Ice Wars: Revenge of the Shib

And May the Fourth Be With You

I planned to do an April Endorsements edition today, but then the Shibutanis, alias ShibSibs, announced a comeback. SWERVE. Endorsements will have to wait.

Some of you saw that announcement and immediately did the math in your head and came up with this reaction:

And some of you have no idea why this is juicy. I GOT YOU.

But first, a disclaimer: A lot of this saga took place during my figure skating dark years. From around 2000-2014, I wasn’t paying much attention to skating. I guess Michelle Kwan broke my heart and I needed to get over it. I caught glimpses here and there, but I was largely tuned out until the Tessa/Scott vs Meryl/Charlie rivalry brought me back for the 2014 Olympics. And even then, I wasn’t very online about my skating interest until a few years later. I’m piecing together a lot of the Shibs story from bits and pieces I’ve gathered from various social media threads. I’m sure there are some of you here with insider knowledge or richer details— feel free to correct me or fill in the blanks in the comments.

ACT I: A New Hope

It all starts a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away: 2011 in Canton, Michigan. Russian ex-pats Marina Zoueva and Igor Shpilband are coaching together at the Arctic Figure Skating Club, and they’re crushing it. They’re sweeping podiums with Tessa/Scott, Meryl/Charlie, and the ShibSibs, In fact, the Shibs manage an historic World bronze medal during their first senior season. They’re only 16 and 19, and the future is BRIGHT.

But then! In the off season, Madison Chock and Evan Bates team up. They’ve been in the same Canton camp, but they skated with other partners. Evan Bates sat out the 2010-2011 after his partner SEVERED HIS ACHILLES TENDON when coming down from a lift. There’s a rumor that Igor some how used this extended break to help orchestrate partner splits and the subsequent Chock/Bates pairing. In fact, there’s a rumor Igor favors this partnership over all others and is giving them more attention.

And maybe this is true? Because at 2012 Worlds, Tessa/Scott and Meryl/Charlie are still at the top, but the Shibs have some how fallen to 8th place. Chock/Bates aren’t there at all, but it’s their first season together, and they' managed 5th at US Nationals, so they’re on the right track.

And this is when the Canton Dream Team bitterly divorces, allegedly because they disagree about to run their program— Igor and Marina part ways, and Igor is fired from the rink and takes his business to Novi, MI. The kids have to pick a parent. Everyone except Chock/Bates pick Marina. There is a RUMOR that the Shibs were instrumental in getting Igor fired, but I have zero detail for you on how they did this. The implication seems to be they were pissed that he gave Chock/Bates more attention, and they think that’s why their World placement dropped over the course of a year.

So, if you’re keeping track at home, you’ve got two promising young teams, both gunning for the #2 US spot, now taking opposite sides in the War of the Bitter American Ice Russians.

ACT II: The Empires Strike Back and Forth With Each Other

From 2012-2018, the Shibs and Chock/Bates takes turns being ahead of each other. No one can overtake Meryl/Charlie, but they’re battling out to be Vice President of US Ice Dance. I won’t bore you with the play by play, but sometimes the Shibs pull ahead, sometimes Chock/Bates do. And occasionally Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donahue and their raw chemistry play spoiler for both. There is a clear rivalry, clearer by the minute. Technical ability and skating skills vs CHARISMA. You can guess which team is which.

ACT III: Return of the Shibi

After Meryl/Charlie retire, the rivalry gets hotter. Chock/Bates seem to come out ahead at the first post-Davis/White US Nationals, but then the Shibs start to surge past them in the run up to the 2018 Olympics. They’re consistently placing ahead of Chock/Bates when they meet head to head, though not by much. They’re siblings, so they can’t rely on unresolved sexual tension to pull in the points. But they crack the code with perfect Twizzles combined with the crescendos of Coldplay power ballads. They go viral for this one, which is actually lovely.

It would seem that having Marina Zoueva’s full attention is paying off for the Shibs; Virtue/Moir have left her by now. In fact, one of you told me years ago that the Shibs actually paid Marina to put all of her eggs in their basket, which would explain why she almost disappeared from international Kiss-and-Crys in the post-2018 seasons when the Shibs stopped competing.

BUT THEN, PLOT TWIST… Madison Hubbell and Zach Donahue manage to win US Nationals right before the 2018 Olympics. What you should get from this: US Ice Dance is actually a three horse race with three very evenly matched teams. All three pairs— Chock/Bates, ShibSibs, Hubbell/Donahue— scored within a point of each other at the Grand Prix Final and at US Nationals that season. It’s a no brainer for all three to make the Olympic team.

And all three teams are now officially gunning for the Olympic bronze medal in Ice Dance. They don’t have a realistic shot at gold/silver because Tessa/Scott are back doing foreplay on the ice to Moulin Rouge, and Gabi/Guillaume have artistry bleeding from their French eyes. But bronze is in reach for all three US teams.

And here’s where the blade turns.

Before the Ice Dance event, Team USA will compete in the Team Event. Only two disciplines can split the event; this means that different skaters can compete in the short program and the free skate in only two disciplines. Team USA gives their top ranked skaters first choice in how they would like to participate in the Team Event. Nathan Chen goes first— he decides he only wants to skate the short program, which makes sense because he wants to conserve energy for his individual medal chances. Most of the top skaters choose this— they only want to do one part of the event for stamina reasons.

The Shibs get second pick. Even though they placed silver at US Nationals, they rank highest of the dance teams internationally, so they get to pick. Everyone thinks they’ll be like Nathan and do the short program only.

But the Shibs ZIG instead of ZAG and they opt to do BOTH events instead of splitting the team event with a Madison+One.

It’s a shrewd strategy. By doing both parts of the team event, they keep one of the other US teams from building scoring momentum before the individual event. They also block another ice dance team from an Olympic medal because it’s pretty clear Team USA is likely to win a medal here. It’s totally within their rights to do this. But it’s kind of a dick move.

And it works. They win bronze in the team event, bronze in the individual event, and the Madisons go home with nothing but rage and a pact to split the Team Event at the next Olympics. Which they do. And where they eventually win the Gold. BUT STILL.

Point Marina. Point ShibSibs.

Act IV: Revenge of the Shib

After the 2018 Olympics, the Shibs are forced into an early retirement (OR ARE THEY) in 2019 when Maia is diagnosed with a cancerous mass on her kidney. This is legitimately terrible and unfair.

In the intervening years, Chock/Bates leave Igor and move to the Ice Dance Academy of Montreal with basically every other internationally competitive Ice Dance team. The US rivalry turns into Madison vs Madison, and it’s much friendlier. Hubbell and Donahue end up with the bronze at the next Olympics. They skated to Janet Jackson, so this is only fair.

And that leaves Madison Chock as the last one standing. (I mean, Evan is there, too, but come on. You know who everyone is watching when they’re out there.) At last, her path to the customary US Olympic Ice Dance medal is clear for 2026. And— bonus— it would appear she’s on track for the gold instead of the bronze. They’ve swept the World Champ gold medal three times in a row. They win US Nationals when they have the plague and can barely breathe. They set a World Record during a program where they fall. Everything is coming up CHOCK! And Bates.

Enter the Shibutanis, announcing their comeback just in time for the Olympic season.

SO WHAT WILL HAPPEN?

I don’t know. But here’s some factors to consider.

• The Shibs have been away for 7 years. When they competed, they often relied on their technical precision to pull them ahead. Scoring has changed, new elements have been introduced, and the strict dance pattern for the Rhythm Dance that favored their skillset doesn’t exist anymore. The parts where they edged ahead of Chock/Bates don’t matter as much as they used to.

• Again, they’ve been away for 7 years. A lot of Ice Dance politics have played out since then. There’s momentum behind Chock/Bates, Piper/Paul, Guignard/Fabbri, Fear/Gibson, and others. It’s a crowded field.

• If the US decides to politick for the Shibs, they may have to sacrifice CPom, who they are clearly setting up to be the next big American team when Chock/Bates retire. If the Shibs are only in it for one season, that doesn’t go great for the future of US Ice Dance. It’s not smart to drop CPom now.

• Speaking of the future of US Ice Dance, they don’t actually need the Shibs. This isn’t like the Men or even the Pairs where a champion returning right in time for the Olympic season would be welcome because of weaker benches. US Ice Dance is actually stacked with an assembly line of skilled teams, hungry to move up and snag that third Olympic spot. Somewhere in Michigan, Charlie White’s star student, Caroline Green, is screaming into her pillow about all this.

• All that said, the Shibs consistently beat Chock/Bates in the last couple of seasons they competed together. They were technically better skaters. Or at least, they were.

• And Marina Zoueva doesn’t have any other dogs in this fight. Unlike the Ice Dance Academy of Montreal, who has to lobby for several teams in the top 10, Marina has one star team now. And as history shows— whoever Marina picks as her star has a tendency to pull out ahead. HOW INTERESTING that two of her star students, Charlie White and Scott Moir, are now coaching the two US Ice Dance teams battling out for 2nd place in the US. And here comes Marina, perhaps ready to school them both.

• If you really want to get into the complexities of this one, there’s generational rivalries spilling into this. Igor and Marina are competing again— Igor has a couple of teams that could make a run for a US Olympic spot. Not to mention all of Marina’s former students who are now sending out their students to compete with their own former competitors. It’s a messy family tree if you try to map it.

• This has nothing to do with how the Shibs will end up scoring, but if you want to have an eye-brow-raising-while-you-sip-tea moment, go look at the skaters who liked the Shibs Instagram post announcing their return. The number is low. And there are some notable absences. A lot of them. And I’m not just talking about Ice Dancers, who might rightfully feel conflicted.

  

Here’s my bottom line: It’s great that Maia Shibutani feels healthy enough to compete again. And I love a wild Olympic season, so I think this is good for competition and good for business. I admired the Shibs for being a truly competitive sibling team, really finding a way to rely on their skill and athleticism instead of leaning on romantic chemistry, as so many teams do. (Not that I don’t enjoy the steamy ice flirting every time I see it.) If they get high scores, I hope it’s because they earned them. I’m sure Marina will make them go out to an early season event to get their feet wet; I’ll be watching with interest to see where their starting scores land.

And if this was all too long and you didn’t actually read it, here’s a TikTok set to “What Is This Feeling” that conveys pretty much the same messaging. Which you should watch anyway because seeing their facial expressions really tells the tale in a way that I can’t do justice with words.

Three Non-Figure Skating Things:

• I re-watched A Simple Favor on Friday night. I forgot how great and messed up it is. Blake Lively is excellent in it. It’s a perfect Friday night with a glass of wine movie. A sharp-campy-twisted-friendship-mystery.

• So then, naturally, I watched Another Simple Favor on Saturday Night. I don’t want to spoil it because it just came out, but What. A Ride. Sometimes, it felt campy and fun. Sometimes it felt really, really effed up and off the rails. A day later, I can’t decide what I think.

• It does seem like they hope you didn’t watch A Simple Favor very recently because they took some pretty big leaps with Anna Kendrick’s character. She seemed much more aligned with Anna Kendrick than with Stephanie from the first movie. I can see how that would be more fun to write and act, but the gap is pretty big and it distracted me throughout. They gave a weak explanation for her bolder personality near the beginning, but it didn’t quite hold water for me.

What’s Next: I guess we’ll try April Endorsements next week. Unless someone else un-retires or they announce the neutral Russians or something.