JockCartier

Thru half the Grand Prix season, we're probably about where we were expecting Ice Dance: Gilles/Poirier won Skate Canada as expected. One of the few top teams to stay on their feet for their full skates. Lajoie/Lagha finished second, had a fall for weren't as close as we would have likes. Probably a safe bet we'll see both at the Grand Prix final. I'd kinda like to see Lajoie/Lagha get a big push, but this discipline unfortunately seems more about waiting their turn... imagine we'll see a bunch of retirements after Milan. Pairs: Stellato-Dudek/Deschamps had a rough long program but won easily. Also surely will be at the GP final. Pereira/Michaud had a nightmare of a skate at theirs. They still might be able to sneak into the final if they do well at their second event, pairs is wide open Women: Schizas has two very good skates and almost snuck onto the podium at Skate Canada. Her ceiling is probably a top 8-10, and maybe qualifying Canada an extra spot (or opportunity for a spot). Ruiter had a rough outting. Men: The less said the better. We may not even qualify a man for 2026, and may have to rely on a pity spot for the team event. 2026 Medal Outlook: - Best chance is probably pairs. Stellato-Dudek are reigning World Champs, and while unpredictable the field isn't terrible deep (if they let the Russians back in, that will make it a lot tougher) - Ice Dance is a bit of a coin flip. Politics still overwhelms the event even with the Russians out, and Gilles/Poirier seem to be able to get early season results, but not treated as well come Worlds and Olympics. Lajoie/Lagha will hopefully be nipping at their heels now. - Women's/Men's - No chance of a medal, hell, the men might not even qualify the skater - Team - Assuming the Russians stay banned, bronze will be battled between Italy and Canada. Probably gonna get some home cooking, so I'd give the edge to Italy... but ultimately it will come down to avoiding a meltdown in the men's and women's short programs. Italy has stronger men, but inconsistent... and same goes for the Canadian women. If we can get strong short programs from our singles skaters, that could get us on the podium

Brunelle blasted the field on the penultimate leg of the relay Saturday, it was surprising. Other than Boutin it's a young team, but surprisingly deep. They aren't favourites in individual races, but they contend regularly, it's not surprising to see them get into semi's and finals anymore Nice change from the '98 thru '14 cycles when we might have one strong women, and everyone else just kinda hung on for dear life

Probably a bit too late this time around. ISU didn't officially pull the plug until Oct 25th, and they were still pushing tickets three weeks ago, so it probably was a last minute decision. Weird they didn't have an old set of padded board, but whatever. I guess it's easy in Montreal as they're prime tenant in that arena and it doesn't get used for much else

The short track program has sure became a machine over the last decade. Incredible depth. Especially nice seeing so many good skaters on the women's side after a couple decades of being so far behind the likes of China and Korea. Which is good, cause now there are a lot of countries that are producing really good skaters now

It was quite the ending to that race, the Korean infield skater fell and took out their active skater, then the Canadians the Dutch had their incident on the next turn

Watched a couple skimo world cups on Youtube. It's interesting. I prefer the longer course races, but don't imagine we'll be getting that at the Olympics. Guess we'll see how it goes. It's something different anyway.

The ISU is really trying to push these apparent team names for the countries... extremely cringy

Will be strange watching the World Cup without the Gow's. They were kinda the last echo of the Vancouver 2010 funding boom. It's too bad, by 2014 and 2015 the program was really solid and if we had kept even moderate funding could have been a top 5-8 nation. Sadly, the money was long gone by then, and those athletes started peeling off and we've faded back to being minnows

Don't follow the junior ranks much, but at the Olympics trials there were a couple U20 women sprinters, Jorai Oppong-Nketiah and Alexia Jones, that look to have a lot of potential

Can't argue McIntosh and Katzberg I was thinking they might go with Katzberg and Rogers and save McIntosh for LA28 opening ceremony. With Swimming moving to week 2 for that one, there wouldn't be any scheduling conflicts, and seeing she already went home.

What really impressed me was not just the total medals, but the breadth. We won medals in fencing, pole vault, boxing, hammer... stuff we never done before, or haven't done in forever. And even in a wide variety of stuff that we've had occasional successes in. And the nice thing is there is still room for improvement. Looking forward to LA28!

You're awful sure about a lot of things that have turned out to be wrong I have too. The important thing is remembering that happens

Sanford is baked in. Katzberg, Rogers and Mitton are good bets in athletics. Breaking and Vincent/Mackenzie in C2 as well. So that's at least six highly likelies. Then we have a lot of toss ups too. 3x3, men's basketball, C1, Arop, 4x100, a couple events in track cycling, etc... and a whole mess of minor threats. If the toss ups convert around 50% and one or two of the minor threats pay off, we're there. There will be disappointments too of course, but it tends to average out.

I said 27-28 It's more an indication that our conversion rate in the first half was probably at the high end... it tends to level out over time, so the second half may not be as kind That's also assuming my projections are accurate, and not just an exercise in my willingness to be wrong publicly