U.S. Men 2026-27 Discussion - Of Ice and Men

[spin2win]

No idea about Jimmy -- not heard any discussion, but he apparently went with SCOB to Thailand for their teaching seminar this year...

I think the mechanical explanation for him not being on this list is that he doesn't have criteria that they posted for any tier of funding [not top 8 at nationals, not top 24 season's best/world standings list, placements internationally were 7th, 10th, 10th, 11th, 11th]. He would be reserve team classification.

 

[kwanfan1818]

Ma didn't meet any of the envelope criteria for 2026-7. He only qualified for the Reserve team, which doesn't get funding.

 

[haribobo]

Yep, very tough year for Ma internationally, so he would be Reserve team only. The requirements for the funding would give at least Team B status to Maxim Naumov (for Nationals placement and Olympics participation), and Team C status to Michael Xie and Samuel Mindra, if they were competing this season, since they medaled in international senior competitions, but since none of them are listed, it would seem that they have retired or are taking time off.

 

[ice coverage]

Per 2026-27 criteria, I think Jimmy Ma should receive Team D funding?
(Although he is not listed for Team D, it would be better than nothing.)
From Additional Considerations on page 2: "Athletes that were in Team B the previous year and plan on continuing to compete will automatically be placed in Team D – Tier 1 if they do not meet the criteria for Team A or Team B."
For 2025-26, he would have been in Team B - Tier 1, based on placing third at 2025 Four Continents.

Also, I think that after he competes at 2026 GP France, he would be eligible for Team C funding?
"Any athlete or team not already in a team for the current season and who competes at a 2025 Grand Prix Series event will be added to Team C – Tier 1." I'm guessing that "2025" would be a typo from USFS? Would make more sense to me if the criterion were: "who competes at a 2026 Grand Prix Series event."

The requirements for the funding would give at least ... Team C status to Michael Xie and Samuel Mindra, if they were competing this season, since they medaled in international senior competitions, but since none of them are listed, it would seem that they have retired or are taking time off.

I hope Mindra has not retired.
His medal was from Robin Cousins Cup -- if(?) his assignment there were self-funded, I wonder whether it still would count toward envelope criteria??

Xie announced his retirement (except as a collegiate skater) back in January.

 

[ice coverage]

I think it's pretty clear that Mindra ... retired.

For me, it is not at all clear that Mindra has retired.
And it is not clear to me what is causing your opinion?
It's nothing new for him to be involved in teaching/coaching, so I don't take his continuation of teaching/coaching to be a clear sign of anything.
He still is on the public ISP list, which would suggest that as of now, he has not notified USFS of any intention to not compete in 2026-27. How would fans like us know whether or not he has registered for the new NQS season? It has not even begun.
As I posted above, I wonder about a possible explanation for his absence from envelope funding.
My sense is that he (rightfully) takes pride in bringing his exceptional creativity to the sport. Injury issues have held him back, but if he can/has overcome them, it is "thinkable" for me that he would continue competing. By my standards, he is not ancient.

(I don't mind the central thread for envelopes, but seems better to me to return to this thread for my follow-up on Mindra.)

 

[Capt. DeSoto]

He still is on the public ISP list, which would suggest that as of now, he has not notified USFS of any intention to not compete in 2026-27.

I don't have an opinion on whether he retired (there's no evidence yet in either direction). I just wanted to mention that USFS doesn't bother cleaning up the ISP list for retirements, but rather only upon expiration of their latest qualifying score (in my observation). An not immediately, but on the next cleanup of the document. Sam appears to have last qualified in October 2025. I've also never been clear on how long that lasts, it seems to me it buys them a full season from qualification. If that's the case, qualifying in the 2025-26 season gets him through the end of 2026-27. That's just my guess, I've not seen anything official about that. I've also never seen anything official about the senior qualifying score, but I've deduced it to be 210 for men based on my observations.

 

[Karen-W]

For me, it is not at all clear that Mindra has retired.
And it is not clear to me what is causing your opinion?
It's nothing new for him to be involved in teaching/coaching, so I don't take his continuation of teaching/coaching to be a clear sign of anything.
He still is on the public ISP list, which would suggest that as of now, he has not notified USFS of any intention to not compete in 2026-27. How would fans like us know whether or not he has registered for the new NQS season? It has not even begun.
As I posted above, I wonder about a possible explanation for his absence from envelope funding.
My sense is that he (rightfully) takes pride in bringing his exceptional creativity to the sport. Injury issues have held him back, but if he can/has overcome them, it is "thinkable" for me that he would continue competing. By my standards, he is not ancient.

(I don't mind the central thread for envelopes, but seems better to me to return to this thread for my follow-up on Mindra.)

At this point, I don't think that being on the ISP means anything.

Kam/O'Shea and Bradie Tennell, both of whom would have been eligible for GP assignments are still listed on the ISP yet neither are on the Team Funding page & didn't receive any GP assignments. There are other skaters who are listed on the ISP (Maxim Naumov, Sherry Zhang, Elyce Lin-Gracey) who aren't on the Team Funding page.

If anything, I'd say that not being included on the Team Funding page is more indicative of intent to continue competing than being listed on the ISP.

 

[Capt. DeSoto]

If anything, I'd say that not being included on the Team Funding page is more indicative of intent to continue competing than being listed on the ISP.

I would say this is the strongest circumstantial evidence that he may have retired from competition. There's no self-funding exclusion that I could find in the funding criteria (one possible explanation -- even though we don't know exactly who self funds). His absence from the list is either unannounced retirement or a mistake.

 

[Allskate]

I assume that Lucas Broussard does not qualify for funding due to not competing? His lack of funding does not indicate a desire not to compete? He posted a couple of clips of himself training last month. Does anyone know what competitions he would be eligible to compete in?

 

[Karen-W]

I would say this is the strongest circumstantial evidence that he may have retired from competition. There's no self-funding exclusion that I could find in the funding criteria (one possible explanation -- even though we don't know exactly who self funds). His absence from the list is either unannounced retirement or a mistake.

And it very well could be a mistake. Last year, the USFS left several skaters/teams off the Team Funding page (CarPon was one of them IIRC) and fixed it within 24 hours when people started asking questions.

 

[Karen-W]

I assume that Lucas Broussard does not qualify for funding due to not competing? His lack of funding does not indicate a desire not to compete? He posted a couple of clips of himself training last month. Does anyone know what competitions he would be eligible to compete in?

No, he did not qualify for the funding. IIRC, he missed out on funding last season too because of the ongoing injury issues.

 

[Capt. DeSoto]

I assume that Lucas Broussard does not qualify for funding due to not competing? His lack of funding does not indicate a desire not to compete? He posted a couple of clips of himself training last month. Does anyone know what competitions he would be eligible to compete in?

Unless there's some comeback rule at the USFS level that I'm unaware of (not counting the ISU/GP one), then he'll just need to skate one domestic competition to get back on the ISP (210 threshold should be no problem for him). Next step for him would be an IC (aka Sr. B) or possibly a challenger. If he does really well at a challenger I could see him getting a Skate America GP TBD spot.

 

[Allskate]

No, he did not qualify for the funding. IIRC, he missed out on funding last season too because of the ongoing injury issues. ;(

That's what I figured. On the bright side, that means his absence from the funding list doesn't mean he isn't planning to compete. However, given that he missed all of last season and so much of the previous season, is he even eligible to be invited to very many competitions other than the low-level qualifying events?

Unless there's some comeback rule at the USFS level that I'm unaware of (not counting the ISU/GP one), then he'll just need to skate one domestic competition to get back on the ISP (210 threshold should be no problem for him). Next step for him would be an IC (aka Sr. B) or possibly a challenger. If he does really well at a challenger I could see him getting a Skate America GP TBD spot.

Can Cranberry Cup count as the domestic competition even though it's a Challenger? Or does he have to some lower-level domestic competition before he can do that?

 

[Capt. DeSoto]

That's what I figured. On the bright side, that means his absence from the funding list doesn't mean he isn't planning to compete. However, given that he missed all of last season and so much of the previous season, is he even eligible to be invited to very many competitions other than the low-level qualifying events?


Can Cranberry Cup count as the domestic competition even though it's a Challenger? Or does he have to some lower-level domestic competition before he can do that?

He can do the domestic Cranberry Open NQS competition to get back onto the ISP. Unless USFS has some kind of rule they can use to bypass ISP qualification, then he likely won't be competing in the Cranberry Cup International CS competition that is happening the same week. Don't worry, if he's still a strong skater they'll quickly get him out to an IC and/or CS. Lucas has had a recent affinity towards training in Japan; I can totally see USFS sending him to the Kinoshita Group Cup Challenge event in the first week of September. If his domestic competition score is strong, I don't see the need to make him toil at an IC, especially since we're low on Senior men at the moment.

 

[Allskate]

Unless USFS has a lot of faith in his recovery (and has some kind of rule they can bypass), then he likely won't be competing in the Cranberry Cup International CS competition.

He's posted clips of himself doing a triple axel/triple toe and a quad, but it sounds like the rules won't let him do the CS part of the competition unless he's planning to do some other competition before that we don't know about. He starts college in the fall, so he might want to try to do a couple of competitions in the summer. Of course, there's no guarantee that he's actually planning to compete.

 

[Capt. DeSoto]

He's posted clips of himself doing a triple axel/triple toe and a quad, but it sounds like the rules won't let him do the CS part of the competition unless he's planning to do some other competition before that we don't know about. He starts college in the fall, so he might want to try to do a couple of competitions in the summer. Of course, there's no guarantee that he's actually planning to compete.

ISP before international is their protocol -- but they bend protocols when they want/need to. Lucas is quite capable, and I'm sure he could jump right back in and do fine. However, USFS spends a lot of money to send skaters to these competitions so it's prudent that they ensure he's ready first. The entry deadline for Cranberry Cup is July 17th, if he could find his way onto the ISP before that then he could certainly be assigned to it.

 

[Karen-W]

The NQS competitions for singles skaters start up in earnest with Cactus Classic held July 23-26. Lucas doesn't need to compete at Cranberry Open NQS, he can compete at any domestic comp, especially NQS events and get himself added back to the ISP. Additionally, the USFS does private monitoring and will add skaters/teams to the ISP if they demonstrate competition readiness.

CS Cranberry Cup entry deadline is July 17, so he may not be added to the ISP in time to compete there but, like @Capt. DeSoto mentioned, there are other Challengers in early September which are before the ISU's Sept 15th deadline for GP host feds to name their TBD spots.

I've always liked Lucas but I have my worries about him given his recurring injury issues.

 

[ice coverage]

I don't have an opinion on whether he retired (there's no evidence yet in either direction). I just wanted to mention that USFS doesn't bother cleaning up the ISP list for retirements. ...

Counterexample: Hiwatashi was removed from public ISP list.

There's no self-funding exclusion that I could find in the funding criteria (one possible explanation -- even though we don't know exactly who self funds). His absence from the list is either unannounced retirement or a mistake.

I agree that a self-funding exclusion does not appear in the criteria document -- but I still wonder because USFS communication skills sometimes leave something to be desired.
As a general comment, I don't like the idea that a skater who cannot afford self-funding (ETA: for an international assignment) would be at a disadvantage at getting results that potentially could earn envelope funding.

Also agree that we do not know whether Mindra, who I love, was self-funded at Robin Cousins Cup.
In any case, I am in wait-and-see mode regarding Mindra and 2026-2027 season.

No, he did not qualify for the funding. IIRC, he missed out on funding last season too because of the ongoing injury issues.

As for Broussard and 2025-26 envelope funding, he did meet a criterion by winning 2024 Cranberry Cup.

 

[Capt. DeSoto]

As for Broussard and 2025-26 envelope funding, he did meet a criterion by winning 2024 Cranberry Cup.

The 2024 Cranberry Cup was in the 2024-25 season. The 2026-27 funding criteria that he would otherwise qualify for is only looking back at the 2025-26 season.

[Edit: oh, I misread, you were talking about the 2025-26 funding for some reason and I missed that. I really wish this forum let you delete posts.]

 

[Allskate]

The NQS competitions for singles skaters start up in earnest with Cactus Classic held July 23-26. Lucas doesn't need to compete at Cranberry Open NQS, he can compete at any domestic comp, especially NQS events and get himself added back to the ISP. Additionally, the USFS does private monitoring and will add skaters/teams to the ISP if they demonstrate competition readiness.

Yeah. I was just looking at Cactus but don't see a list of competitors. Summer would be a good time for him to compete if he is ready.

I've always liked Lucas but I have my worries about him given his recurring injury issues.

Fair enough. I have similar concerns. But, there are instances of skaters losing a lot of time to injury and then coming back and doing great. Deanna Stellato is a glaring example, but more recently Kagiyama and Gogolev. In fact, Gogolev recently posted clips of himself doing quad loop, flip, and lutz.

We really don't know how long Lucas has been back training and how competition ready he is. Doing jumps in isolation is very different from doing them successfully in a program.

 

[ice coverage]

The 2024 Cranberry Cup was in the 2024-25 season. The 2026-27 funding criteria that he would otherwise qualify for is only looking back at the 2025-26 season.

[Edit: oh, I misread, you were talking about the 2025-26 funding for some reason and I missed that]

As I indicated above:
I was talking about 2025-26 funding for Broussard because Karen had said, "IIRC, he missed out on funding last season too because of the ongoing injury issues."

 

[ice coverage]

Perhaps a counterpart of sorts to Mindra from women's discipline:

In her OP in the envelope thread, Karen pointed out that Alex Evans is another omission from USFS envelope listings for 2026-27.
Occurs to me that 2025 Robin Cousins Cup is where Evans won her bronze -- same event as where Mindra won his bronze.

Doesn't prove anything, but makes me wonder again about my theory that self-funded assignments maybe do not count toward envelope criteria?
(Even though I don't know whether Evans and/or Mindra were self-funded at Robin Cousins Cup.)

We do know that Evans was not omitted from envelope page because of retirement.
She just competed this afternoon in Skate Milwaukee SP.

Whether (or not) Mindra will compete this season remains to be seen.

 

[Vagabond]

Please offer up title suggestions & whichever idea winds up with the most likes in a week will be the winner.

"Of Ice and Men."

I think that someone's best-laid scheme ganged agley here.

 

[spin2win]

SP results from US Junior Team Cup: https://ijs.usfigureskating.org/leaderboard/results/2026/37080/CAT001SEG001.html

Farrington, LoPinto, Mallane are the top 3, all made personal best scores

Rest of top 10: Tani, Vasquez, Koppel, Rosen, Blackwell, Neuhaus, Fulton

The big favorite from the poll thread Blackwell--looks like he had an unfortunate skate singling a lutz and not doing a combo

3 men hit triple axels (Farrington, Blackwell, Neuhaus)

 

[Karen-W]

Patrick Blackwell did Patrick Blackwell things in the SP.

 

[Taso]

Patrick Blackwell did Patrick Blackwell things in the SP.

It is kinda screwed up to pigeonhole juniors like that

 

[Karen-W]

It is kinda screwed up to pigeonhole juniors like that

Have you followed his career at all? Hitting the 3A to open then popping the solo 3z & biffing the combo is par for the course with him. This is his 3rd season competing with a 3A & quads and he is actually old enough to compete senior now.

 

[Spiralgraph]

^^
Maybe that's why he's still in juniors;because he has yet to learn how to be more consistant in competition. I'm not giving up on him yet.

 

[Karen-W]

^^
Maybe that's why he's still in juniors;because he has yet to learn how to be more consistant in competition. I'm not giving up on him yet.

I'm not giving up on him yet either.

My original comment was just an observation of his competitive pattern from the past few years.

 

[spin2win]

And the final results from US Junior Team Cup: https://ijs.usfigureskating.org/leaderboard/results/2026/37080/CAT001SEG002.html

Farrington wins albeit with some difficulty (FCSSp4 was invalidated?, popped quad, 3 other negative GOE passes).
Blackwell won the free skate and finishes 2nd overall, landing 4T and 3A+Eu+3S+2A sequence worth 19.87 points
Haugeto went from 13th in short to 3rd overall.
Rest of top 10: Mallane, Koppel, Tani, LoPinto, Rosen, Vasquez, Rudedenman

3 men hit triple axels (Blackwell, Farrington, Azadpour)
15 men attempted 3 jump sequences