KINGSTON, ONTARIO – Nam Nguyen began to felt the pressure this year, the chatter that he could win this national title. Last week, while training, he had a bit of a meltdown. Coach Brian Orser took him aside, and told him he he’d been there in 1981, when Brian Pockar had been three-time Canadian champion […]
KINGSTON, ONTARIO – Nicolas Nadeau was on a mission on Wednesday night at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships. The 17-year-old skater from Boisbriand, Que., wanted to win the junior national title and leave no doubt about it. So he did something Olympic: after using Lutzes at Skate Canada Challenge last month, he decided to […]
*It Takes a Team! Last year Skate Canada Eastern Ontario (EO) felt privileged to host the 100th Anniversary of the National Championships in Ottawa. With such a highly successful event tucked into their skate bags, it’s no wonder the skating family is back in Eastern Ontario once again, this time in Kingston to celebrate the […]
Which Color Is It!? Back in 1964 at the Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria, my partner, Guy Revell, and I were competing against the skating super powers … West Germany’s defending World Champions Marika Kilius and Hans Jurgen-Baumler, the favorites, and the visionary Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov, examples of the emerging pair skating […]
OTTAWA, ON: Canada will have two teams competing at the fifth annual Mozart Cup in Salzburg, Austria. The international synchronized skating competition takes place from January 23-25, 2015, and features 42 teams from 15 countries, in senior, junior, and novice. Canada will have entries in the senior and junior categories. Les Suprêmes, the 2014 Canadian […]
KINGSTON, ONTARIO – Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje say they’ve been working nine years for this moment: to win the Canadian title at the 101st Canadian Tire National Figure Skating Championships. They remember their first meeting, when they agreed to a cross-border tryout in 2006. It was July, late in a season to be finding […]
KINGSTON, ONTARIO – When Montreal-based skaters Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha won the novice dance title at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships on Tuesday, it was only one on a string of achievements for them. Lagha, 15, of Longueuil, Que., has played Carnegie Hall as a pianist already. Lajoie, 14, cracks up audiences at Just […]
KINGSTON, ONTARIO – Selena Zhao hasn’t had a straight and easy path to her first national skating championship in Canada: travel woes, injury, learning curves. Born in Seattle, Zhao has become a transplanted Canadian this season, and on Wednesday, she finally found her feet, finishing first in the junior women’s short program with 50.21 points, […]
KINGSTON, ONTARIO – He is 13, skates with feel and tackles tough things. Perhaps Gabriel Farand is a star of tomorrow. He’s in first place after the novice men’s short program at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships. He started the fireworks among the young men last night, and finished it, too, earning 43.51 points, […]
Did You Know? Did you know that Paige Lawrence, our Athlete Ambassador in Kingston, always wanted to be a cowgirl? Both her Dad and her brother were bull riders and top-notch rodeo competitors. Paige wants to keep the family tradition alive by taking up the sport of bull riding and bull fighting! A Life Refocused […]
Pair skaters Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford and ice dancers Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje are flying into the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships this week in Kingston, Ontario on a wing. Kevin Reynolds is flying in on a prayer. Everybody knows about the stunning international results delivered by Canada’s top two duos, how they […]
Coach Josée Picard calls it Part Two. And she’s talking about tiny Justine Brasseur, who has won both the novice women’s short program and the novice pairs short with her new partner Mathieu Ostiguy at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships this week. Part One of Picard’s revived career would be Julianne Séguin and Charlie […]