This week we saw our first JGP not only with all 4 disciplines, but also with the return of team Russia. In this first episode we break down the men and the dance and discuss why some of our favourite skaters wind up setting the bar very high for themselves, some really innovative but risky choreographic choices, how important it is to make the right music choices as a junior team, and why reading the handbook through can be the difference between a win and a silver medal.

We're back in Courchevel for week two of the JGP and have even more to say about how travel restrictions are impacting skaters and competitions, which teams have the best Blues free leg positioning, why quads might be inadvisable to try in August at altitude, and when a combination spin is no longer a combination spin.

The Olympic season has officially begun! We start off the season with a slightly smaller than normal JGP, and discuss why certain countries were missing here, why early season events at altitude can be a difficult watch, the importance of facial engagement with a performance, random voice-overs, copied choreography, Blues pattern free-leg positioning, and much more as we return to recapping events in what will hopefully be a more normal figure skating season.

We're back this week to talk about some Canadian junior dance (and some other disciplines too)! Skate Canada held a simulation this last week for junior skaters and we're excited to be back watching and discussing skating. We discuss technical difficulties in virtual competition being even more unfair than regular technical difficulties, why the men's event is currently less competitive than junior dance, why we wish dance teams weren't allowed to have a break between their two patterns of the Blues, and a choreographic sliding move that is kind of terrifying and we'd like to see abandoned.

The ISU just dropped a whole bunch of important documents, so we are here to discuss new rules, Grand Prix assignments, and some of the other stuff that has been going on in the skating world in the last little while! We discuss how much we wish that an ISU Congress had been able to happen this year or last, whether the Grand Prix (or the rest of the regular fall season) will be able to go on as normal, and question what is going on with some skaters missing from the Grand Prix lists and what certain federations were thinking when they created the Ice Dance assignment list.

This off season, we've got something special planned for our Patreon subscribers, and you won't want to miss it!

We teased our new upcoming series of episodes on Patreon this weekend, but wanted to share what we're going to be doing this off season with all of our listeners. Listen in to our preview here, and you can catch the full series on our Patreon at patreon.com/flutzescast !

The men and dance teams at world Team Trophy didn't perform quite as well for the most part as they did at Worlds, but we find tons to discuss, including speculation on who might skate a disco rhythm dance next season, who might be in the fight for Canada's Olympic spots, and which French skaters are delivering the weird programs we always hope for from team France. Plus, since this is the last competition of the season, we talk a bit about what we'll be doing on the podcast this off season!

The last event of the season in complete, and in this first part of our World Team Trophy recap we discuss some pretty consistent pairs programs, some wild PCS variance between Worlds and this event for similarly skated programs, and why this was probably not the best time for a last minute program change. Plus, we talk a bit about the issues with holding this event so close to Worlds, with an audience, and with little enforcement of the ISU's own COVID guidelines.

We've discussed all the skating that happened at the World Championships, but we had a lot of concerns about how this event was run in the middle of a global pandemic that we felt needed to be addressed. We discuss the safety and effectiveness of the Worlds "bubble" and our concerns about negative ramifications we haven't even seen yet, and also discuss why the upcoming World Team Trophy is such a bad idea, and why the ISU needs to sort out the current confusion about which countries exactly have qualified their Olympic spots at Worlds versus Nebelhorn.

We wrap up the skating from Worlds with the men, who skated surprisingly better than we had expected! We discuss the dramatic showdown for gold that we were disappointed didn't quite happen, our sadness over China having only one spot qualified at a home Olympics, and why our favourite jump of the whole event might not be the same as everyone else's, and which was sorely underappreciated by the judges.