OTTAWA, ON: Canada will send 11 entries, for a total of 16 athletes, to the 2014 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships® in Taipei City, Chinese Taipei. The event takes place from January 20-26, 2014, at the Taipei Arena. The Canadian team will have three entries in men’s, ladies, and ice dance, and two entries […]
Hey, Louis Rubenstein, you with your dashing black bowler hat, moustache and sense of adventure: could you ever have imagined that 100 years after you created the first official Canadian figure skating championship in 1914, that Canada would be fielding the largest team of skaters in the world to the Sochi Olympic Games? It wasn’t […]
Vanessa Grenier and Maxime Deschamps take your breath away with the speed at which they master their craft. On Wednesday, they won the junior pair title at the 2014 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships, even though Grenier had never skated pair before this season, and had never even had a pair tryout until 11 months […]
A year of work, a year of travel, a year of learning and finally, Mackenzie Bent and Garrett MacKeen are the Canadian junior ice dance champions. Bent, 16, of Uxbridge, Ont., and MacKeen, 19, of Oshawa took the silver medal last year in junior and so took the past year to hone their skills further, […]
There is no substitute for hard work and confidence, Kim DeGuise Leveillee has found. On Wednesday, the 15-year-old skater from Sorel-Tracy, Que., won the junior women’s title at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships. The win meant even more, that DeGuise Leveillee finished 17th – next to last – in the junior women’s category last […]
One frosty day in Boisbriand, Que., Nicolas Nadeau sat in front of the television set and found himself enthralled with the 2002 Olympic Games. “I said to my mom: ‘I want to do that,’” said Nadeau, now 16. His mother said: “Sure.” Nadeau was good at all sports, but when his mother enrolled him in […]
OTTAWA: Sarah Tamura and Megan Yim are Canada’s answer to the flood of triple-jumping, overachieving Russian woman who are dominating international competition. Tamura is a 12-year-old who on Tuesday, just became Canadian novice champion, while her training mate, Yim, also 12, finished third. Caught in between the two tiny dynamos is Kim Decelles, 15, of […]
OTTAWA: It seemed like a great idea for Olympic competitors Anabelle Langlois and Cody Hay to start up a pair skating school in Calgary where they live. After all, only seven pairs contested the senior championships last week. In fact, pair skating around the world is a little thin on depth. It has been anything […]
OTTAWA: Joseph Phan is a natural. He is only 12 years old, but already he has this lovely glide around the ice, and edges to match. Is it any wonder that the skater he admires most is three-time world champion Patrick Chan? Could it be they are two peas in a pod? On Tuesday, Phan […]
OTTAWA: Coach Kevin Wheeler had an inkling that Allison Eby and Brett Varley would be an entertainment twosome, given that they had always shown a little bit of moxie in his club in Cambridge, Ont. He matched the two together, not because he thought they’d have booming throws or endless lifts or soaring twists. He […]
OTTAWA: Madelyn Dunley of Campbellville, Ont., was the star of the show. The 16-year-old – who was novice champion in 2012 – sparkled with a triple Salchow-triple toe loop combination, a high-flying effort for a group still trying to find itself. However, Dunley underrotated a triple loop and fell on it. Still, she finished first […]
Hannah Whitley and Elliot Graham have fast feet. And so far, at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships, tiny Whitley, 13, of Barrie, Ont., and Graham, 15, of Angus, Ont., are bounding up the ice dancing ladder at the speed of light. After the Cha Cha Congelado and the Argentine Tango pattern dances, they are […]