2026 Canadian Nationals : Pairs' Short Program

[4everchan]

Only seven pairs - interesting.

Bombardier Mimar are still injured.
Bryan Pierro is looking for a new partner (or is he still working with Giselle Graves ?)
Laliberté-Laurent will show up with a new partner soon too...

There are a lot of things to look forward to for the next coming years.

 

[4everchan]

thank you. found it. I am with fever.... mind is not working- thank you!

oh no.. I hope you feel better soon. I don't know where you are but the flu season here is crazy.

 

[withwings]

oh no.. I hope you feel better soon. I don't know where you are but the flu season here is crazy.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. In Baltic states.

 

[rain]

Got home just in time to see Deanna/Max live.

Thought they looked like dynamite. Just the error on the throw, but everything else was clean and beautifully performed. I LOVE this program. I think it's sophisticated and exciting. I love the backflip. Very impressed with the impeccable side by side spins. I also thought they looked fast and confident. Sometimes when they're nervous they have the bad habit of slowing down, but here their speed was impressive.

 

[4everchan]

Got home just in time to see Deanna/Max live.

Thought they looked like dynamite. Just the error on the throw, but everything else was clean and beautifully performed. I LOVE this program. I think it's sophisticated and exciting. I love the backflip. Very impressed with the impeccable side by side spins. I also thought they looked fast and confident. Sometimes when they're nervous they have the bad habit of slowing down, but here their speed was impressive.

You can see the speed very well on the stream.

Max hair is flying LOL.. .but the signage on the boards too..

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.7040855

 

[4everchan]

Only seven pairs - interesting.

also : last year, only 6 teams competed... so it's one more this year, plus the new teams that are not ready and other teams that are injured... close to ten is a good number.

 

[discodisco]

also : last year, only 6 teams competed... so it's one more this year, plus the new teams that are not ready and other teams that are injured... close to ten is a good number.

Well - I had forgotten they were only six last year! I feel like I just I'm stuck back in the 90s when there would be 13 or 14 pairs competing- at least that's how I remember it

 

[4everchan]

Well - I had forgotten they were only six last year! I feel like I just I'm stuck back in the 90s when there would be 13 or 14 pairs competing- at least that's how I remember it

I don't know where to look for historical results . at least, not within 2 minutes of internet search

but here is what I found from wiki
in the last 12 years or so, there were only 6-9 pairs every year

from 2009-2012 or so, from 10 to 12 pairs, if I looked properly

also, I am not sure if they would have changed the rules but don't we have 3 groups of 4 pairs only for 12 maximum ?

 

[RatedPG]

At least the 7 Pair Teams are decent enough.

The battle for bronze medal and fifth place intrigues me.

 

[Diana Delafield]

I don't know where to look for historical results . at least, not within 2 minutes of internet search

but here is what I found from wiki
in the last 12 years or so, there were only 6-9 pairs every year

from 2009-2012 or so, from 10 to 12 pairs, if I looked properly

also, I am not sure if they would have changed the rules but don't we have 3 groups of 4 pairs only for 12 maximum ?

Warmups (and practice sessions at home) have always been restricted, in Canada at least, to no more than four pairs on the ice for safety reasons, as far as I know. That's one minor point that has held back the encouragement of pairs, the lack of ice time at the local level. If a club has enough skaters interested in learning to make up five or six pairs, then the club has to pay for twice as much ice to split them into groups of no more than four working at a time or the parents have to pay for private practice time and coaching expense outside of club hours.

I've always questioned that restriction only to pairs, because my experience has been that there are more collision accidents in dance, but they're allowed more couples on the ice for free dance practices (and as many as want to participate for pattern dances). Not as many collisions in pairs because the set-ups are more predictable. Usually you can tell where another pair will be in a few seconds because it's more obvious what they're setting up to do. They need more space for elements than the dancers do, but the dancers' purpose and direction is more unpredictable.

I'll look at my old clippings and in Ryan Stevens almanac for the number of entries, but one year after we'd retired, I think in the 1990s, there were only two senior pairs entered. But in our years and before there were many more, a holdover from the international successes of Dafoe and Bowden, Wagner and Paul, the Jelineks, and Wilkes and Revell. The numbers started to decline worldwide with Irina Rodnina's domination for ten years with two partners. Many skaters weren't willing to put in the work to learn pairs if the most you could hope for was silver at Worlds or the Olympics.

 

[Diana Delafield]

I don't know where to look for historical results . at least, not within 2 minutes of internet search

but here is what I found from wiki
in the last 12 years or so, there were only 6-9 pairs every year

from 2009-2012 or so, from 10 to 12 pairs, if I looked properly

also, I am not sure if they would have changed the rules but don't we have 3 groups of 4 pairs only for 12 maximum ?

Riffed quickly through Ryan Stevens' Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating. In the glory days of the 1990s there might be 15 or so senior pairs, but that dropped off. The year I remembered with only two pairs entered was 1977 -- the Rodnina Repercussion. By then she'd won eight of her ten world titles and two of her three Olympic golds. In Canada, we always had a large number of Novice pair entries, 15 or more each year, and a few less in Junior. It was at Senior level that it dropped off, but you're right, it varied from about 6 to 14 entries, in waves. And many of those pairs would temporarily team up and enter the Fours event so beloved of David Dore, who had been a Canadian fours champion himself.