2025-2026 Canadian Figure Skating | Page 56 | Golden Skate

2025-2026 Canadian Figure Skating

Robert Brodie has articles for today's events.

Men/Ice Dance
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#SCI25: A 'new man' with an improved plan

Stephen Gogolev gritted his way through Skate Canada International a year ago. But this time in Saskatoon, the Canadian skater is showing how much better he can be
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Pairs/Women
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#SCI25: 'This one holds a lot more weight'

It's their third straight pairs gold medal at Skate Canada International, but doing it in an Olympic season just means more for Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps
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Apparently Maddie may be getting a new short since the music for Black Swan hasn't cleared yet 😵‍💫
 
If Maddie might be getting a new short is that maybe a factor in her not performing it well here? I mean it can't help but be on her mind. Maddie has not been having good luck with her short program choices. Also because of her placement after the short she really got lowballed in her PCS in the Free. I was afraid SMD might have trouble with her free now that she is putting so much effort into doing the 3A.
In both our ladies and men here it does show that rep still means a lot and plays into judges scoring. Because Roman is not consistent he still gets lower PCS then some skaters who are not as good as him. And because Stephen has been out of things for a while he too is not getting the scores he should be for what he is putting out there. Same for SMD who was very underscored in the short.
 
ladyjane said:
I especially liked Deanna's joyfulness at the positive surprise of the score. She just looked contented with the skate at first (rightly so). So often she is not pleased (not because of scores, but because she is a perfectionist). This was great.
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Her reaction was so cute. And you could see she was really very happy 😍
 
An interesting event for Canadian women. I'm proud of Uliana. She did a great job for her first Grand Prix appearance. I hope she learns from this experience and seeks help to improve her PCS, because in terms of jump technique, she's one of the best in Canada in terms of consistency. Sara Maude Dupuis had a good short program, and I liked it. It's good that she tried the triple axel, but I can see that it affects her confidence when she doesn't land it. Maddie just showed that she's once again the Canadian skater to beat. However, I don't think she's convincing enough to qualify for the Olympics. Her performance in the short program wouldn't even have been enough to qualify for the long program at the Olympics and World Championships. She had a decent performance in the long program, but it wasn't impressive. Let's just say she's playing it safe, trying not to make mistakes with triple/triple combos in the long jump, just to ensure she keeps her spot at the Olympics with easy well-executed jumps content, since no Canadian woman seems able to surpass her. I'm not convinced by Maddie this season.

I'm curious to see what Kaiya Ruiter and Gabrielle Daleman can do in their next competition. If they show some consistency this season, I believe they can challenge Maddie for that Olympic spot.
 
Think we saw some writing on the wall for both LaLa and Piper & Paul for the year. The judges are willing to drop them if they have any kind of error, while some of the favorites have had errors in the past but still get held up.
 
Sackie said:
Think we saw some writing on the wall for both LaLa and Piper & Paul for the year. The judges are willing to drop them if they have any kind of error, while some of the favorites have had errors in the past but still get held up.
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I mean both had pretty big errors on elements. It’s hard to give good GOE in that instance but they still got decent scores.

I think La/La will be fine, they NEEDED to be ahead of C/P here and they were.
 
Robert Brodie's final wrap-up article for SCI:
rwbrodiewrites.substack.com

#SCI25: Dancing past some Canadian legends

When Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier claimed their sixth straight gold medal at Skate Canada International, it eclipsed a mark previously held by two of their ice dance heroes
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On Lajoie/Lagha switching back to White Crow:
For Lajoie and Lagha, Sunday marked another opportunity to extend the revival of “The White Crow” free dance first used in the 2022-23 season. The Montreal-based team made the decision to go back to this free dance back in the summer, when the new free dance to Bach music they had planned to use this season just didn’t work for them. With a time crunch before the season, reviving an old favourite was the practical thing to do, a move they feel has already been validated.
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soccerjc77 said:
An interesting event for Canadian women. I'm proud of Uliana. She did a great job for her first Grand Prix appearance. I hope she learns from this experience and seeks help to improve her PCS, because in terms of jump technique, she's one of the best in Canada in terms of consistency. Sara Maude Dupuis had a good short program, and I liked it. It's good that she tried the triple axel, but I can see that it affects her confidence when she doesn't land it. Maddie just showed that she's once again the Canadian skater to beat. However, I don't think she's convincing enough to qualify for the Olympics. Her performance in the short program wouldn't even have been enough to qualify for the long program at the Olympics and World Championships. She had a decent performance in the long program, but it wasn't impressive. Let's just say she's playing it safe, trying not to make mistakes with triple/triple combos in the long jump, just to ensure she keeps her spot at the Olympics with easy well-executed jumps content, since no Canadian woman seems able to surpass her. I'm not convinced by Maddie this season.

I'm curious to see what Kaiya Ruiter and Gabrielle Daleman can do in their next competition. If they show some consistency this season, I believe they can challenge Maddie for that Olympic spot.
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I just can't see Gabby rolling back the clock to 2017 but then again she doesn't have to be scoring over 200 points total with how the other ladies are skating. And Maddie only scoring 3 points more then Sara-Maude here doesn't exactly show she's dominate over the other Canadian skaters and she can't afford to skate and be beaten at Nationals like she was in 2024.
 
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Ziotic said:
I mean both had pretty big errors on elements. It’s hard to give good GOE in that instance but they still got decent scores.

I think La/La will be fine, they NEEDED to be ahead of C/P here and they were.
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I agree. I mean, F-B/C only scored 78 in the RD with their error in France, very comparable, and it was less noticeable an error than LaLa had. And the scoring in France was way over the top, while Skate Canada's was very conservative. I think LaLa should be a bit more concerned about their FD score. They had what many (including me) thought was the skate of the event but did not score very well. They will need to examine the protocols and talk to officials.

As for Piper and Paul, I think the judges like their RD, and I think they would have gotten a terrific score in the FD as well without the very costly lift error, which also had the unfortunate effect of taking a bit of the wind out of the rest of the program. I think they're still clearly in the medal mix. I'm waiting to see what they get at their next event when they will presumably skate cleaner (that lift error really was a freak accident, they've successfully done that lift many, many times). Unfortunately for them, they have to face F-B/C at Finlandia, though I don't think they're in any danger of missing the Grand Prix Final.

Traditionally, making the final has been really important, but this season I'm not sure it's actually going to mean as much, as some of the fields (like next week's) are noticeably weaker, and I think there's going to be a lot of teams that end up with a 2/3 in their events, or two thirds and some of the them won't make it, but the judges will still know they're in the mix for top 5/6.

Most of the teams this season have not been squeaky clean, so I don't think the errors will be counted against them in that way. Right now, teams that prepared early are benefitting, but I think that could start to change as the season progresses. They're starting to max out already, while the later starting teams have a lot of room to grow.
 
19 Canadian Skaters this weekend in a competition in Europe. At Ice Challenge in Graz, Austria. Wow. That's besides the 3 competing at NHK trophy.

And another 4, including Deanna and Maxime, to go to Warsaw cup in Poland a weekend later. Looking good in getting skaters out!
 
ladyjane said:
19 Canadian Skaters this weekend in a competition in Europe. At Ice Challenge in Graz, Austria. Wow. That's besides the 3 competing at NHK trophy.

And another 4, including Deanna and Maxime, to go to Warsaw cup in Poland a weekend later. Looking good in getting skaters out!
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and all the skaters competing at Sectionals this weekend too... It's going to be hard to follow skating this weekend
 
discodisco said:
I know. It's terrible. The music is monotonous and screams show program, which I think makes the judges take it less seriously. In addition, the program itself is pretty empty, and Zach needs a new shirt that is less loose. That said, I don't want him to get a new shirt in order to keep this program: I'd like them to ditch the shirt and the program
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That would be a really bad idea imo. It's November. They already changed their FD fairly late in the game. Coming up with a whole new RD would really set them back and leave them unprepared going forward. Plus, the program is not a problem for them. It scored fine considering how much they lost on that error at the end. They lost at least 4-5 points in GOE, and I'm sure it affected the PCS as well.

They'd be better served spending the time cleaning up the levels in the FD, and fixing the issues with the choreo elements in both programs.
 
SnowWhite said:
That would be a really bad idea imo. It's November. They already changed their FD fairly late in the game. Coming up with a whole new RD would really set them back and leave them unprepared going forward. Plus, the program is not a problem for them. It scored fine considering how much they lost on that error at the end. They lost at least 4-5 points in GOE, and I'm sure it affected the PCS as well.

They'd be better served spending the time cleaning up the levels in the FD, and fixing the issues with the choreo elements in both programs.
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Yes, of course your post is rational and the best course of action :-) I guess I was just imagining my best case scenario preference- and you're right, it's November already, wish I hadn't even really realized! Where does the time go....... you're right that if the program is being relatively well received, it doesn't really matter what someone like me thinks :-)
 
I can't believe people still pin hopes on Daleman. Like, sorry to be a downer, but have you met reality? I am sad that Schizas won this match up with a skate that was a horror show, I really hoped that Dupuis would deliver a sensation.

I kinda feel that both Italy and Georgia are going to have a stronger team in team competition than Canada, particularly if DS/D hit another low.
 
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Quite honestly the men and ladies kind of reflect each other. They have no real super clear leader. Not one of the six singles skaters really sparkled at Skate Canada. PCS Canada continues to get underscored from Piper andPaul to Deanna and Max and Roman. In part in all evens you need to esablish yourself as consistent and none of the singles or pairs are really doing that. I fear the writing is on the wall as some other poster pointed out about Piper and Paul the judges could have given them more points in both rd and fd but they didn't. Look at Chock and Bates they can make mistakes or throw out a turd and till score high. I would be reworking especially that FD and maybe with a stronger concept and costumes. Maybe Paul as the artist and Piper as the paint brush? I am really pulling for P squared and Deanna and Max for olympic medals but it won't be easy. I just don't see the judges are buying or supporting them. Roman and Stephen had their chance to make a mark and they didn't. I was thinking one would score say over 250- 260 at least. I just don't know what is going on with Maddie or SMD. I guess there is Spence but none of them are convincingly taking the l ead.
 
lariko said:
I can't believe people still pin hopes on Daleman. Like, sorry to be a downer, but have you met reality? I am sad that Schizas won this match up with a skate that was a horror show, I really hoped that Dupuis would deliver a sensation.

I kinda feel that both Italy and Georgia are going to have a stronger team in team competition than Canada, particularly if DS/D hit another low.
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For a team medal we’d need strong skates across the board, and even then need some help. It’s possible, but unlikely
 
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