Montreal is a wonderful city with so many fun activities, great food, and amazing views! Montreal is also the home to the ever so growing Ice Dance Academy (formerly known as Gadbois). In this article, we will be sharing some of the recommendations given to us by ice dancer Lilah Fear who trains in Montreal, and our resident ITL Montreal local Gabb!
This year’s Canadian Nationals were held in Mississauga, Ontario and luckily for me, it was only a province away so I thought why not go and support the skaters that represent my country. Unfortunately, I had to miss out on the junior competitions that happened earlier in the week (cries in junior ice dance 😭) but I was happy that I could at least watch the entirety of the senior events
Lae: So, all we've touched on so far have talked about banners that have been professionally printed and designed digitally, but do we have any advice on making handmade banners, such as what materials to use or is printing kind of the go-to?
Gabb: I use printed just because I have a degree for it. It's easier for me, I know how to work with printers. But you can easily just make handheld banners yourself using paper.
Kat: [laughs] Lae sitting outside the rink at ACI drawing Yuzu and Wakaba banners!
Becs: The 4am Wakaba banner sketching session!
Lae: Yeah, from experience, you can just buy an A3 size piece of card and buy some gold stickers and a permanent marker. Honestly, it's just the thinking and it's the design that goes into it.
Kat: It's the thought that counts!
Becs: Good costumes are such a draw in terms of just being like "Yes yes you are worthy!"
Gabb: Especially if they're sparkly!
Becs: Yes sparkles please!
Kat: Aka Ice Dance ladies.[Gabb: Yes!] 90% of the time deliver with their costumes.
Becs: Yes. One thing that is so beautiful about picking who you're going to photograph is ah Ice Dance ladies and ladies in general show up looking usually fabulous most practices even so...
Kat: And then you have the men with like 80% black costumes or monochrome.
Becs: Yeah it's tragic, it's a tragic contrast.
Taeri: It seems like in every competition cycle there's a number of skaters, especially those from smaller federations, who talk about their financial struggles. There are just a lot of little things that factor into making the sport burdensome like travel, housing, and accommodation - not just for the skater but for their coaches and their families. We've looked into multiple ways that skaters fund their own careers and it honestly varies based on factors like a skaters federation, their world ranking, even their popularity to get booked for shows.
Jason: Exactly. The fact that I left my costumes in Croatia and six weeks later realized. Like, had no idea, didn’t even while I was unpacking, didn’t think about it.
Kite: Do you think it affected your focus at all, going into Nationals?
Jason: No. I think at the beginning, it kind of freaked me out, just because I didn’t know what I was going to wear. But once I kind of had an outfit and practiced in something different, I felt more relaxed. It really wasn’t until I had a backup that I started to relax. And Tracy being so calm about the whole situation. [Kite: They’ve probably seen it before.] [Everyone Laughs] Yeah, they were like “Oh my God we’ve been through this with Javi, [Javier Fernández] [Kite and Gabb laugh.] Um, Jason, this is nothing,” and I was like “Okay.”
