male skaters and I liked both his programs so I hope he is able to juggle everything.

He can still be doing sport-study while in cegep and having a lesser case-load.

 

[barbarafan]

He can still be doing sport-study while in cegep and having a lesser case-load.

not on the intensive career based ones. It is really intense. If you fail or miss a test you fail the year and have to wait for the fall to repeat the year...It is combined with stages etc as well. There are no excuses for this. My nephew was in the same program my son took a few yrs later and he to leave right after we buried his mom(of cancer)from the graveside to get to school for one of his exams. My son as well had to miss wedding ceremony of my daughter for an exam but showed up for the reception. Really intense. Kinesiology maybe less intense - I do not know for sure but still would be really heavy.

 

[ChiquitaBanana]

not on the intensive career based ones. It is really intense. If you fail or miss a test you fail the year and have to wait for the fall to repeat the year...It is combined with stages etc as well. There are no excuses for this. My nephew was in the same program my son took a few yrs later and he to leave right after we buried his mom(of cancer)from the graveside to get to school for one of his exams. My son as well had to miss wedding ceremony of my daughter for an exam but showed up for the reception. Really intense. Kinesiology maybe less intense - I do not know for sure but still would be really heavy.

I do not have seen any info on Nadeau’s actual field of studies but two things :
1. Kinesiology is not a technique offered in cegep but at university level
2. Athletes affiliated through the alliance sport-etudes do get accomodation for their studies and they usually plan their program on a longer term than the usual three years for a technique degree.
3. I doubt any athlete of Nadeau’s level would enrol on a full-time school schedule
4. Cegeps run from Monday to Friday...

 

[barbarafan]

I do not have seen any info on Nadeau’s actual field of studies but two things :
1. Kinesiology is not a technique offered in cegep but at university level
2. Athletes affiliated through the alliance sport-etudes do get accomodation for their studies and they usually plan their program on a longer term than the usual three years for a technique degree.
3. I doubt any athlete of Nadeau’s level would enrol on a full-time school schedule
4. Cegeps run from Monday to Friday...

1) It is on his facebook page.
3) Where he is going to school it is only full time with stages
4) with lots of extra work to do which will include time on weekends. Plus at the level he skates there is no way of maintaining just weekend skating. Kudos to him for squeezing everything in. His programs are beautiful.

 

[Alvyne]

1) It is on his facebook page.
3) Where he is going to school it is only full time with stages
4) with lots of extra work to do which will include time on weekends. Plus at the level he skates there is no way of maintaining just weekend skating. Kudos to him for squeezing everything in. His programs are beautiful.

It says he goes to UQAM, which is not a cégep but a university (Université du Québec à Montréal).

 

[barbarafan]

It says he goes to UQAM, which is not a cégep but a university (Université du Québec à Montréal).

Read the details of the program.