Steve Milton: Nexxice wins senior and junior Canadian synchronized skating championships

Nothing unlucky about this: on Friday the 13th they won their 13th Canadian championship.

Nexxice, the standard-setting synchronized skating team training out of Burlington and Hamilton, triumphed over its two talented Quebec-based rivals for the national title on Friday night.

It was Nexxice's first Canadian crown since 2018, but they had rung up an unbroken streak of Canadian titles from 2007 to 2015 and since 2006 have never finished lower than second. They've also won worlds twice.

The victory over runner-up Nova and third-place Les Supremes, who won the world title in Hamilton last spring with Nexxice fourth, completed a superb week for Nexxice as the junior team had climbed atop the podium Thursday night with its ninth Canadian championship, but first since 2018.

We're all pretty excited about winning both," said head coach Shelley Simonton Barnett, who is aided by innovative choreographer Anne Schelter.

It was the first time the top levels of precision skating were incorporated into the Canadian National Skating Championships, joining pairs, dance, and men's and women's singles. Skating officials called it a resounding success and cited the raucous, high-pitched energy synchronized teams and their fans bring to the arena.

But the new concept radically altered the synchro training and competition calendar. Formerly, its nationals have been held five weeks later than they were this year, and top teams would skate in international competitions before nationals, not after them like they will do this season and for the foreseeable future.

Right at this moment, I think it's a very positive effect," Nexxice junior coach Trish Perdue-Mills said immediately after Thursday's victory. But at the beginning of the season it seemed a bit daunting after years of a certain schedule and then having to change it all. But we said that's the way it's going to be and started much earlier and worked harder through the summer."

The timing change was reflected in skating that wasn't quite as crisp as synchro supporters have come to expect. All three of the country's elite seniors made mistakes, but one group of four Nexxice skaters importantly prevented major deductions by somehow keeping their feet during a faulty late lift, which could easily have pitched all of them to the ice.

Staying up was a testament to our training," said Nexxice co-captain Emma Daigle, who's from Alberta but lives in Hamilton. We'll fight for it."

Oakville's Tegan Orr, the other co-captain, said winning her first national championship is really special. I've been watching Nexxice seniors since I was a little girl and having this happen for me and this group together is like a dream come true."

Three skaters who train at Hamilton Skating Club under Bryce Davison were also at Nationals. Katherine Karon, who commutes to the club from Windsor, finished 14th in senior women, while Manitoba's Breken Brezden, 16, was seventh in junior women, and Hamilton's Abbie Baltzer, just 14, was ninth in junior women.

Calie Williams, co-captain of Nexxice juniors, said the senior team is an inspiration to those skaters moving up behind them.

And it isn't just the skaters now, there's a huge alumni who came before us, and we want to honour them too," Williams said. They've built what we get to do today."

And, like Skate Canada officials, the athletes themselves feel that including synchro with the sport's other branches is an important move and shows skaters in other disciplines that synchronized skaters are as committed and creative as they are.

I think it's so cool to use what we see on the ice from other people and then incorporate it into our own skating and make our own discipline even better," said Nexxice junior co-captain Elaine Chan.

The juniors travel to Poland for an international event in early February and will compete in Milan later that month.

The Nexxice seniors leave for a competition in Austria this week and will return to Europe for the February event in Milan. Two Canadian teams will be named for the world championships in Lake Placid in late March based on performances at nationals and international events.

Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com