With the dance field expanded to 10 couples apiece for the first time since the 2010-11 season, competitors saw additional opportunity — though some absences for those guaranteed at least one spot are also worth noting. Pairs, which remains at eight teams apiece due to additional regulations (only four teams allowed per warm-up session), was far more troublesome for less-established teams. Our analysis of the major inclusions — and omissions:
SKATE AMERICA (October 21-23, Hoffman Estates, Illinois)
Dance
Madison Hubbell / Zach Donohue
Maia Shibutani / Alex Shibutani
TBD
Pairs
Julianne Séguin / Charlie Bilodeau
Madeline Aaron / Max Settlage
Tarah Kayne / Danny O’Shea
No surprise to see national champions assigned to the home event; the TBDs are where the questions arise. In dance, Anastasia Cannuscio and Colin McManus and Elliana Pogrebinsky and Alex Benoit each have one assignment elsewhere, and may be considered for a second. If the federation opts to include a team currently without, then, as noted in our preview, Danielle Thomas and Daniel Eaton could have the strongest case (sixth at Nationals; all five who placed ahead have at least one assignment). Another possibility could be Karina Manta and Joe Johnson (#96 WS; a close seventh at Nationals and bronze medalists at 2015 Autumn Classic International ahead of Thomas and Eaton).
The battle for the Skate America pairs berth could be much more brutal. Several good pairs sat outside the guaranteed assignment zone, but while the expanded dance roster proved a boon to ice dancers in a similar position, this was not the case here. U.S. bronze medalists Marissa Castelli and Mervin Tran have only one assignment, but could grab a second as alternates, given their position within the top 24 in both WS and SB; Haven Denney and Brandon Frazier, as U.S. silver medalists in 2015, are likely also in the running. And Aaron and Settlage themselves hold only one spot, with the alternates list their bet for a second assignment. But those previous Grand Prix competitors without an assignment include fifth-place finishers Jessica Calalang and Zack Sidhu and seventh-place finishers Jessica Pfund and Josh Santillan, with a slew of other senior and new-to-senior pairs also likely to aim for strong showings at summer monitoring events like Skate Detroit. In short, TFTI brooks no premature predictions, but simply offers possibilities.
Competing here from Canada are Julianne Séguin and Charlie Bilodeau, who last year earned bronze at this event.
SKATE CANADA INTERNATIONAL (October 28-30, Mississauga, Ontario)
Dance
Piper Gilles / Paul Poirier
Alexandra Paul / Mitch Islam
Tessa Virtue / Scott Moir
Madison Chock / Evan Bates
Kaitlin Hawayek / Jean-Luc Baker
Pairs
Meagan Duhamel / Eric Radford
Lubov Iliushechkina / Dylan Moscovitch
TBD
Haven Denney / Brandon Frazier
Skate Canada readily filled its dance roster, with the couple most in need of a host selection, Alexandra Paul and Mitch Islam, further reaping the benefits of reasonably good WS and SB positioning; with Canada only fielding four couples on the dance circuit, there’s strategic sense in maximizing opportunity, and Skate America is the only event not including at least one Canadian dance team. Also strategic in a sense might be a spot for Madison Chock and Evan Bates among the world medalist options; while the Shibutanis were unlikely to compete at back-to-back events, it was also unlikely, from a marketing perspective, that Papadakis and Cizeron would be placed against Virtue and Moir at so early a date. Hawayek and Baker — like all other dance teams with two top 24 slots — obtained two assignments, and this will mark their first Canadian event.
Virtue and Moir’s comeback may have had an additional assignment impact. Canadian champions and seeded couple Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje did not pick up a spot here (that’s gone instead to fourth-place World finishers Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte), which, as we’ll see, may come down to strategy and Grand Prix Final positioning.
The TBD for the pairs is anyone’s game, as Canada’s top four teams all received two spots. Most likely, as discussed in our preview, it will prove a summer contest between Brittany Jones and Joshua Reagan, Camille Ruest and Drew Wolfe, and other new or new-to-senior pairs like Natasha Purich and Davin Portz and Bryn Hoffman and Bryce Chudak. Repping the US will be Denney and Frazier in their first Grand Prix event since 2014, after missing last season due to injury.
ROSTELECOM CUP (November 4-6, Moscow)
Dance
Kaitlyn Weaver / Andrew Poje
Madison Chock / Evan Bates
Elliana Pogrebinsky / Alex Benoit
Pairs
Kirsten Moore-Towers / Michael Marinaro
Julianne Séguin / Charlie Bilodeau
Alexa Scimeca / Chris Knierim
It’s a back to back for Chock and Bates, who (along with Denmark’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen) will have a fair trip to make after wrapping up in Mississauga. For Weaver and Poje and that potentially strategic positioning, it’s a field that should provide them with a strong chance at a good finish, if not victory. Chock and Bates and Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev are likely to prove the primary competition, and the three couples have traded off scores and placements in recent seasons. Outcomes here could be close. And while suggested in our preview, a non-Skate America assignment for new seniors Pogrebinsky and Benoit was testament to the expanded opportunities of an expanded Grand Prix field for good but young or less dominant teams.
Canada’s national second- and fourth-ranked pairs — both eighth-place Worlds finishers in consecutive years — get a chance to face off here alongside Alexa Scimeca and Chris Knierim, who also notched a top 10 finish and shared a Grand Prix Final trip with Séguin and Bilodeau. But the challenging contest, of course, also features top pairs Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov and Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot, among other rising European duos.
TROPHÉE DE FRANCE (November 11-13, Paris)
Dance
Piper Gilles / Paul Poirier
Madison Hubbell / Zach Donohue
Pairs
Marissa Castelli and Mervin Tran
The dance roster here is so familiar that the greatest novelty of this event might be its rebranding, Eric Bompard no longer a title sponsor. For the fourth time in five seasons, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier and Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue are assigned to do battle at this event. Gilles and Poirier took 2014’s match-up, Hubbell and Donohue the other two, including last year’s abbreviated event halted by the terror attack in Paris.
Castelli and Tran, the only North American pairs representatives, are also return visitors, having finished sixth in last year’s short program.
AUDI CUP OF CHINA (November 18-20, Beijing)
Dance
Alexandra Paul / Mitch Islam
Kaitlyn Weaver / Andrew Poje
Anastasia Cannuscio / Colin McManus
Maia Shibutani / Alex Shibutani
Pairs
Lubov Iliushechkina / Dylan Moscovitch
Alexa Scimeca / Chris Knierim
Cup of China is frequently an event of unexpected outcomes; what that could mean for the Shibutanis (who finished 2nd in 2011 and 2014) and Weaver and Poje (3rd in 2012) in likely their first season match-up is anyone’s guess. Given China’s small national dance field, it’s also generally a good news event for those in the middle ranks, providing a spot for Cannuscio and McManus as well as what may have otherwise been a primary assignment for Paul and Islam (who competed at this event in 2014) compounding their host selection from Skate Canada.
As with Russia, China’s pairs field is daunting at first look — though with a possibility of withdrawal for Wenjing Sui and Cong Han in the wake of Sui’s recovery from surgery, Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov’s own ongoing return from injury, and the ambiguities surrounding new teams Xiaoyu Yu and Hao Zhang and Cheng Peng and Yang Jin (a match-up creating its own interests), things may prove smoother for one or both of the North American pairs. They’ve each competed here before; Scimeca and Knierim finished fifth in 2013, while Iliushechkina and Moscovitch placed seventh in 2015
NHK TROPHY (November 25-27, Sapporo)
Dance
Tessa Virtue / Scott Moir
Kaitlin Hawayek / Jean-Luc Baker
Pairs
Meagan Duhamel / Eric Radford
Kirsten Moore-Towers / Michael Marinaro
Tarah Kayne / Danny O’Shea
This will be Virtue and Moir’s first time competing at NHK since 2007 (where they finished second) — but the buzz, of course, surrounds their first match-up with French World champions and new training mates Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron. Hawayek and Baker will be making their second trip to the event; in 2014, they picked up a surprise bronze.
Duhamel and Radford get to take on Stolbova and Klimov, who bested them at last season’s Grand Prix Final but faltered, after injury struggles, at Worlds. For the other pairs, there’s some good opportunity in this particular field to establish themselves further internationally. A TBD could go to new Japanese pair Narumi Takahashi and Ryo Shibata, or be thrown back into the selection pool, perhaps granting a chance to one of the single-assignment pairs.
ABSENCES
While all guaranteed American and Canadian pairs obtained a spot, three ice dance couples were missing. For junior world medalists Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter and Rachel and Michael Parsons, a lack of assignments almost certainly assures that both teams have opted to remain at the junior level; both have one remaining year of age eligibility.
Canadian bronze medalists Élisabeth Paradis and François-Xavier Ouellette were guaranteed one spot via their #24 World Standings position. Though they are on Skate Canada’s National Team for the 2016-17 season (an honor generally assigned to top five national finishers who have not indicated an intention to retire or split in advance of the official statement), their omission from the Grand Prix is certainly worth noting in the absence of further news.
REAPING THE BENEFITS
It’s been repeatedly noted here how the ISU’s Grand Prix dance re-expansion has aided a number of couples. Other teams only guaranteed one assignment, but picking up two, were Israel’s Isabella Tobias and Ilia Tkachenko (#38 WS, #16 SB); Poland’s Natalia Kaliszek and Maksim Spodirev (#27 WS, #24 SB; also recently credited with creation of a new compulsory pattern); and event host couples Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac of France (#46 WS, #21 SB) and China’s Shiyue Wang and Xinyu Liu (#19 WS, #52 SB).
Among those not guaranteed one, Japan’s Kana Muramoto and Chris Reed (#40 WS, #28 SB) earned both a host spot at NHK and a place at Skate America; Viktoria Kavaliova and Yurii Bieliaiev of Belarus (#32 WS, #27 SB) received Rostelecom Cup; and host spots go to Russia’s Tiffany Zahorski and Jonathan Guerreiro (#89 WS), late to the international scene after federation release struggles, France’s Lorenza Alessandrini and Pierre Souquet (#52 WS, #67 SB), China’s Hong Chen and Yan Zhao (unranked), and Japan’s Emi Hirai and Marien de la Asuncion (#30 WS, #63 SB).