by Matteo Morelli

The 2026 Canadian National Skating Championships will take place in Gatineau, Quebec, from January 5 to 11.

Fifteen senior and fifteen junior ice dance teams will take the ice at the Slush Puppie Centre. The results will be particularly important to select the teams heading to the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympic Games, the World Championships, the Four Continents Championships, and the World Junior Championships.

Senior Preview

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier will enter their thirteenth Canadian Championships. They have won the last four consecutive events and have also collected five silver medals and two bronze medals so far. Their goal is to qualify for a third Winter Olympic Games, where they will present their reimagined Vincent free dance. So far this season, they have won Skate Canada International and earned a silver medal at Finlandia Trophy, qualifying for the Grand Prix Final, where they finished in fourth place.

Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha are also aiming to return to the Winter Olympic Games. This season, they have won Budapest Trophy and earned silver at Skate America and bronze at Skate Canada International, narrowly missing the qualification for the Grand Prix Final. This will be their fifth Canadian Nationals: so far, they have always finished on the podium, collecting three silver medals and one bronze.

Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac will also head into their fifth Canadian Nationals, where they have already earned a silver and a bronze medal. This season, they have won the Kinoshita Group Cup and Skate Canada Challenge, and competed at Grand Prix de France and Skate Canada International.

It will also be a fifth Canadian Nationals for Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer, who have so far earned two bronze medals from it. They also enjoyed two Grand Prix assignment this season: Skate America and NHK Trophy.

The field includes two teams who medalled at last year’s Junior Canadian champions: Chloe Nguyen and Brendan Giang, who won gold, and Sandrine Gauthier and Quentin Thieren, who won silver.

Nadiia Bashynska and Noé Perron, as well as Amanda Urban and Peter Beaumont, will both compete at their first senior nationals as new teams. Bashynska and Beaumont were the 2023 Junior Canadian champions; they ended their partnership last year to form new teams with their current partners.

Junior Preview

Top contenders in the junior field include:

Layla Veillon and Alexander Brandys: they won the Junior Grand Prix in Latvia and won silver at the one in Poland. They qualified to the JGPF, ending in fifth place. They were the junior Canadian champions in 2024 and were last year’s bronze medallists.
Charlie Anderson and Cayden Dawson: they won silver at the Junior Grand Prix of Turkey and Thailand.
Summer Homick and Nicholas Buelow: they won bronze at the Junior Grand Prix of Italy and Azerbaijan.

Event info: The junior rhythm dance kicks off on Tuesday, January 6, from 2:50pm (EST), whilst the junior free dance is taking place on Wednesday, January 7, from 3:05pm (EST).

The senior rhythm dance kicks off on Saturday, January 10, from 11am (EST), whilst the free dance is taking place on Sunday, January 11, from 3pm (EST).