To celebrate Canada Day, the launch of the new all-disciplines thread for Canadian skating in the 2019-2020 season.
2018-19 was described as a "rebuilding phase" so often in media that it became kind of irritating, but nevertheless there was certainly truth to it. All told, I was fairly happy with how the current crop of athletes performed, though there were obvious disappointments along the way, as is always the case -- the biggest ones being the skate gods' near-relentless rain of setbacks poured down on Gabrielle all year, and Keegan and Nam both having such a hard time at Worlds meaning that there's only one ticket to Montreal this time around. But as I said, plenty of high points too, including some of Canada's best junior results in a long time, with wins at the Junior Grand Prix Final and Junior Worlds in different disciplines.
Storylines to follow for the coming season:
Men
- As noted, there's one ticket to a home Worlds in Montreal, with our top priority being to get that second spot back. There are five senior men with Grand Prix assignments who want that spot.
- Keegan Messing, who is I would say the most talented senior man, and certainly the one the international judges seem to respond to most. Can he get that national title the second time around? Is he going to keep trying for the quad Lutz? He put out four very, very good free skates last season (one completely clean), it's a question of peaking at the right times, which he sometimes struggled to do.
- Nam Nguyen, who frankly I had written off after the Milan 2018 debacle coming at the end of several seasons of squandered opportunities. But he turned me around this year, with his best programs to date and some real progress. Based on the World Team Trophy, it looks like the next project is to reintroduce the 4T into competition.
- Nicolas Nadeau, charming as hell, can he please find jump consistency?
- Roman Sadovsky started off last season with a medal at ACI, and then couldn't live up to that early promise. What progress will he make?
- Conrad Orzel, making his senior debut, made a lot of progress last year at the junior level, but still needs to work on nerves. How will he fare now? The jump arsenal he can perform in training will make him formidable if he can continue to improve his consistency.
- Meanwhile, in juniors, the uncrowned king Stephen Gogolev has decamped to learn the wisdom of Rafael Arutyunan. How will his new coaching arrangement go? Can he take the Junior World title he missed out on last year? Will Rod Black continue to come up with stupid nicknames for him?
- Also, remaining in juniors for the time being, Joseph Phan, whose switch to the Cricket Club has been very much a work in progress.
Ladies
- A healthy season for Gabrielle Daleman, please. Competition on the ladies' Grand Prix circuit is fiercer than ever, but let's see her have a strong start to the season at least, even if she seems likely to remain in the very small club of people with a Worlds medal but no Grand Prix medal.
- Aurora Cotop, our national silver medalist, made a big coaching change last year and made some obvious improvements even while dealing with a serious injury that hampered her technical content. Her Worlds debut didn't go so well, but hopefully her Grand Prix debut will be better, and she can take another shot at Worlds.
- Veronik Mallet, who returned last season after being absent for years due to injury, at times looked like injury might force her prematurely back out of competition, but stuck through and delivered some lovely work. She's said she wants to boost her technical content this time around and bring back the other toe jumps, at least; can she finally make it to Worlds, which, especially at home, would surely be a capstone for her career?
- On the junior level, Alison Schumacher is coming off a strong showing at Junior Worlds. Can she finally get the 3S-3T to work?
Pairs
- Our reigning national champions, Kirsten Moore-Towers & Michael Marinaro, had their best season to date last year, including just missing a Four Continents title. They've migrated with Meagan Duhamel and Bruno Marcotte to Oakville, so we'll see how the new environment serves them, especially since Canada's pairs field, which was looking rather sparse last year, has suddenly gotten more crowded again. Most importantly...
- Liubov Ilyushechkina & Charlie Bilodeau, the team everybody spent much of last year speculating about, is preparing to debut. There's a mix of high expectations and significant reservations about them; in the latter case, most obviously, can coach Richard Gauthier be the one to help Liubov jump more consistently? For them this season is just the start of a three-year drive for the Olympic team, but it'd be nice to really hit the ground running.
- Evelyn Walsh & Trennt Michaud, national silver medalists, looking to at least defend that placement and their World team spot, if not challenge for the top. It will be important to see how some of their pair elements progress, given that they have issues with their minimal height difference.
- Camille Ruest & Andrew Wolfe struggled last year, and Camille had some sort of surgery in the off-season, but are now back to training. They have many nice qualities, and their triple twist has made big strides.
- Speaking of triple twists, Justine Brasseur & Mark Bardei have the best in Canada (and probably in North America other than the Knierims), so let's plan on seeing it in international competition this year. Another team with a lot of potential waiting to be realized, and since they decided not to split up, fingers crossed that they do.
- Natasha Purich & Bryce Chudak, another new team of two people I wasn't expecting to hear from again.
- On the junior level, watch nervously whether Brooke McIntoshe will start to outgrow Brandon Toste.
Ice dance
- It's looking more and more likely that Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje, long mainstays of the Canadian Worlds team, said goodbye in Saitama. If so, they will be missed.
- Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier are coming off what many might call their most artistically successful season, even if in competition they had some notable misses; but it looks like they've got a strong shot of making the Grand Prix Final this year, and the elusive national title is theirs to take.
- Laurence Fournier Beaudry & Nikolaj Sorensen neatly slotted into the Canadian dance hierarchy near the very top from the beginning, and I'm excited to see what their first full season internationally with us will look like. It's a tall order for them to pass Guignard & Fabbri internationally, which is (barring a disaster from somebody) what they'd need to do for us to keep our third dance spot at Worlds for the 2020-21 season, but I think they can make strides toward that.
- Speaking of the third dance spot, we've got a probable pitched battle in the offing between Carolane Soucisse & Shane Firus, coming off a really disappointing season, and Marjorie Lajoie & Zachary Lagha, our reigning World Junior champions turning senior. Soucisse & Firus will hopefully have an easier time with Broadway than they did with the tango, while I'm eager to see what Lajoie & Lagha look like on the senior scene.
- Meanwhile, at the junior level Lajoie & Lagha have vacated the throne they held for three years straight, and there'll be a scramble amongst the remaining junior teams to claim it (a fight somewhat complicated by the timing of the Youth Olympics, incidentally). I think there are a number of junior dance teams who could start winning JGP medals this year, even if not challenging for gold yet.