US Nationals
How much do they matter?
At junior and senior level, they matter in terms of determining who is considered for international assignments. And of course the national championship (senior level) is a big deal.
At lower levels, they have been a way for skaters to get experience in higher stakes competition as they move up the ranks and to get known by national and international judges from outside their areas. But they will no longer be held at lower levels after this year, so clearly not sufficiently important to outweigh the expense and volunteer burden according to the powers that be.
Does USFS provide scholarship or sponsorship opportunities for skaters who do well in the Regional/Sectional/National system (beyond the camp that will occur at Nationals for Juv-Novice)?
Nothing automatically based on placement aside from the team envelopes (see
http://www.usfigureskating.org/story?id=84105&menu=TeamUSA), which will change at the Envelope D level once there are no longer national novice competitions.
See
http://www.usfigureskating.org/story?id=84089 for information about scholarships etc.
Can skaters compete at the same level multiple years (over and over)?
Yes. However, there are upper age limits for Juvenile and Intermediate.
Are the judges usually the same judges or do they change every year?
The US has more national (and sectional and regional) judges than are needed to cover those events. So not every national judge gets assigned to Nationals every year; ditto for sectionals and regionals. However, some are more valued and active and do get assigned most years.
Also, which specific events they get assigned to judge will change from year to year, so if the same skater competes in the same event two years in a row, chances are that the majority of judges for that event will be different the second year than the first.
Are there big regional differences (some regions much more competitive than others)?
Yes. Size of the region (total number of skaters at juvenile level and above) and also the number of training centers or other strong coaches with access to plenty of ice time in each region affects how strong the region is in general. But the actual field in any given event will fluctuate from year to year depending on which skaters are doing well, which are injured or have byes or elected to move up to the next level (or skip a level) or not to compete at all that year or to compete somewhere else, etc.
I've heard that boys and pairs often have so little competition that most (sometimes all) are a shoe-in to get past Regionals to Sectionals, is that true?
Pairs and dance teams have not gone to regionals at all for the past 10-15 years and start their qualifying season directly at sectionals. That's going to change somewhat with the restructuring next year -- the teams will compete in October at the same venue as one of the regional championships in their section, but it will essentially be a sectional competition, and their November competition, at the same venue as one of the sectionals, will essentially be a nationwide competition.
Some regions have fairly strong fields of male single skaters at least at some levels in some years. Other regions that are smaller in general may have too few boys/men at a given level, especially the higher levels, to need to hold an event.
Last I heard, the rule was that if there are four or fewer skaters registered for specific event within a given region or section, all will advance to the next qualifying phase (sectionals and nationals, respectively). When registering for the qualifying season (registration deadline Sept. 1), the skaters need to indicate whether they want to compete even if they will automatically advance. If at least two skaters check Yes, then the event will be held and those skaters will be required to compete in order to advance. Anyone who checked No does not need to compete and can start at the next phase.
Because of byes, it's very rare for there to be a need for senior men to compete at regionals, and sometimes not even at sectionals, but some choose to do so if there's at least one other person to compete against.
It's slightly more common for junior men's events than seniors' to be held at regionals, but still most regions don't need to hold them.
At juvenile through novice level, it's more common for there to be at least four competitors, but often one of those three levels might have four or fewer, and in smaller regions it could be two or all three that don't need to hold a competition.
