By Hiro Yoshida
Carolane Soucisse and Shane Firus surprised the skating world last May when their names appeared on the entry list for the 2023 Irish National Figure Skating Championships. Their whirlwind first season culminates this week with the ice dancers representing Ireland at the World Championships in Montreal, Canada.
Soucisse and Firus had previously won silver at the Four Continents Championships back in 2018 and represented Canada at Worlds later that same year. However, the past few seasons had seen their results stagnate domestically in a highly competitive Canadian ice dance field. They had already been pondering exploring other avenues on the prompting of their coaching team, but a fourth-place finish at 2023 Canadian Nationals provided the impetus to take concrete action.
“After the 2022 season, Carol (Lane) put that bug in our ears to maybe look at other options and see if there was a possibility,” Firus said. “We slowly started looking at things.”
“From her perspective, we are always happy skaters,” Soucisse continued. “We’re quite easy going and training is usually fun for us and we enjoy it but I think she saw that we were maybe struggling to find motivation. When she first brought it up, we didn’t think it would be an option for us, so we didn’t necessarily investigate at that point in time. Then we did 2023 Canadian Nationals. We did our two best programmes of the year there and we still had poor scores, and teams that were usually well behind us were starting to almost be ahead of us.”
“We had the same score if not lower than we did internationally,” Firus said. “That’s when we really started investigating and pursued changing.”
The International Skating Union regulation dealing with switches of allegiance by skaters between ISU members is Rule 109. Skaters require citizenship or full-time residence of at least one year of the country they represent, although in the case of pairs and ice dance this is a requirement for only one partner. They also need permission from their former ISU member federation which the rule states “shall not unreasonably be denied.” Skaters cannot compete for twelve months after the last international competition for the previous country they represented. The final competition that Soucisse and Firus participated at for Skate Canada was the Grand Prix of Espoo in Finland that ended on 27 November 2022. Under ordinary circumstances, this would mean that, if Soucisse and Firus fulfilled all the criteria set out in ISU Rule 109, they would be eligible to represent Ireland at the end of November 2023. They got in touch with the Ice Skating Association of Ireland to get the ball rolling.
“After Canadian Nationals, we contacted the ISAI as an enquiry about possibly representing Ireland and what would that look like if possible at all,” Firus said. “It went from there. They were receptive to us coming in as long as that was what we fully intended.”
“That we were committed which we totally understand,” Soucisse added. “It’s not an easy process, so everybody needs to be one hundred percent which we were. But I do understand that from their perspective that they didn’t know us and must have wondered if we were serious about this. It’s a lot of work.”
“We didn’t want to waste anyone’s time too,” Firus said. “From there, we thought the release would be easier and then it turned into being less easy.”
Skate Canada initially refused to release Soucisse and Firus who appealed the decision through the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada, an organisation which mediates and arbitrates on sport related matters.
“Unfortunately, it turned into legal proceedings,” Soucisse said. “I think there was some confusion on both sides. Nothing is just black or white. It was a complex process that we both had to go through. I don’t think it had happened that often for Canada to have to release skaters and especially not athletes of our level that had competed at ISU Championships and Grand Prix events.”
“We were looking back and I guess the last ones who had done championships that changed would have been the Duchesnays,” Firus said.
The couple were left in limbo until in June when the arbitrator handling the case ruled in their favour.
“Serendipitously when we were heading to Irish nationals, the day we landed, we got the decision rendered, so that was fantastic,” Firus said. “It was great timing and we were able to compete at Irish Nationals totally free.”
Following Irish Nationals, Soucisse and Firus spent some time in different parts of Ireland, including the town where Firus has family connections in County Wexford.
“My mom’s mother Dorothy Sullivan was born in Gorey,” he explained. “She had thirteen siblings all living in a little house. She was born and raised there. Everyone emigrated out of Ireland and then she met someone in the army. They went to England, then they moved to California and then they went to Canada. I guess I was almost American.”
“When we were in Ireland for Nationals, we took the time to go around a bit, visit, and it doesn’t feel that different from what we’ve known,” Soucisse said. “Obviously, it’s a different culture, but there’s so many similarities and we noticed there’s such a big Irish community in Canada. Dingle was my favourite place. We did some surfing lessons which were great. We thought the water was going to be freezing and it wasn’t. The experience was amazing.”
“And there was a great pub in Dingle called Dick Mack’s,” Firus said. “You could just go in and everyone was so friendly.”
After being selected for the 2023/2024 Irish national team, Soucisse and Firus embarked on their journey of representing Ireland, although they still had to sit out a few more months before being able to compete internationally. It was somewhat of an adventure into uncharted waters going from a large federation to a much smaller one.
“It was slightly scary at first, just to think what it was going to look like for us,” Soucisse said. “It’s the unknown. I’ve always been more scared of the unknown than Shane. Shane just rolls with it.”
“I like the unknown and chaos,” Firus laughed. “That’s kind of what I enjoy.”
As they counted down the clock until their return to competition, Soucisse and Firus worked on their programmes for the season. They chose a selection of songs by Rick James for the 1980s themed rhythm dance and “Hier Encore” by Charles Aznavour and instrument version of his song “La Bohème” for their free dance. The latter choice was a revival and reworking of their free routine from the 2021-2022 season.
“We knew it was going to be kind of a start over season,” Soucisse said. “We also knew that this program worked well for us and it’s a good style that we’re comfortable with. We also obviously made a lot of changes to it. We tweaked it a lot. We changed the costumes and we revamped the programme. Also considering that we were going to have technically half a season, I think we just wanted to spend more time on the rhythm dance as we knew that was going to be the cut for Europeans and Worlds. We really wanted to focus on that and then for the free just have an easier training journey. Those were some of the reasons why we decided to stay with that.”
“We really liked that programme from that season,” Firus said. “With Irish Nationals in June, we had the choice of doing the programme we competed the season prior and we didn’t want to do that. We took the programme from 2022 and made some tweaks for Irish Nationals to give it a little rebranding. After that, we came back and really gave it more of a facelift. We’re quite happy with where it is now.”
“We actually got a lot of comments about people remembering the programme and being happy to see it again,” Soucisse said. “That was nice because sometimes taking your programme again you’re thinking are people going to remember it and say it’s old news. It seems like it’s been well received.”
Soucisse and Firus finally got back to international competition last December. Their first event representing Ireland was the Bosphorus Cup in Istanbul, Türkiye. Soucisse fell on a twizzle sequence in the rhythm dance placing them 14th in the segment. They recovered somewhat in the free dance and moved up to 8th place overall. The following week they travelled to Croatia for the Golden Spin of Zagreb. They had issues again in the rhythm dance with their twizzles and also with the level of their pattern dance type step sequence. Their scores in the free dance were muted and they finished the competition in 12th place. With the European Championships just a few short weeks away, it was back to the drawing board.
“It was mostly the RD where we struggled, so that’s where we really focused after those events,” Firus said. “When we came back, we talked with our coaches. We wanted to change specifically the twizzles and the PSt because the levels were a little low at Bosphorus, but then a base at Zagreb. We scrapped the whole thing and redid it to highlight the turns more. We wanted to make everything a bit more evident in that element, just so at least if they wanted to go lower, the lowest they could go is a one as opposed to a base.”
“There’s actually a big difference in points,” Soucisse said. “I think with the twizzles it was mainly mental. For the two competitions, but especially Bosphorus, I didn’t know that I was going to have that much pressure or put that much pressure on myself. Everything was new. It was the first time skating for Ireland. We didn’t have a coach there. It was a lot to juggle with and I didn’t think that it was going to affect me that much, but I guess it did. That was a good wake up call for me.”
“It was definitely good that we did those two events before coming to Europeans,” Firus said.
“We’re glad we did it,” Soucisse said. “It served us well in a way because it really helped us in the preparation for Euros.”
In January in Kaunas, Lithuania, Soucisse and Firus became the first ice dancers to represent Ireland at the European Championships. With their first two competitions not having gone according to plan, they were keen to put their best feet forward. They placed 12th in the rhythm dance and comfortably advanced to the free dance.
“I think before Euros I was a little bit more nervous, but I was still very excited because it’s Europeans,” Soucisse said. “It was our first time and I was obviously coming in here a bit more cautious, but in a good way. I think I was focused. I would say once I stepped on the ice and the programme started, I was in the zone and doing my thing.”
In the free, Soucisse and Firus rounded out their debut Europeans with another solid performance. Overall, the duo was satisfied with their skates in front of a packed Zalgirio Arena and 13th place in the final standings.
“Our free dance is a bit more subtle, a bit softer, but I really felt like I was able to be present,” Soucisse said. “Sometimes you have performances where you kind of get lost a little bit. Especially when the crowd is that big, you can get distracted quite easily. I thought we did a really good job of just staying present, doing one thing at a time. We didn’t go overboard. We didn’t undersell it.”
“It was very comparable to what we do in practice and I would say a little bit better performance wise which is what we want,” Firus said. “You want to have that same baseline as practice and then, if you’re in the right zone, feed off the energy the whole skate, let it grow, let it breathe as it goes through.”
“I guess we’re going to have to see over the years, but Euros felt so warm and so inclusive,” Soucisse said. “It was quite emotional. Maybe not for Shane, he never cries. But for me. When we went into the stadium for the free dance, I was mind blown. Mind blown. How lucky are we to get to experience this the one year when Europeans is massive.”
While the doors to European and World Championships have been unlocked for Soucisse and Firus, the path to competing at the Olympic Games remains unclear with only Firus having Irish citizenship. However, the team are for the moment concentrating on the increased possibilities that they have. Competing at the European and World level will they hope bring the sport a higher profile back in Ireland than it currently has.
“It wasn’t our focus when we switched,” Firus said about competing at the Olympics. “It was really just to experience more of what skating has to offer. Before it was very stagnant and we were almost repeating the same season every year. The possibility of doing different events, such as Euros or Worlds, really was the focus and the goal.”
“We really want to just represent the country, make our own place in the figure skating world and make a place for Ireland too,” Soucisse said. “Already it feels like we’re giving hope to other people that it’s possible to do these things. One of our goals to inspire and bring more exposure to the sport in Ireland and to see there’s more room for Irish skaters. They need the facilities, and they need the place where they can actually make it to these levels.”
On 29 February, Soucisse and Firus sealed their on ice and off ice partnership by getting legally married. They will have a larger wedding celebration in May in Mexico. Firus surprised Soucisse with a proposal during their visit to Ireland last summer.
“While we were on our road trip in Ireland, we did it at the Cliffs of Moher,” Firus said.
“I’m really scared of heights,” Soucisse said.” It was super windy and it’s right on the cliff. He kept wanting to keep going further past where the barriers were. I didn’t want to go close, but he kept saying that there were too many people there. Shane has never been a person that goes away from crowds, so that was kind of weird.”
“At the Cliffs of Moher, they’ve made a really tourist zone where you almost feel like a sheep in a pen in these trenches,” Firus said. “Once you get out of that, it’s what you’ve seen in pictures where it opens up and you can go closer to the edge. You don’t have these giant barriers.”
“We picked February 29th because it’s a leap year this year and we heard it’s really good luck,” Soucisse said. “We know in Ireland it’s a thing. Everywhere I guess in the world it’s kind of lucky.”
“It’ll be easier to remember too,” Firus added.
“We’re going to have our wedding anniversary every year and then one every four years,” Soucisse said.
Their next engagement will be this week’s World Championships in Montreal. Soucisse and Firus were called up to represent Canada at the Worlds scheduled to be held in Montreal in March 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic shut that event down. Four years later their circumstances have changed and they see the competition as a stepping stone to push on up for next season.
“I think our goals will be very similar to what we did at Europeans,” Firus said. “Two good skates and make the free. If we want to put a placement on it, we want to be pushing as close to top 15 or higher and get our foot back in the game and really start to work our way up.”
“I think we have the material this year,” Soucisse said. “I think we have good programmes and if we’re able to put it out there how we want then why not? We were there before at Worlds, so I don’t see why not. I think we are even better now than we were.”
Beyond the World Championships and their nuptials, Soucisse and Firus will wrap up their season with Irish Nationals in June. They are eagerly anticipating having a full competition season in 2024-2025 and have already commenced preparations.
“Our plan is to choose our theme for next year’s free dance before Worlds this year,” Soucisse said. “We want to get that started and potentially skate a new free dance for Nationals, so that at least we have one programme that’s ready. With Nationals being in June and our season starting soon after, we’re going have to get going. If we have the free dance done for Nationals, we only have a new rhythm dance to do which makes more sense.”
“We’re definitely looking forward to next season to have a whole season,” Firus said.
“Hopefully, we can get on to the Grand Prix circuit,” Soucisse said.
“That would definitely be one of our goals for next year,” Firus said. “We don’t have that much control over that, but what we can do is perform well at Worlds.”
“I think if we perform well at Worlds, we will give ourselves the best shot to get back on that circuit,” Soucisse said. “We definitely have a shot.”
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