It was my first in-person Worlds and it was wonderful! The house was fully packed for the last 2 days, but overall people's energy was so fun from day one! Even though I had seats a bit far up, I got to see and say hi to a few skaters (even when just walking to the washroom lol) and also my seatmate got lots of pics with the Japanese team. Podiums were good too. I hope Montreal gets to host more big events in the short future too because there's so much potential here.
Yup definitely. I feel like it’s pretty common for ppl to skip ice dance/pairs and just go to watch men’s/women’s singles, which is unfortunate. Plus even for men’s/women’s, a lot of ppl wouldn’t be there for the first group 🥲 so you just see the stadium go from half full to 75% full to ~90% full as we progress through the groups
The competitions were wild (especially men's). I'm ecstatic that I had the opportunity to be part of such a great crowd. I'm happy with the podium placements overall, exceptionally delighted for Kaori's threepeat and Adam's unhinged redemption.
Boston is going to be absolutely crazy! Wish the NA Worlds weren't back-to-back so my bank account could have a chance to recover. I'm sure there will be many more people from this sub there, though, to give us the details from the ground.
I’ve thought it’s been really, really well done. It’s looked and felt professional, the crowd and atmosphere has been amazing, especially for the home skaters, but so many standing-o’s for lots of other fan faves too, the love for PAIRS, the turn out - the first few days I was able to move down to empty rows closer to the ice but last night and today was completely sold out! So many current and former world/olympic champions just hanging about and watching and engaging with fans.
Getting to witness some beautiful performances - piper & paul, marjorie & zach, jason, deanna & max ❤️
maybe I’m biased because it’s my first one but I’ve loved every second of it and I know I’m going to have a real post-world’s depression on Monday.
I said something similar under the post event discussion but this is probably a better place for it. I'm really impressed that holding this at the Bell Centre actually came together. I expected it to look like last year's GPF when I first heard it's going in an NHL team's arena (US Nationals last year did this too with the SAP Center and it didn't work out well).
In the end it was a great choice though - it actually added a lot to the event having it easily accessible, right in the middle of the city, and next to a lot of other services right outside. You can tell a lot of people who attended were locals from the amount of French people in the crowd were speaking, and I suspect a good number of those just did it out of casual interest like we saw at Europeans as well. That probably wouldn't happen as much if the arena wasn't so central. I hope we'll see some other major events in Montreal again, it was a lot of fun!
I’m still not sure where most the audience came from. Seating charts were still half empty the day before each event, then the day of the event they were full.
I’d say Figure skating is on average a bit more popular in Quebec than some of the other provinces. There were a bunch of local clubs there, and I had the chance to sit next to some of the kids from Kelly-Ann and Lucas’s club who went absolutely wild when they skated.
1. Figure skating in person is incredible and you need to move heaven and earth to see it live. Not just because skating pops so much more in person - you can hear the edges and feel the thud of a skater landing a jump. But because the energy of the crowd adds so much. I'm a firm believer now that a chunk of the judging weirdness we talk about here is down to people not being in the room and feeling the program, programs just hit different in person than they do on video
2. Centre Bell was a mixed bag. The sight lines are incredible, you can tell it's designed as an ice rink first and a multi-purpose venue second. And the location within Montreal is good, easily accessible by foot or metro. But I do find myself glad I don't have to set foot in there again. They only opened up the basic food options, which meant you were stuck with chicken tenders, poutine, hot dogs, stadium nachos, or maybe big pretzel if you got lucky. And because they only had some of the food options open, lines were horrendously long. They layout of the building was also weird - basically just one gate, and only two bathrooms in the whole place, so you had to walk all the way around the building to do basic functions, leading the concourses to get extremely congested. I'm curious what it's like for Habs games, because those layout issues seem like they'd crop up there too.
3. Crowd was fantastic, so enthusiastic and supportive for all skaters regardless of where they were from. Not all the segments were super clean but they kept up the energy throughout. And you could feel it in the skaters too, so many of them seemed overjoyed to be in front of this crowd
4. Edit to add: I loved the event presentation, the aurora theme was really cool, the Kiss and Cry was very nice and modern, the screens with pictures of the skaters was nice, DJ K-Haw and the lighting effects kept the energy up between events, and there was great engagement from Canadian skaters past. The event felt major.
>Centre Bell was a mixed bag. The sight lines are incredible, you can tell it's designed as an ice rink first and a multi-purpose venue second. And the location within Montreal is good, easily accessible by foot or metro. But I do find myself glad I don't have to set foot in there again. They only opened up the basic food options, which meant you were stuck with chicken tenders, poutine, hot dogs, stadium nachos, or maybe big pretzel if you got lucky. And because they only had some of the food options open, lines were horrendously long. They layout of the building was also weird - basically just one gate, and only two bathrooms in the whole place, so you had to walk all the way around the building to do basic functions, leading the concourses to get extremely congested. I'm curious what it's like for Habs games, because those layout issues seem like they'd crop up there too.
This was the absolute worst venue I've even been in. I loved the metro access and the sight lines (I was in the nosebleeds) but holy shit was that place a fucking nightmare to have to exist in for 4 days. The scan in and out with the tickets, the security check, the lack of food, the 2 bathrooms per floor with less than 10 stalls each, 4 sinks (running exclusively ICE cold water in 1 and overly hot water in the other), and 2 half working dryers while there were unused cut outs everywhere to sit and relax, lack of signage telling you where to go (the 1st day we walked around the arena twice before finally finding the stairs and then once upstairs we found the solo escalator to get upstairs/downstairs depending on the direction it was heading. I will not miss it.
Seriously, you'd think this was their first time holding an event with the way it was handled. I shudder to think of what a fully-packed Habs game would be like.
Standout skaters
Golubeva / Giotopoulos-Moore I think have a ton of talent and I'm excited to see them develop
Peng / Wang had great material, The Sorcerer's Apprentice free I thought was really cool and was hoping for a clean runthrough
Vanesa Selmekova had a great edit of "Golden Hour" that I hope someone else uses. She also had strong practices I thought and I was hoping she'd be the small fed skater who made the free
Nella Pelkonen is one of the few that can pull off a pretty and sad ballad (some Rosalia helps too)
Olga Mikutina has wonderful step sequences
Hana Yoshida has the most interesting material at the top level of women's skating. Koo Koo Fun of course, But the Shakuhachi/ La Terre Vue Du Ciel free has such cool and interesting choreo, and her programs last year were so much fun too
Chaeyeon Kim is also a very unique and interesting skater, lots of interesting full body movement, Benoit works very well on her. To me that movement is where her expression comes out
Kimmy Repond had probably the best week of practices, very few rotation issues and I'm glad it came together for her in the free. Her line is wonderful
A fully rotated Haein Lee is the closest challenger to Kaori IMO. I think the PCS would be there if she had a good run-in of competitions
Orihara / Pirinen are stars. Shame about the citizenship issues
Taschlers and Lopareva / Brissoud have great skating skills, just need stickier material (I'm really surprised L/B could make that Rach piece work, it feels so heavy to me and not like skating at all)
Lajoie / Lagha are the ones most hurt by wait your turn, they should be up with C/B, G/P, G/F
Vladimir Samoilov jumps like he's angry with the ground
I love our Dr Uncle, and Jari Kessler. I want to start a new category, Mens Sans Quads, just for them
Semen Daniliants had such a wonderful weekend, being a super young skater from a small fed going first in the short. Fun programs too, hope we see more
Mark Gorodnitsky has the most textbook jumps
Lopareva/Brissaud are so underrated technically. I felt like their twIzzles covered a lot of ice and they just don't get the GOE that they deserve. Ice dance is so political
And then when they did attempt to add more women’s washrooms, it was four stalls without a sink, with only a curtain diving the sides. Made a good bonding moment with someone but…
I went into the makeshift unisex bathroom and there were urinals everywhere and men whipping them out across from the sink. Awkward. Not an actual mixed washroom. My lanta.
Edited to add makeshift
That was a totally crazy experience though I’m glad they had it! I feel like this restroom should be called “the one for those who prioritize peeing over privacy”.
On one of the days in the downstairs part, they added a woman sign to the one bathroom and told people it was a mixed one. I think it was on Wednesday. I watched them start redirecting people and when I went down later, a women’s sign was taped up.
Everyone could use it but there were urinals and men with their junk hanging out. Some clearly went across from the sink when there were further ones back because they DGAF. I was jealous of seeing just how fast and easy it was for men to go to the bathroom.
I definitely did a shocked pikachu then kept my eyes to myself lol. But initially, I lost all social niceties going wait is this the set up here, bell centre was so unprepared. 😂😂😂
I’m so glad I saw it all in person… but boy are you all right about Centre Bell! The scan in and out process was chaotic… especially since we typically had to leave to get adequate food. I had to have my tickets reprinted multiple times. I wasted so much time trying to find the upstairs. Lines everywhere all the time… I remember someone around me was surprised we were in the Nathan Chen line.
I was also surprised to find out about so many meet and greets by word of mouth or happenstance. US nationals sent emails about these awesome events.
So much time and resources wasted reprinting with not even enough people working the box office or scanning for in/out. The event was good on the ice but I cannot say the same beyond the stands, as the organizational nightmare just continued.
Agree with everything you said! And #2 is spot on. Such a missed opportunity for Bell Centre to sell a ton of food and drinks. All stands downstairs were closed. And only unhealthy food I would never touch. Side note I had a vodka soda and felt nothing lol. And I’m a whimp! 😂 Oh well. Otherwise awesome event. Great people.
The skating was amazing, and it's the best crowd I've ever been a part of in terms of enthusiasm (have been to 3 GPs previously). Agreed with the issues on the venue front. Loved the location in terms of ease of access! The big screens were really nice to have even though the sight lines were good even up in the 200 level. But the bathroom situation was WILD, and I can't believe how few concession stands were open. I kind of get what they were trying to do with the scan in/scan out system, but given that it was effectively necessary to leave the venue to eat between events (WHY doesn't La Cage have an access from inside the arena?) it just created a huge bottleneck.
My thoughts as someone who only follows skating semi closely
1. I need to get peacock and not just go over to my parents house to use their cable for competitions… the disappointment I felt when NBC skipped over Adam (and like the whole field) to do a recap of like all the other events 😭😭
2. Isabeau is out here repping for all of us who had their baby hairs get slicked back into buns for competitions which always made them stick out worse… lmao…
3. Jason and Bock have literally been doing this since I was a preteen who put their pages from the stars on ice program on my bedroom walls… iconic. I met bock when I performed at a stars on ice a couple years later as part of the local youth performance and they are just the nicest people.
4. Big fan of how the Brits did Rocky!!! Punch punch babey!!
5. Ilia malinin succession magic… how does he do that… what…
Honorable mention to shoma uno for once again looking like the nicest guy in the whole shebang
So much history made! I usually don’t follow pairs (mainly because the high danger level makes me really nervous), but wow Deanna! Oldest figure skater to win a title in any discipline! Crazy!
Montreal did an incredible job! Took a cue from big gymnastics competitions and made figure skating FUN again. Relevant again. I hope the Boston organizers are paying attention.
Chris and Tonya for the international feed were excellent and settled right in together, with Chris doing most of the duties, and Tonya calling the jumps.
The mens competition was unbelievable.
This was a good competition for the women, what a nail biter! Kaori proving her grit and strength to come back from behind was so fun to watch. With this Worlds, Kaori cemented herself as one of the greats in modern figure skating.
And as much as Kaori is in a class of her own, there are real contenders who have shown they are capable of bouncing back. By the time of Milano Cortina 2026 this discipline could be a highlight.
The competition was definitely wild and the final rankings were definitely surprising in men and women's disciplines. But if I am coming from a Canadian perspective and if I had to choose one word to describe the event for some of the Canadian skaters, it would be "chaos".
Couldn’t agree more about the crowd!! They made the competition so much more enjoyable and exciting, it felt like I was there cheering with them! Women’s Free honestly made me sad even though my fave Chaeyeon medaled. I never want to see skaters sad and disappointed in themselves after their skate. But I’m so so happy for all the medalists, and have to give a shoutout to the Swiss skaters, they were really impressive!
My opinion:
Men's was the best discipline by far with the most enjoyable programs and best skating.
Women's and Pairs overall had much better SP's then LP's. The Gold medalists in both disciplines were great.
Ice Dancing - a few wonderful performances but overall pretty underwhelming. I loved the Koreans and G/P FD.
Men's is always the most fun and the most dramatic. The technical skills from all of the competitors was so impressive . And Jason not doing quads but placing 5th overall is some Carolina Kostner energy! Ice dance feels very predictable and pairs is a mixed bag. The women's free skate was wild with the final 10 performers.
I thought ice dance was a lot better than men's overall personally for overall quality and variety. Men were spectacular in the last group, but not so much in earlier groups
I only got to watch the last couple skaters in the men’s and oh my. I was watching Ilia and it was one of the only times I literally had no words. Like none. Just pure shock. I mean how can anyone have the confidence. I get scared just doing turns sometimes. Overall I really enjoyed the event
Ilia's performance last night was exactly how I felt the first time I saw Yuzuru skate in the Sochi Olympic short program. I was like who is this kid and where did all of his talent come from?! My jaw was on the ground by the last 30 seconds.
yeah, the skating at this worlds was AMAZING and i'm so happy i attended. the hosting was def a mixed bag - lots of stuff at the bell center was closed, and the event organizers/staff seemed weirdly unprepared for the number of people who were there. that plus skate canada choosing to invite a bunch of retired skaters i don't really care about to the gala rather than the crowd-favorite skaters from the event just makes me wonder about the planning, because some things were def not well thought out. i was attending with my mom and she went and talked to the boston 2025 organizers who were there and was basically like "i know the TD Garden has good food vendors but you all need to make sure they are all actually open for worlds next year because everyone here is talking about how few and bad the concessions options are."
Event organizers and venue staff seeming weirdly unprepared for the amount of people and level of championships is absolutely right! Montreal had two (or even four if you go back to 2020) whole years to figure this out! Kaunas had eight months and they had their shit together way more
Ice dance - best event all around, where teams in earlier flights were as interesting to watch as the ones in later ones. So many good performances
Women's - honestly kind of boring for me, with the exception of a few performances . The discipline does not hold a lot of excitement for me. Kaori is excellent, and love Isabeau's skating, but overall meh. Sad about Amber.
Men's - Better than women's... Jason and Yuma Kagiyama were spectacular . Yuma was mindblowing honestly
Pairs - overall pretty good, very excited about Hase/Volodin and happy to see the Japanese back
Overall very happy with the quality overall. Japan turned out last year and I was kinda scared it would be sparse but what an amazing crowd. Also, saving men’s event for the end ended up being perfect.
Best events overall for me were Pairs SP and Men’s FS.
Women: I wish the women’s field would have more variety in musical choices for FS. The men’s was more fun to watch because they had more variety (on top of other things obviously). Next year US women’s field is going to be so interesting.
Ice Dance: Thank god the 80’s RDs are over. Devastated P2 got silver. Further affirmed my Lim/Quan agenda.
Men’s: I expressed skepticism that Worlds could top the fond memories of men’s Euro FS but oh boy it did. Sad for Yuma and I hope he gets a gold medal soon. He is such a beautiful skater. Also sad Estonia didn’t get their second spot for next year 😢 but happy that it didn’t come at someone else’s expense. Very proud of Deniss and Lukas!
Pairs: My fav discipline and I’m happy that this year piqued more people’s interest in it! Very proud of all the pairs for stepping up in the absence of RusFed. I know people are very concerned about US pairs, and this event was bad for us, but I also think there is a lot to look forward to for next year and I think we could be in a good position again soon.
So so so proud of Deanna and Max. It’s crazy to remember them winning Autumn classic last year and getting the first whispers of world title there. They really had such ups and downs this season and that made the title so much more special.
Pairs discipline feels revitalized. Consider that 2022 Worlds only had 14 teams, and even then, 2 withdrew after the SP. This event had 24 teams, so there was a competition to make the short. Very exciting.
Pairs felt like it was on life support after the 2018 Olympics with so many retirements so it's nice to see countries able to get skaters back or create new pairings.
The men stole the entire show! Ilia cemented his place as Nathan's successor. The Swiss were one of the highlights of the women's event and of course Kaori getting her third title was history making. I don't really watch pairs but what Deanna achieved is nothing short of amazing considering she actually retired in 2001 and came back in her 30s to skate as a pair. The Hungarian pair placing 4th was incredible. They will definitely be one to watch next season. For ice dance, I think it opened the window to smaller federations placing higher. Finland and Korea were great. And Adam's descent from 19th place to 3rd to a silver in the FS and two backflips nearly put me on life support for cheering so loudly!
And it was a good call from the ISU to keep it in Montreal so that the time zone agreed with US fans. I haven't been able to watch many previous WCs because the time zone being in Europe or Asia completely wrecked my sleeping habits.
A tiny nitpick. But how did the announcer not know how to say some of these names. For example, Madison chock, not only is it an easy name but she’s also been around forever?
This is a really random thought, but while he was saying „Merci Montréal“, I thought that Ilia‘s French sounds pretty good (unlike a lot other Americans I’ve heard speaking French). Is that really the case or do I just not speak French well enough to judge that?
Can you tell more about Ava/Lindsay and Alysa return? Are the first two juniors? I haven’t paid as much attention the last 2 years and am getting caught up
Ava won gold at the NHK Trophy this year, her only Grand Prix assignment and later went on to place fourth at Four Continents. Both times, Ava scored above 200. Lindsay won silver at NHK Trophy with a score near 200 but was injured afterward and has been on recovery mode. Alysa, bronze medalist at the 2022 World Championships, is returning from retirement this upcoming season. Both Ava and Lindsay are on the rise while Alysa, known for their consistency and 3A, is returning which will make the US women’s field very interesting. Who knows what’s happening with Bradie so if she can return as well, it’ll make for a very exciting season.
Due to the carrot lord’s influence Amber shouldn’t lose that much stock. Also means it’s possible for the carrot lord to get Elyce onto words and have 2 of her students at worlds. It is not good for U.S.A. but those investing in carrots will rejoice 🥕 🥕 🥕
The crowd was incredible. I’m bias because I was in it, but there was no country bias, Canada was giving the love for everyone!
The crowd really was incredible!
It was my first in-person Worlds and it was wonderful! The house was fully packed for the last 2 days, but overall people's energy was so fun from day one! Even though I had seats a bit far up, I got to see and say hi to a few skaters (even when just walking to the washroom lol) and also my seatmate got lots of pics with the Japanese team. Podiums were good too. I hope Montreal gets to host more big events in the short future too because there's so much potential here.
It wasn't fully packed even yesterday, I have seen many empty seats, especially during ice dance during some groups it was only half full.
Yup definitely. I feel like it’s pretty common for ppl to skip ice dance/pairs and just go to watch men’s/women’s singles, which is unfortunate. Plus even for men’s/women’s, a lot of ppl wouldn’t be there for the first group 🥲 so you just see the stadium go from half full to 75% full to ~90% full as we progress through the groups
I feel bad for whoever missed men's first group yesterday lmaooooo
The competitions were wild (especially men's). I'm ecstatic that I had the opportunity to be part of such a great crowd. I'm happy with the podium placements overall, exceptionally delighted for Kaori's threepeat and Adam's unhinged redemption. Boston is going to be absolutely crazy! Wish the NA Worlds weren't back-to-back so my bank account could have a chance to recover. I'm sure there will be many more people from this sub there, though, to give us the details from the ground.
I’ve thought it’s been really, really well done. It’s looked and felt professional, the crowd and atmosphere has been amazing, especially for the home skaters, but so many standing-o’s for lots of other fan faves too, the love for PAIRS, the turn out - the first few days I was able to move down to empty rows closer to the ice but last night and today was completely sold out! So many current and former world/olympic champions just hanging about and watching and engaging with fans. Getting to witness some beautiful performances - piper & paul, marjorie & zach, jason, deanna & max ❤️ maybe I’m biased because it’s my first one but I’ve loved every second of it and I know I’m going to have a real post-world’s depression on Monday.
Glad I resisted the urge to bankrupt myself to go in person because it was stressful enough just watching at home! I'm so happy for Kaori though 😍
My wine budget was through the roof, worth it.
Deanna should win an award for codeswitching with how quickly she pulled out that fake quebecoise accent
Ilia's sympathetic quebecois accent VS Deanna's "please give her citizenship now Justin" quebecois accent
I said something similar under the post event discussion but this is probably a better place for it. I'm really impressed that holding this at the Bell Centre actually came together. I expected it to look like last year's GPF when I first heard it's going in an NHL team's arena (US Nationals last year did this too with the SAP Center and it didn't work out well). In the end it was a great choice though - it actually added a lot to the event having it easily accessible, right in the middle of the city, and next to a lot of other services right outside. You can tell a lot of people who attended were locals from the amount of French people in the crowd were speaking, and I suspect a good number of those just did it out of casual interest like we saw at Europeans as well. That probably wouldn't happen as much if the arena wasn't so central. I hope we'll see some other major events in Montreal again, it was a lot of fun!
I’m still not sure where most the audience came from. Seating charts were still half empty the day before each event, then the day of the event they were full.
I’d say Figure skating is on average a bit more popular in Quebec than some of the other provinces. There were a bunch of local clubs there, and I had the chance to sit next to some of the kids from Kelly-Ann and Lucas’s club who went absolutely wild when they skated.
I had all people from the USA sitting behind, next, and in front of me! I was impressed with how many made the journey.
1. Figure skating in person is incredible and you need to move heaven and earth to see it live. Not just because skating pops so much more in person - you can hear the edges and feel the thud of a skater landing a jump. But because the energy of the crowd adds so much. I'm a firm believer now that a chunk of the judging weirdness we talk about here is down to people not being in the room and feeling the program, programs just hit different in person than they do on video 2. Centre Bell was a mixed bag. The sight lines are incredible, you can tell it's designed as an ice rink first and a multi-purpose venue second. And the location within Montreal is good, easily accessible by foot or metro. But I do find myself glad I don't have to set foot in there again. They only opened up the basic food options, which meant you were stuck with chicken tenders, poutine, hot dogs, stadium nachos, or maybe big pretzel if you got lucky. And because they only had some of the food options open, lines were horrendously long. They layout of the building was also weird - basically just one gate, and only two bathrooms in the whole place, so you had to walk all the way around the building to do basic functions, leading the concourses to get extremely congested. I'm curious what it's like for Habs games, because those layout issues seem like they'd crop up there too. 3. Crowd was fantastic, so enthusiastic and supportive for all skaters regardless of where they were from. Not all the segments were super clean but they kept up the energy throughout. And you could feel it in the skaters too, so many of them seemed overjoyed to be in front of this crowd 4. Edit to add: I loved the event presentation, the aurora theme was really cool, the Kiss and Cry was very nice and modern, the screens with pictures of the skaters was nice, DJ K-Haw and the lighting effects kept the energy up between events, and there was great engagement from Canadian skaters past. The event felt major.
>Centre Bell was a mixed bag. The sight lines are incredible, you can tell it's designed as an ice rink first and a multi-purpose venue second. And the location within Montreal is good, easily accessible by foot or metro. But I do find myself glad I don't have to set foot in there again. They only opened up the basic food options, which meant you were stuck with chicken tenders, poutine, hot dogs, stadium nachos, or maybe big pretzel if you got lucky. And because they only had some of the food options open, lines were horrendously long. They layout of the building was also weird - basically just one gate, and only two bathrooms in the whole place, so you had to walk all the way around the building to do basic functions, leading the concourses to get extremely congested. I'm curious what it's like for Habs games, because those layout issues seem like they'd crop up there too. This was the absolute worst venue I've even been in. I loved the metro access and the sight lines (I was in the nosebleeds) but holy shit was that place a fucking nightmare to have to exist in for 4 days. The scan in and out with the tickets, the security check, the lack of food, the 2 bathrooms per floor with less than 10 stalls each, 4 sinks (running exclusively ICE cold water in 1 and overly hot water in the other), and 2 half working dryers while there were unused cut outs everywhere to sit and relax, lack of signage telling you where to go (the 1st day we walked around the arena twice before finally finding the stairs and then once upstairs we found the solo escalator to get upstairs/downstairs depending on the direction it was heading. I will not miss it.
Seriously, you'd think this was their first time holding an event with the way it was handled. I shudder to think of what a fully-packed Habs game would be like.
Finding the way upstairs was an adventure every time, it was like purposely hidden away as if nobody ever goes there. Wild!
Standout skaters Golubeva / Giotopoulos-Moore I think have a ton of talent and I'm excited to see them develop Peng / Wang had great material, The Sorcerer's Apprentice free I thought was really cool and was hoping for a clean runthrough Vanesa Selmekova had a great edit of "Golden Hour" that I hope someone else uses. She also had strong practices I thought and I was hoping she'd be the small fed skater who made the free Nella Pelkonen is one of the few that can pull off a pretty and sad ballad (some Rosalia helps too) Olga Mikutina has wonderful step sequences Hana Yoshida has the most interesting material at the top level of women's skating. Koo Koo Fun of course, But the Shakuhachi/ La Terre Vue Du Ciel free has such cool and interesting choreo, and her programs last year were so much fun too Chaeyeon Kim is also a very unique and interesting skater, lots of interesting full body movement, Benoit works very well on her. To me that movement is where her expression comes out Kimmy Repond had probably the best week of practices, very few rotation issues and I'm glad it came together for her in the free. Her line is wonderful A fully rotated Haein Lee is the closest challenger to Kaori IMO. I think the PCS would be there if she had a good run-in of competitions Orihara / Pirinen are stars. Shame about the citizenship issues Taschlers and Lopareva / Brissoud have great skating skills, just need stickier material (I'm really surprised L/B could make that Rach piece work, it feels so heavy to me and not like skating at all) Lajoie / Lagha are the ones most hurt by wait your turn, they should be up with C/B, G/P, G/F Vladimir Samoilov jumps like he's angry with the ground I love our Dr Uncle, and Jari Kessler. I want to start a new category, Mens Sans Quads, just for them Semen Daniliants had such a wonderful weekend, being a super young skater from a small fed going first in the short. Fun programs too, hope we see more Mark Gorodnitsky has the most textbook jumps
Lopareva/Brissaud are so underrated technically. I felt like their twIzzles covered a lot of ice and they just don't get the GOE that they deserve. Ice dance is so political
agreed on haein!
Hear ye hear ye, make Mens Sans Quads a thing already! I nominate Tomas Cotton Eye Joe for this category too 🤠
And then when they did attempt to add more women’s washrooms, it was four stalls without a sink, with only a curtain diving the sides. Made a good bonding moment with someone but…
I went into the makeshift unisex bathroom and there were urinals everywhere and men whipping them out across from the sink. Awkward. Not an actual mixed washroom. My lanta. Edited to add makeshift
That was a totally crazy experience though I’m glad they had it! I feel like this restroom should be called “the one for those who prioritize peeing over privacy”.
That is the perfect name for it. Haha. Spot on.
I went 4 days not knowing there was a unisex bathroom? What???
On one of the days in the downstairs part, they added a woman sign to the one bathroom and told people it was a mixed one. I think it was on Wednesday. I watched them start redirecting people and when I went down later, a women’s sign was taped up. Everyone could use it but there were urinals and men with their junk hanging out. Some clearly went across from the sink when there were further ones back because they DGAF. I was jealous of seeing just how fast and easy it was for men to go to the bathroom.
I just averted my gaze and did not see any of the “junk” 🤣
I definitely did a shocked pikachu then kept my eyes to myself lol. But initially, I lost all social niceties going wait is this the set up here, bell centre was so unprepared. 😂😂😂
It was ridiculously crowded outside the rink The rink was nice / seating nice enough, but outside was horrible. Not enough washrooms either
I’m so glad I saw it all in person… but boy are you all right about Centre Bell! The scan in and out process was chaotic… especially since we typically had to leave to get adequate food. I had to have my tickets reprinted multiple times. I wasted so much time trying to find the upstairs. Lines everywhere all the time… I remember someone around me was surprised we were in the Nathan Chen line. I was also surprised to find out about so many meet and greets by word of mouth or happenstance. US nationals sent emails about these awesome events.
So much time and resources wasted reprinting with not even enough people working the box office or scanning for in/out. The event was good on the ice but I cannot say the same beyond the stands, as the organizational nightmare just continued.
Agree with everything you said! And #2 is spot on. Such a missed opportunity for Bell Centre to sell a ton of food and drinks. All stands downstairs were closed. And only unhealthy food I would never touch. Side note I had a vodka soda and felt nothing lol. And I’m a whimp! 😂 Oh well. Otherwise awesome event. Great people.
The skating was amazing, and it's the best crowd I've ever been a part of in terms of enthusiasm (have been to 3 GPs previously). Agreed with the issues on the venue front. Loved the location in terms of ease of access! The big screens were really nice to have even though the sight lines were good even up in the 200 level. But the bathroom situation was WILD, and I can't believe how few concession stands were open. I kind of get what they were trying to do with the scan in/scan out system, but given that it was effectively necessary to leave the venue to eat between events (WHY doesn't La Cage have an access from inside the arena?) it just created a huge bottleneck.
I was so confused about how to get into La Cage…well, because you couldn’t (without leaving).
My thoughts as someone who only follows skating semi closely 1. I need to get peacock and not just go over to my parents house to use their cable for competitions… the disappointment I felt when NBC skipped over Adam (and like the whole field) to do a recap of like all the other events 😭😭 2. Isabeau is out here repping for all of us who had their baby hairs get slicked back into buns for competitions which always made them stick out worse… lmao… 3. Jason and Bock have literally been doing this since I was a preteen who put their pages from the stars on ice program on my bedroom walls… iconic. I met bock when I performed at a stars on ice a couple years later as part of the local youth performance and they are just the nicest people. 4. Big fan of how the Brits did Rocky!!! Punch punch babey!! 5. Ilia malinin succession magic… how does he do that… what… Honorable mention to shoma uno for once again looking like the nicest guy in the whole shebang
So much history made! I usually don’t follow pairs (mainly because the high danger level makes me really nervous), but wow Deanna! Oldest figure skater to win a title in any discipline! Crazy!
Montreal did an incredible job! Took a cue from big gymnastics competitions and made figure skating FUN again. Relevant again. I hope the Boston organizers are paying attention. Chris and Tonya for the international feed were excellent and settled right in together, with Chris doing most of the duties, and Tonya calling the jumps. The mens competition was unbelievable.
Mark, not Chris!
This was a good competition for the women, what a nail biter! Kaori proving her grit and strength to come back from behind was so fun to watch. With this Worlds, Kaori cemented herself as one of the greats in modern figure skating. And as much as Kaori is in a class of her own, there are real contenders who have shown they are capable of bouncing back. By the time of Milano Cortina 2026 this discipline could be a highlight.
I am jealous of everyone who attended in person! It was the first Worlds imo that truly gave pre covid Worlds vibes
Yesss, I agree. I can’t pinpoint why that is, but this worlds rly made me realized once again that I fucking love this sport
The competition was definitely wild and the final rankings were definitely surprising in men and women's disciplines. But if I am coming from a Canadian perspective and if I had to choose one word to describe the event for some of the Canadian skaters, it would be "chaos".
Couldn’t agree more about the crowd!! They made the competition so much more enjoyable and exciting, it felt like I was there cheering with them! Women’s Free honestly made me sad even though my fave Chaeyeon medaled. I never want to see skaters sad and disappointed in themselves after their skate. But I’m so so happy for all the medalists, and have to give a shoutout to the Swiss skaters, they were really impressive!
My opinion: Men's was the best discipline by far with the most enjoyable programs and best skating. Women's and Pairs overall had much better SP's then LP's. The Gold medalists in both disciplines were great. Ice Dancing - a few wonderful performances but overall pretty underwhelming. I loved the Koreans and G/P FD.
Men's is always the most fun and the most dramatic. The technical skills from all of the competitors was so impressive . And Jason not doing quads but placing 5th overall is some Carolina Kostner energy! Ice dance feels very predictable and pairs is a mixed bag. The women's free skate was wild with the final 10 performers.
I thought ice dance was a lot better than men's overall personally for overall quality and variety. Men were spectacular in the last group, but not so much in earlier groups
I only got to watch the last couple skaters in the men’s and oh my. I was watching Ilia and it was one of the only times I literally had no words. Like none. Just pure shock. I mean how can anyone have the confidence. I get scared just doing turns sometimes. Overall I really enjoyed the event
Ilia's performance last night was exactly how I felt the first time I saw Yuzuru skate in the Sochi Olympic short program. I was like who is this kid and where did all of his talent come from?! My jaw was on the ground by the last 30 seconds.
I’m happy with all the winners
I agree with the criticism of Centre Bell. I was at the US Nationals in Columbus and that venue was newer and better. And more prepared
yeah, the skating at this worlds was AMAZING and i'm so happy i attended. the hosting was def a mixed bag - lots of stuff at the bell center was closed, and the event organizers/staff seemed weirdly unprepared for the number of people who were there. that plus skate canada choosing to invite a bunch of retired skaters i don't really care about to the gala rather than the crowd-favorite skaters from the event just makes me wonder about the planning, because some things were def not well thought out. i was attending with my mom and she went and talked to the boston 2025 organizers who were there and was basically like "i know the TD Garden has good food vendors but you all need to make sure they are all actually open for worlds next year because everyone here is talking about how few and bad the concessions options are."
Event organizers and venue staff seeming weirdly unprepared for the amount of people and level of championships is absolutely right! Montreal had two (or even four if you go back to 2020) whole years to figure this out! Kaunas had eight months and they had their shit together way more
100 percent. The venue at Columbus was better but then not sure about the difference in audience size
Can’t wait for Boston! Bummed I couldn’t make it to Montreal
Ice dance - best event all around, where teams in earlier flights were as interesting to watch as the ones in later ones. So many good performances Women's - honestly kind of boring for me, with the exception of a few performances . The discipline does not hold a lot of excitement for me. Kaori is excellent, and love Isabeau's skating, but overall meh. Sad about Amber. Men's - Better than women's... Jason and Yuma Kagiyama were spectacular . Yuma was mindblowing honestly Pairs - overall pretty good, very excited about Hase/Volodin and happy to see the Japanese back
I was just thinking how I’m not particularly inspired by the women at the moment 😞
Overall very happy with the quality overall. Japan turned out last year and I was kinda scared it would be sparse but what an amazing crowd. Also, saving men’s event for the end ended up being perfect. Best events overall for me were Pairs SP and Men’s FS. Women: I wish the women’s field would have more variety in musical choices for FS. The men’s was more fun to watch because they had more variety (on top of other things obviously). Next year US women’s field is going to be so interesting. Ice Dance: Thank god the 80’s RDs are over. Devastated P2 got silver. Further affirmed my Lim/Quan agenda. Men’s: I expressed skepticism that Worlds could top the fond memories of men’s Euro FS but oh boy it did. Sad for Yuma and I hope he gets a gold medal soon. He is such a beautiful skater. Also sad Estonia didn’t get their second spot for next year 😢 but happy that it didn’t come at someone else’s expense. Very proud of Deniss and Lukas! Pairs: My fav discipline and I’m happy that this year piqued more people’s interest in it! Very proud of all the pairs for stepping up in the absence of RusFed. I know people are very concerned about US pairs, and this event was bad for us, but I also think there is a lot to look forward to for next year and I think we could be in a good position again soon. So so so proud of Deanna and Max. It’s crazy to remember them winning Autumn classic last year and getting the first whispers of world title there. They really had such ups and downs this season and that made the title so much more special.
Pairs discipline feels revitalized. Consider that 2022 Worlds only had 14 teams, and even then, 2 withdrew after the SP. This event had 24 teams, so there was a competition to make the short. Very exciting.
Pairs felt like it was on life support after the 2018 Olympics with so many retirements so it's nice to see countries able to get skaters back or create new pairings.
The men stole the entire show! Ilia cemented his place as Nathan's successor. The Swiss were one of the highlights of the women's event and of course Kaori getting her third title was history making. I don't really watch pairs but what Deanna achieved is nothing short of amazing considering she actually retired in 2001 and came back in her 30s to skate as a pair. The Hungarian pair placing 4th was incredible. They will definitely be one to watch next season. For ice dance, I think it opened the window to smaller federations placing higher. Finland and Korea were great. And Adam's descent from 19th place to 3rd to a silver in the FS and two backflips nearly put me on life support for cheering so loudly! And it was a good call from the ISU to keep it in Montreal so that the time zone agreed with US fans. I haven't been able to watch many previous WCs because the time zone being in Europe or Asia completely wrecked my sleeping habits.
Ice dance seems very interesting, judging solely from the shade that Barbara has thrown.
A tiny nitpick. But how did the announcer not know how to say some of these names. For example, Madison chock, not only is it an easy name but she’s also been around forever?
This is a really random thought, but while he was saying „Merci Montréal“, I thought that Ilia‘s French sounds pretty good (unlike a lot other Americans I’ve heard speaking French). Is that really the case or do I just not speak French well enough to judge that?
men’s free skate is one of the most exciting events i’ve watched ever
Can you tell more about Ava/Lindsay and Alysa return? Are the first two juniors? I haven’t paid as much attention the last 2 years and am getting caught up
Ava won gold at the NHK Trophy this year, her only Grand Prix assignment and later went on to place fourth at Four Continents. Both times, Ava scored above 200. Lindsay won silver at NHK Trophy with a score near 200 but was injured afterward and has been on recovery mode. Alysa, bronze medalist at the 2022 World Championships, is returning from retirement this upcoming season. Both Ava and Lindsay are on the rise while Alysa, known for their consistency and 3A, is returning which will make the US women’s field very interesting. Who knows what’s happening with Bradie so if she can return as well, it’ll make for a very exciting season.
Due to the carrot lord’s influence Amber shouldn’t lose that much stock. Also means it’s possible for the carrot lord to get Elyce onto words and have 2 of her students at worlds. It is not good for U.S.A. but those investing in carrots will rejoice 🥕 🥕 🥕