While Chock and Bates elected to stay put in Canada, fellow ice dancers and Montreal academymates Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker moved in with her family in Buffalo. They began working on new programs almost immediately in Zoom sessions with Chouinard and their main coach, Marie-France Dubreuil.
Two-time U.S. bronze medalists Hawayek and Baker caught a break with ice time when a Buffalo rink was allowed to reopen early in order to convert one ice sheet into a daycare center for children of essential workers. The team was able to rent ice while staying sufficiently distanced from others in the building. Still, they faced the issue of being physically separated from their coach and choreographer and communicating exclusively via Zoom.
Working on their own and consulting frequently with their coaches, Hawayek and Baker gradually built confidence. It was the first time they'd ever had that much input in a competitive program, although they had choreographed their own exhibition numbers.
They had a useful tool provided by the federation -- an auto-follow camera system called Move N See, which can be used with smartphones or tablets that sync with a watch worn on the ice. The system tracks from multiple spots around the rink and enabled Dubreuil to give the skaters feedback in real time from the big screen in her living room.
"We would record ourselves doing the same movement three different ways, from different angles, and be inspired by the work we did in Zoom on the floor and try to make it ours on the ice," Hawayek said.
She and Baker moved back to Montreal in June and, after an obligatory 14-day quarantine, reunited with Dubreuil on the ice in early July -- properly distanced, of course. The result? A modified version of their previous season's disco-themed rhythm dance (2 minutes, 40 seconds) and an entirely new four-minute free dance program skated to the music of Philip Glass and Blondie.
"What you can see on video sometimes is deceiving, sometimes it's great and sometimes it's not," Hawayek said. "Marie-France was very happy seeing only a two-dimensional view with this camera, that it worked out well in a three-dimensional way when we got here.
"We got to bring our own flair and creativity to the work. We kind of took the reins a little bit in our career in a way."
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and Chopin is a masterpiece, it makes me so emotional that it’ll be skated on the Olympic ice.
