2023 Skate Canada International Returns to Vancouver

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OTTAWA, ON (November 9, 2022) – Skate Canada is pleased to announce that Skate Canada International will be returning to Vancouver, B.C., in 2023. The city will be hosting the best figure skaters from around the world from October 27-29, 2023 at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. Skate Canada International is the second competition in the annual International Skating Union (ISU) Grand Prix of Figure Skating series.

“Skate Canada is excited to be returning to Vancouver for the 2023 Skate Canada International,” said Skate Canada’s CEO, Debra Armstrong. “We look forward to creating more memorable moments for skating fans from around the globe and to showcase the very best that the sport has to offer. As always, we are thrilled to be working with the City of Vancouver and the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre to create an event all participants and fans will enjoy.”

Vancouver has been a longtime partner of figure skating, hosting world-renowned events such as the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in 1960 and 2001 and the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in 2018. This will be the city’s third time hosting Skate Canada International, having previously hosted the event in 2021.

“Vancouver is proud to partner with Skate Canada to host major events here on the West Coast,” said City of Vancouver Mayor, Ken Sim. “Skate Canada International will generate significant economic impact for our region during the tourism off-season and bring world-class figure skating back to our city once again. Vancouver is proud of our figure skating hosting history, and we look forward to continuing to build on this partnership and offering a memorable experience to all the competitors, staff, fans and volunteers.”

The inaugural Skate Canada International was first held in 1973, and the event was added to the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating in 1995, the year the series began. Vancouver will host the 49th installment of Skate Canada International.

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Cancelled: 2022 Skate Canada Synchro Classic

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OTTAWA, ON (November 8, 2022) – Skate Canada is disappointed to announce the cancellation of the 2022 Skate Canada Synchro Classic, scheduled to take place in Brampton, Ontario, from December 9-11, 2022. As an ISU Challenger event, a minimum of five international teams from four different nations are required. Unfortunately, due to higher costs associated with travel, teams found travel to North America cost prohibitive.  

The Canadian teams registered for this event can participate in the Synchro Series #2 for Senior, Junior, Open, Intermediate (Gold), Novice, Pre-Novice (STAR 8), and Juvenile (STAR 6) athletes, hosted by Skate Ontario at the same location from December 9-11, 2022. 

Skate Canada looks forward to hosting an ISU Synchronized Skating Challenger event in the future. 

Nine Canadians Make the Trip Across the Pond for the MK John Wilson Trophy

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OTTAWA, ON (November 8, 2022) – After a successful start to the season that saw Canadians win six medals, the ISU Grand Prix now heads to Sheffield, Great Britain from November 11-13, 2022 for the MK John Wilson Trophy. Team Canada will be comprised of nine skaters, including one entry in women, two entries in men and three entries in ice dance. 

2018 Olympian and 2022 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships bronze medallist Gabrielle Daleman will be the sole Canadian entry in the women’s discipline. Daleman kicked off her season a few weeks ago at Skate Canada International, where she placed second in the short program and finished 10th overall.  

Beijing 2022 Olympian Roman Sadovsky will be competing in his second Grand Prix of the season after putting in a solid performance at Skate America that earned him a 5th place finish. He will be joined by 2022 Skate Canada Challenge bronze medallist Corey Circelli, who will be making his senior Grand Prix debut. 

Olympians Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha will be headlining the Canadian entries in ice dance. Lajoie and Lagha are no strangers to the podium, having won gold at the 2022 Budapest Trophy and the 2022 Ondrej Nepela Memorial, as well as a bronze medal on home ice at Skate Canada International. First-year National Team members Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer will be competing at their first ISU Grand Prix after finishing 4th at the 2022 Budapest Trophy. Rounding out the team will be Haley Sales and Nikolas Wamsteeker, who placed 5th at the 2022 U.S. International Figure Skating Classic earlier this season.   

Pairs team Lori-Ann Matte and Thierry Ferland were assigned to the event but have pulled out due to injury.   

The competition starts on Friday, November 11 with the men and pair short programs. Saturday will see the rhythm dance and women’s short program, as well as the first medals awarded following the men and pair free programs. The event concludes on Sunday with the women’s free program and ice dance free dance.   

Team Canada
Name | Age | Hometown | Coach | Training Location 

Women 
Gabrielle Daleman | 24 | Newmarket, Ont. | Lee Barkell | Toronto, Ont. 

Men  
Corey Circelli | 20 | Toronto, Ont. | Brian Orser | Toronto, Ont.
Roman Sadovsky | 23 | Vaughan, Ont. | Tracey Wainman & Grzegorz Filipowski | Richmond Hill, Ont. 

Ice dance 
Alicia Fabbri | 19 | Terrebonne, Que. & Paul Ayer | 24 | Brossard, Que. | Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon | Montreal, Que.  
Marjorie Lajoie | 22 | Boucherville, Que. & Zachary Lagha | 23 | Saint-Hubert, Que. | Romain Haguenauer | Montréal, Que.
Haley Sales | 25 | Kelowna, B.C. & Nikolas Wamsteeker | 26 | Langley, B.C. | Scott Moir | London, Ont. 

Team Leaders – Marie Bowness & Mike Slipchuk
Medical Team – Emma Lis & Lee Schofield
Officials – Glenn Fortin & Patty Klein  

For more information about the event and full schedules, click here. 

Skate With Us National Contest

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Skate Canada is thrilled to announce the Skate With Us National Contest. The Skate With Us National Contest is all about why you skate with us – no matter how you skate! It is an opportunity to showcase the amazing talent we have in the skating community.

To enter the contest, participants are asked to submit videos in one of three categories:

Skate Canada’s Got Talent: Share your off-ice talents. This could be anything from musical talent, to dance skills, to magic – anything you want to show off!

Skate With Us: Share your personal stories and experiences with skating.  Maybe it is to tell the concept behind this year’s program, or how you learned a new skill, how you just mastered skating backwards or even how skating has become part of your identity. No matter if you skate alone, or with a team, or even if you just skate outdoors for fun, we want to hear why you love to skate!

Club & Skating Schools: Showcase something special about your club/school. It could be something the club/school does really well, a best-in-class practice, or something that is totally unique to the club/school or something that the club/school are particularly proud of.

To enter participants are asked to upload their videos to YouTube and then fill out the submission form.

All videos must meet the following requirements:

  • Video must be four (4) minutes or less in length;
  • Video must be in English and/or French;
  • Video file size must be no greater than 1 GB; and
  • Video must comply with the YouTube Community Guidelines;
  • Please see the for more information.

Entries will be vying for cash prizes and tickets to the 2024 ISU World Figure Skating Championships! Participants could also have their videos shown at Skate Canada live events and on digital platforms.

 

Category Prizes
Skate Canada’s Got Talent First Place: Two all-event tickets to the 2024 ISU World Figure Skating Championships plus a $2000 CAD travel voucher

Second Place: $1000 CAD

Third Place: $500 CAD
Skate With Us First Place: $5000 CAD

Second Place: $1000 CAD

Third Place: $500 CAD
Club & Skating Schools First Place: $5000 CAD

Second Place: $1000 CAD

Third Place: $500 CAD

 

Videos will be judged based on whether they demonstrate creativity, an understanding of theme, overall presentation, and technical quality. The top three videos in each category will be selected by a panel of judges and the top three finalists in each category will be announced in January 2023. Videos will be judged by using the following criteria:

  • 30% Creativity
  • 30% Understanding of the theme
  • 20% Overall presentation
  • 20% Technical quality

The top three videos in each category will be published on skatewithus.ca and individuals will be able to vote for their favourite videos. People will be invited to vote a maximum of once per day. The winning videos will be decided by public vote and announced in February 2023. The deadline to enter the contest is December 31, 2022, at 11:59:59 p.m. ET.

Good luck to all the participants, we are looking forward to celebrating the talent we have in our community!

To enter the contest and for full contest rules and regulations, please visit skatewithus.ca.

2022 IceChallenge to Feature Junior and Senior Canadian Skaters

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OTTAWA, ON (November 7, 2022) – Canada will be sending a team comprised of both junior and senior athletes to the 2022 IceChallenge, taking place from November 9-13, 2022 in Graz, Austria. A total of ten athletes will be competing in the women’s, pair and ice dance categories over 4 days of competition.   

In senior women, Sara-Maude Dupuis will be looking to build on her excellent results from Skate Canada’s NextGen competition, where she finished first. Canadian Junior Champion Justine Miclette will also be competing in the same event after finishing 8th at the third ISU Junior Grand Prix earlier this season. Kaiya Ruiter, who won two ISU Junior Grand Prix medals in 2021, will be completing the team.  

Fiona Bombardier will be leading the junior women’s team after claiming bronze at the 2022 Egna Spring Trophy earlier this year. She will be joined by Audréanne Foster, who placed 6th at the 2022 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships, as well as Fée Ann Landry. 

In junior pairs, Ashlyn Schmitz & Tristan Taylor will bolster the Canadian team following their breakthrough campaign at the Junior Grand Prix in Riga, Latvia this past September, where the pair won bronze.  

Lily Hensen and Nathan Lickers will be the sole team to represent Canada in ice dance. The duo showed promise last season, finishing 4th at the 2022 Skate Canada Challenge and 9th at the 2022 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships.    

Team Canada
Name | Age | Hometown | Coach | Training Location 

Junior Women 
Fiona Bombardier | 17 | Newmarket, Ont. | Ken Rose & Danielle Rose | Richmond, Ont.
Audréanne Foster | 18 | Forestville, Que. | Karen Sauvageau & Kim Decelles | Baie-Comeau, Que. 
Fée Ann Landry | 17 | Gatineau, Que. | Guylaine Blouin & Anne-Marie Sauvé | Gatineau, Que.  

Junior Pair 
Ashlyn Schmitz | 16 | Shellbrook, Sask. & Tristan Taylor | 20 | Regina, Sask. | David Schultz & Vicki Schultz | Regina, Sask. 

Senior Women 
Sara-Maude Dupuis | 17 | Montreal, Que. | Stéphane Yvars & Françoise Parisé | Boucherville, Que.
Justine Miclette | 16 | Chambly, Que. | Stéphanie Fiorito & Ian Connolly | Chambly, Que.  
Kaiya Ruiter | 16 | Ottawa, Ont. | Scott Davis | Calgary, Alta.  

Senior Ice dance 
Lily Hensen | 21 | London, Ont. & Nathan Lickers | 21 | London, Ont. | Ilderton, Ont.  

Team Leaders – Andre Bourgeois & Danielle Williams
Medical Staff – Mike McMurray
Officials – Christine Bourdeau & Guylaine Seguin 

Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps with pairs gold at Grand Prix de France

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ANGERS, France (November 5, 2022) – Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps won the gold in pairs Saturday to highlight a two-medal day for Canada at the Grand Prix de France, the third stop on the ISU Grand Prix circuit.

Montreal ice dancers Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen performed well adding a silver medal.

In pairs, Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps, from Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que.  earned their second medal this season on the circuit with 185.84 points. They were silver medallists at the season opener Skate America last month.

With medals in both Grand Prix assignments, they are headed to the Grand Prix Final in December.

‘’We’re still a pretty new team on the international circuit so every experience is still new,’’ said Stellato-Dudek, who joined forces with Deschamps in 2019. ‘’We’re happy with how we came back in the long program and fought. We’re excited to make the Final.’’

Camille Kovalev and Pavel Kovalev of France took the silver with 179.85 and Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel of Germany were third at 179.73.

In ice dancing, Fournier Beaudry and Sorensen reached the international podium for the second time this season with 201.93 points capped by their Western-themed free dance. Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri of Italy took the gold with 207.95 and Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud of France were third at 187.15.

The Canadians, now with five career Grand Prix medals, won the gold at the Finlandia Trophy in Finland last month with a slightly higher score.

‘’We’re really happy with how we skated all weekend,’’ said Sorensen. ‘’Getting the silver medal is like the icing on the cake. We created a moment for ourselves, and it was just amazing.’’

Molly Lanaghan and Dmitre Razgulajevs of Scarborough, Ont., were 10th in their Grand Prix debut.

In men’s competition, Adam Siao Him Fa of France finished ahead of two Japanese skaters to win the gold with 268.98 after ranking third in Friday’s short program.

Sota Yamamoto was second at 257.90 and Kazuki Tomono third at 248.77.

Wesley Chiu of Richmond, B.C., was 10th.

The next stop on the circuit is November 11-12 in Sheffield, England.

For full results.