Canadian National Championships 2021 Canceled | Golden Skate

Canadian National Championships 2021 Canceled

el henry

Go have some cake. And come back with jollity.
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 3, 2014
Country
United-States
From Skate Canada:

"OTTAWA, ON: With growing concern for the health and safety of all participants involved in the 2021 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships and the 2021 Skate Canada Cup given the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic across Canada, Skate Canada has made the difficult decision to cancel these events. The championships were to occur from February 8-14, 2021 in Vancouver, B.C., at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre while the 2021 Skate Canada Cup was planned to be a virtual event in replacement of the pre-novice and novice competitions at the 2021 Skate Canada Challenge.

'We are deeply saddened for all athletes, coaches, and supporting individuals who are impacted by this decision and appreciate the incredible efforts to overcome ever-evolving training and access challenges to best prepare athletes for these events,' said Leanna Caron, President, Skate Canada.

.....

'We thank our athletes for continuing to inspire us and look forward to a brighter and prosperous 2021-2022 season,' said [Skate Canada CEO] Debra Armstrong"


I understand why, but so sad for all the skaters who work so hard:pray:
 

moonvine

All Hail Queen Gracie
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 14, 2007
Country
United-States
From Skate Canada:

"OTTAWA, ON: With growing concern for the health and safety of all participants involved in the 2021 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships and the 2021 Skate Canada Cup given the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic across Canada, Skate Canada has made the difficult decision to cancel these events. The championships were to occur from February 8-14, 2021 in Vancouver, B.C., at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre while the 2021 Skate Canada Cup was planned to be a virtual event in replacement of the pre-novice and novice competitions at the 2021 Skate Canada Challenge.

'We are deeply saddened for all athletes, coaches, and supporting individuals who are impacted by this decision and appreciate the incredible efforts to overcome ever-evolving training and access challenges to best prepare athletes for these events,' said Leanna Caron, President, Skate Canada.

.....

'We thank our athletes for continuing to inspire us and look forward to a brighter and prosperous 2021-2022 season,' said [Skate Canada CEO] Debra Armstrong"


I understand why, but so sad for all the skaters who work so hard:pray:

Oh no!😢
 

Cutting the ice

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 14, 2012
Deeply disappointed, not surprised. Sad for the skaters but it is for the best given what is happening now. Of course what impact will this have on attending worlds? i am sure many zoom conference calls have happened and will continue to happen. I am sure we will hear soon.
 

rain

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 29, 2003
So very disappointed. I wish they would have chosen to do it virtually as they did the Skate Canada Challenge. It's worked surprisingly well. I did not expect an in-person event given the ever-rising cases in Quebec and Ontario that they just can't seem to get a handle on (though I'm glad Canada is at least taking the pandemic seriously). However, seeing as how they did the Challenge, I expected they'd go virtual rather than outright cancellation. The skaters must be beyond frustrated. And I don't really expect Worlds to go ahead either. It's really the lost season for the Canadian skaters.
 

Orchidea

On the Ice
Joined
Sep 1, 2020
Canadian skater will lag far behind other skaters and nation in the world. All other federation has found possibilities to their athletes one way or another. And I really do not understand why they keep saying that part of the reason for this decisions is that lot of rinks has been closed?
All other countries has created opportunities to skate at least them who belongs to junior and senior national teams? No other countries has shut down rinks for national teams after spring. I mean those countries who want their figure skaters to be on top in world level.
 

LadyB

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 7, 2016
Just one word: Ridiculous!
Pretty much all other federations were able to put something off, but the mighty Canada cannot find a way to have a (digital?) event, no live spectators with social distancing and proper mask wearing?
Piper and Paul, my heart goes out to you. 😭
 

Znowflake

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 7, 2019
Did they say why they couldn't do it virtually? The Challenge they were showing was actually pretty good! Is it because skaters can't train properly because of restrictions?
 

BlissfulSynergy

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 1, 2020
Country
Olympics
I'm so sorry to hear this news. :(

I feel so bad for all the skaters. I wonder how much the problems across Canada with the virus has to do with the cold weather climate in which the virus can flourish.

Logistically, why wouldn't they have attempted at least to mount a limited participant virtual event? I guess the cancellation decision was in part due to some athletes being unable to train properly in certain areas of the vast country, largely as a result of rink closures and/or training access restrictions. But for those skaters who are able to compete, and who wish to submit videos for a limited virtual Nationals, why not? The results would not have to be set in stone regarding future international assignments.

So, we don't get to see Walsh/Micheau at all this season?

The rest of the Challenge events will still go forward as planned since performance videos were already submitted? (ETA: Yes, per Roman Sadovsky, the men's event for Challenge will be streamed on Friday. Roman says he feels weird about not remembering how well he skated, since the performance happened so long ago. Roman explains how the logistics of submitting videos is complicated, due to the availability of rink time which varies for skaters across regions).

About Worlds, there's no telling what is going to happen. But by March, I doubt things will be back to normal globally. If they delay Worlds till May, perhaps there's an outside chance, determined by the speed of vaccinations and status of COVID cases. Still, I wish the ISU would consider and prepare for the possibility of mounting some kind of virtual competition that would not be treated or considered as a normal Worlds in terms of overall standings. The effort to have some kind of competition would be to help skaters stay motivated and active, and to engage with fans.

The skating community as a whole need to find a way to adapt and adjust under volatile conditions, instead of thinking the world will turn on a dime magically back to what we've been accustomed to. At this point, the thinking surrounding the 2022 Olympics also needs to be under serious review for mounting contingency plans. I'm not sure how an Olympics in 2022 for figure skaters is going to look if there are two aborted Worlds beforehand, not to mention truncated GP series and no GPF.
 
Last edited:

BlissfulSynergy

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 1, 2020
Country
Olympics
So I see in the Canadian Figure Skating thread that Romsky made a video and explained the main reasons why SC was forced to make the decision to cancel:

2021 Nationals CANCELED - YouTube

I'm so sorry for Roman and for all the athletes. It's a shame. But obviously SC officials have worked very hard to do what they could. There are a number of reasons why a virtual Cdn Nationals is not feasible.

As Roman explains, a large part of the issue for a sport like figure skating is that a niche sport which doesn't have a huge mainstream audience means there isn't enough money available, like there is in Canadian Hockey, to implement bubbles. Roman does a good job of explaining the reasons SC referenced. He was also sad and distracted, so it was good of him to put together this video for fans.
 
Last edited:

Skatefan15

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 8, 2015
I’m sad for the skaters but I agree with this decision. It’s nice to see at least one skating federation taking covid seriously and not just hosting competitions hoping for no one to get covid (and failing to be honest)! What’s interesting is how Canada is cancelling but countries with 30 times the cases aren’t 😬 I’m sad we won’t get to see Roman and Nam (and Piper and Paul), but at least they submitted videos for challenge this week!
 

moonvine

All Hail Queen Gracie
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 14, 2007
Country
United-States
Deeply disappointed, not surprised. Sad for the skaters but it is for the best given what is happening now. Of course what impact will this have on attending worlds? i am sure many zoom conference calls have happened and will continue to happen. I am sure we will hear soon.
My best guess is that Worlds will not happen again and it’s not fair considering basketball, football, hockey etc are happening
 

Koatterce

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 20, 2018
Country
Canada
From Roman's vlog on the cancellation:

1. 83-85% of skaters are from covid hotspots, they would be going into Vancouver which is pretty well handled, government doesn't want all these skaters to fly there. For this reason, moving the event also wouldn't help.
2. Many skaters have been unable to train - Ontario managed to secure ice for high performance skaters, but other skaters, such as those in Alberta, haven't have that luxury
3. Holding a virtual competition would be difficult. It was extremely hard to secure time, ice, and bubbles to do Challenge (and that was pre-lockdown, at least in Ontario, so it would be even harder now). The time disparity between when skaters were skating was also quite large in some cases. For example, York Region vs Toronto was only like 4 days, but skaters in BC skated ~3 weeks later.
4. Figure skating as an amateur sport doesn't have nearly the same amount of support and funding as professional sports such as hockey. Creating bubbles for NHL for example costed millions of dollars which and that amount of funding is not available, especially when there's no spectator revenue.
 

BlissfulSynergy

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 1, 2020
Country
Olympics
My best guess is that Worlds will not happen again and it’s not fair considering basketball, football, hockey etc are happening
Yes, but once again money sports vs a niche sport with no money and a history of lacking leadership and vision necessary to try and grow the sport. Maybe figure skating will always be niche because it's not understood how difficult it is. Many people consider figure skating sissy, pretty, frilly. Obviously, that is so far from reality. It's one of the toughest sports there is in terms of difficulty and toll on the body from training and competition. It's also difficult because of the technical and artistic components which need to be seamlessly melded in order to achieve the highest performance value.

All we can hope is that progressive individuals in the sport persuade the old-fashioned Mom/Pop thinkers to adopt a more forward-thinking approach to better market the sport. And also to bring in experts from other fields for long-term strategic planning, including testing alternatives to address this type of unexpected and rare situation which has brought normal business to a halt.

In general, a lot of positive efforts have been made by all the feds, but much of it is reactionary to the pace of developments, rather than thinking ahead for contingency plans going forward. Economically and logistically, there are so many things to consider for the short term and long term future, including the possibility that things will never return to what we've been used to, even with a vaccine. The economic hardships may further impact the dwindling attendance numbers at events too. Will more young people leave the sport, or drop off from even entering the sport?

I don't have answers. I'm just reflecting and posing questions.
 

BlissfulSynergy

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 1, 2020
Country
Olympics
Well @flanker's news from Sweden sounds promising. The Worlds organizing committee will need to be very detailed and transparent about their plans to keep everyone safe though. Statistics, testing, rink and hotel arrangements set up as a protective bubble. They can't be relying upon or hoping that the recent vaccines will solve anything.

If the committee is determined enough and have the money and proper venue to accomplish this, maybe it will go ahead, barring unforeseen last-minute developments. Have they changed the dates to May, or is it still scheduled for March?

Participation may be down, but hopefully holding the event will be possible. There have been so many outbreaks among Russian skaters, I wonder what kind of plans are in place to address competitors who have experienced and recovered from COVID?
 

4everchan

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 7, 2015
Country
Martinique
Canada is a very large country and every region has had a different experience of Covid...the provinces with the largest cities and more densely populated are hit severely... (except Vancouver)... I believe that the uneven level of training opportunities is a big factor for not holding the event... Skaters are not ready. However, if they are not ready for Nationals, they will not be ready for Worlds either. I think it's the right move to cancel the season altogether for the athletes and focus on health. Figure skating is a very dangerous sport if proper training is not implemented... you cannot overtrain to catch up on missed time, your body will collapse..and undertraining and expecting quads and triples, twists, lifts and throws is not safe either... I am sad but almost relieved with this decision.
 

ElSoteroLoco

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 24, 2018
It’s so amazing the amount of people that are just willing to put the world on pause! Cancel everything .... live under a rock until the problem goes away? Well the world DOES NOT stop turning! We have to adjust and adapt. It’s so unfortunate to these hard working athletes and at this point, it is unacceptable for any country or federation to not find a way to do so. Test them, Quarantine them for the 14 days before! This is crazy. We are more than one year into this and people have not come up with anything new but just to CANCEL! Don’t go out! Hope it goes away. News flash: THE VIRUS HAS NOT GONE AWAY REGARDLESS OF ANY COUNTRY SHUTDOWN! SMH! Once this is all over and the people that fought, I hope the people that are so happy that things are getting canceled and stopping the world will stay in their hovels!!! ✌️. Thanks and blessings to all the other countries that are finding ways to adapt to this. Russia, Japan, USA and all others that are not powerhouses. Stay safe everyone but please remember to LIVE! 🙏
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Canadian skater will lag far behind other skaters and nation in the world. All other federation has found possibilities to their athletes one way or another. And I really do not understand why they keep saying that part of the reason for this decisions is that lot of rinks has been closed?
All other countries has created opportunities to skate at least them who belongs to junior and senior national teams? No other countries has shut down rinks for national teams after spring. I mean those countries who want their figure skaters to be on top in world level.

I think it's important to consider the safety of the skaters/coaches/judges/volunteers/etc. As others pointed out, I wish there were a way to have done it virtually.

We only have to look to Russia and the slew of skaters/coaches contracting coronavirus to see the risks involved. I know for them figure skating is life or death, but I hope nobody actually succumbs to this pervasive lack of COVID responsibility and due diligence. There are more important things than lagging far behind.
 
Last edited:
Top