Scoreography

Oh boy, we've been gone for awhile! But the new season has started and, like the Russians, we have returned! Kinoshita Cup gave us the first look at this new season, and we're gonna talk about it and some other figure skating news we've missed.
Chapters
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:55 Skating News Catch-Up
00:13:13 Kinoshita Cup 2026 Recap
00:14:01 Women's Event
00:27:53 Men's Competition
00:37:03 Pairs Competition
00:43:56 Ice Dance Competition
00:52:11 Some Other News and Wrap-Up
A new skating season (and quadrennial) is here, and we are back and ready. This summer has seen lots of off ice news including Amber Glenn joining Dancing With the Stars to Alysa Liu taking a break from competition. We'll definitely be following their journeys, but today we're talking Kinoshita Cup.
The second event in the Challenger series, this event was especially significant as the first senior international event that saw neutral Russian athletes in four years.
In the women's event, Mao Shimada put on an incredible show in her first senior international. She was second in the short, just behind a brilliant Ami Nakai. In the free skate, however, Mao pulled away with a breathtaking skate that included her triple axel, quad toe loop, and the best spins we saw in the competition. 
In second place, after missing a full Olympic cycle, Alexandra Ignatova (Trusova) made her highly anticipated return. Her short program was refreshing and evolved, while her free skate was an absolute clinic of technical difficulty. Rounding out the top three with a strong overall showing was Anna Frolova of Russia.

We were away for awhile, and a TON of off season skating news dropped. We catch-up on retirement announcement, exciting new ice dance and pairs teams, the return of the Russians, and more.
Chapters
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:42 Ilia Malinin's... Announcement?
00:05:11 Retirement Announcements
00:12:17 Riku and Ryuchi's Destiny Tour
00:14:12 Alysa Liu wins an ESPY award
00:16:15 New Ice Dance pairings
00:29:16 New Pairs teams
00:37:16 Return of the Russians
00:47:53 First International Events of the Season!
00:55:41 Next up: our annual Q&A episode
00:56:43 Wrap-Up

Marin Honda and Shoma Uno have officially announced that they are returning from retirement — to compete in Ice Dance for Japan. We dig into this exciting news, plus round up what else has happened in this wild off season:
Italy's Team Bronze pairs team Conti and Macii have officially split, as have the promising Australian pair Golubeva and Giotopoulos Moore.
Starr Andrews has officially teamed up with Danill Parkman to compete for the USA in pairs, while Fiona Bombardier and Loucas Etheir have joined forces in Canada.
Other retirements and team-ups have been announced, all while the competition plans for some of the US and Canada's biggest names remains in question.
Chapters
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:33 Marin Honda and Soma Uno Ice Dancers
00:12:07 Conti and Macii Split
00:14:12 Golubeva and Giotopoulos Moore Split
00:15:44 Vladimir Litvintsev Retires
00:16:52 Starr Andrews and Danill Parkman Pairs Partnership
00:20:31 Fiona Bombardier and Loucas Etheir Pairs Team
00:22:01 Milania Kristina Vaananen and Fillipo Ambrosini Pairs Team
00:23:02 What will Team USA and Team Canada look like this season?
00:28:46 Free Agent Skaters Dropping Hints
00:29:34 Wrap-Up and Continued Call for Q&A Submissions

The Stars On Ice 2026 Tour is in full swing, and we were fortunate enough to get ice-side seats at the St. Louis show. We give you a full breakdown and reaction to this (spoiler: FANTASTIC) show. Plus some skating news, including the announced split of Canadian ice dance team Lajoie and Lagha.
Chapters
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:46 Skating News
00:08:26 Stars on Ice Reaction
00:12:12 The Stargazer Experience
00:15:19 Andrew Torgashev
00:16:18 Isabeau Levito
00:16:59 Carreira and Ponomarenko
00:17:46 Zingas and Kolesnik
00:19:38 Jason Brown
00:22:32 Chock and Bates
00:23:53 Kam and O'Shea
00:25:10 Ilia Malinin
00:27:50 Amber Glenn
00:31:16 Alysa Liu
00:33:57 Final thoughts about SOI 2026
00:39:23 Wrap-Up

After a week away, we catch-up on a ton of figure skating news, including dance and pairs team splits, retirements, and other surprises. We also recount our trip to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. And Adron talks about learning his oldest sister was also a big figure skating fan, just days before her untimely passing last week.
Chapters
00:00:00 Intro, the passing of Adron's sister (and connection to skating)
00:08:36 Our Denver Twice Trip
00:11:36 Skating News: Team Splits
00:25:02 Skating News: Retirements and Gap Years
00:32:29 Skating News: Misc
00:41:29 Our Colorado Springs visit
00:55:12 Call for Q&A Episode Questions
00:56:22 Wrap-Up
We're back with some offseason news after a short break. There's A LOT happening in figure skating for late April!
This month has been a roller coaster for us personally. Adron lost his oldest sister suddenly, which has been difficult for many reasons. We discuss this and how it actually connects to figure skating in the first 8 minutes of this week's episode. We know this type of discussion is challenging for some, so if you prefer to go right to the skating news, the chapter breaks can skip you ahead.
In terms of skating, the rumor mill has been going strong after video was shared by Marin Honda from Japan of her and Shoma Uno training at I.AM. The two have been doing ice dance routines in Shoma's tour, Ice Brave, and their time at I.AM. may be a continuation of that. Or, as we and many others are trying not to get too excited about, it could mean a possible return to competition. They have confirmed nothing, so let's keep it chill for now (with our fingers crossed).
When it comes to factual news, we talk through the splits of both Korea's Hannah Lim and Ye Quan, as well as Olivia Flores and Luke Wang from the USA. 
We also get into our feelings over the un-surprising retirement of Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuchi Kihara. Following their victory at the Olympics, it was very much expected that they would hang up their competitive skates, but this one hurts. Others who have announced they are retiring are Ioulia Chtchetinina of Poland and Josefin Taljegard of Sweden. 
Not retiring but taking a break for a season is Japan's Yuma Kagiyama. His absence will be a significant loss for the men's field, but may open opportunities for other Japanese men like Kazuki Tomono — or Rio Nakata, who will be moving up to the Senior ranks next season.
There are many other tidbits — like Alysa Liu's music video debut and Johnny and Tara hosting The Kelly Clarkson Show — which all makes for a very active month without competition. There's also discussion of our recent trip to Colorado Springs — the home of the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center for the U.S.. — which was admittedly not as exciting as we'd hoped for.