Episode 10: Meet The Team

[Music] Hello and welcome to Unlaced with Truck and Bates. I'm Madison Trock. And I'm Evan Bates and we're Ice Dancers for Team USA. If you're into sports betting, bet online is the fastest and easiest way to bet all your favorite sports. Head to their new updated desktop or mobile website to sign up today and receive your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Just use our promo code, believe 50, to receive your bonus. It's our 10th episode. Woohoo! How about that? 10 episodes. That's solid. Love it. Double digits. On today's episode, we want to shine a spotlight on our extensive and incredible team. Yes, that group of people who have helped us along the way on our Olympic journey. So it's been well documented, I think, that getting to the Olympics takes a lot of work. When you see the final product on the ice, you can imagine all the hours of training and the years of preparation that are done largely behind the scenes. We often get asked how many hours a day to use skate or how long have you been skating. But rarely are we asked how many people do you work with or what does your team really look like? The truth is, we work with an extensive team of experts who we consider ourselves lucky to collaborate with. The list is really long and it includes everything from on ice coaching, to music, to costumes, mental training, nutrition, you get the idea. So there are some coaches whose background is in figure skating and others have different backgrounds. But we'd like to tell you more about all of them. Yes, so I guess we should start with. I am coaches. Are on ice coaches? I think I have to meet up with my three-year-old. Let's go with the Queen. Madame Dubraille. Marie France Dubraille. She is a two-time Olympian, two-time world silver medalist with her husband and partner, Patrice Lazon, also known as Patch. They are known for having some of the most innovative lifts and elegance skating. And they've been our coaches since 2018 and we absolutely love working with them. We do and we really have them to thank for really creating the is academy of Montreal and then creating this massive team of coaches that we work with. Next would be Roman Hagenauer, who is also one of our on ice coaches that we work extensively with. He is probably one of the most experienced coaches in the business even though he looks ageless. He began his coaching career when he was just 20 years old and he is just so passionate and funny and witty and he's really efficient, I would say. Super efficient. We always get, like if we have a checklist of things, when you need to get done, he will just go bam, bam, bam, and we'll get through all of them. Plus, he's hilarious. Every lesson with him is always an adventure. Then we have Sam Schwinard. He's actually not a figure skater but he's been working at the is academy of Montreal since before we were even there. And his background is off ice dance. I think he really can do everything. He's also a choreographer. He's also, yeah. And he does the bulk of our off ice choreography that we then bring on the ice. And so he creates the material for Marie and Roman and Patch to play with. And then he'll also work with us on the ice to fine tune and add details to the program once it's fully once this skating part is fully choreographed. He's also the most energetic person I've ever met. Oh my god. In my life. He's just a fountain of energy and a ray of sunshine to everyone. There are many more coaches at the is academy of Montreal. Yeah, we're just getting started. Jose and Pascal who used to skate together back when they were competing. And we work with them on stroking, on pattern dances. They're fantastic. I really, really enjoy them. And they've been friends with Marie and Patch since they were probably teenagers. Yeah. They went to high school together all of them. They go way back. I just love the family dynamic. Like they're all best friends who grew up together. They're now coaching at this big school. And it's fun. Next up Benjamin Breeze Bois. Another wonderful former ice dancer who used to compete for Canada. And who is now also studying to be a physical therapist as well as his coach. Oh, osteo as an osteopath as well as being a coach at the I am. Which I don't know how he does that. No, I have studying for it to be an osteo takes so much time. So much studying pluses at the rank like I always see him. And he goes to he was in Torino and then he was a judo grand prize with Hannah and yay. And I mean, he's doing a lot. Yeah, he's a busy guy. Next up also an incredible asset to the school that I am is Emily Josay. She comes from the theater world and she's our acting coach. And she herself is an incredible actress, phenomenal singer and a beautiful dancer. She is a true triple threat. So look out. She's also incredibly sweet and a wonderful human being. It's so useful for us to work with her because she focuses a lot on storytelling and brings a different perspective to the ice. And it's so important to have that foundation of the story when you're skating to know what you're trying to say. So the audience has a clearer picture because we can't speak to them. We have to just show them our story with our dance. Exactly. And then we have Gigi. Jeanette Coyne. That's it. We call her Gigi. She is the ballroom dance expert who we work with and she actually has been working with Marie and Patch since they were competing. So I'd say almost 20 years now. And she has so much experience and expertise coaching. And it's really, really useful for us to work with her because there is a lot of overlap I think between the ballroom dance world and ice dance. Especially when it comes to frame and technique and how you hold the partners. And the pattern dances that we do in the rhythm dance, they're often based from ballroom style dances. Like the fin step, she was incredible at with the timing and the styling of all the teams. She's amazing. She's so fabulous and has so much flair. She's a lover. Gigi. We also work with our ballet muse, Eva Arapesian. She is a classically trained ballerina from the Bolshe way ballet. And you just, you have to meet her. She's one of a kind. There's no one like her. She speaks her own ballet language. But you learn when you work with her. You know what I mean. It's so true. Vizvez. She's amazing. She's so passionate and so expressive too. It's just another person on this team who is so unique and has a completely different background. Obviously in the dance world, but from a different angle. And when we get to work with her, especially when we work with her on the ice in the programs, there's just no one like her. It's just a completely unique perspective. She's done a lot of choreography herself, but in the ballet world, off ice, she's produced her own shows. So she's really talented, multi-talented. This year, we were also introduced to a new team member by Sam. Her name is Sarah Steben and she is another dance specialist that we started working with. Her background is mainly in hip-hop, especially right now. She's specializing in Chicago footwork. We've been working with her this year on both programs as she is a crazy good dancer. And when we work with her, I often just stop and watch how she moves and try to emulate that myself because she's so inspiring and just moves in a way that's so different than what I'm used to seeing. Yeah, I love Sarah. It's been so cool working with her this year. I feel like initially Sam's idea was to bring her in because we were supposed to be doing hip-hop. But we've been working with her on free dance. We've been working with her on both programs. It's like, "More, please, more Sarah." Just teach us your ways. So we've also been working with Mimi and Sebastian, who are our acrobatists from the circus world. So for those who don't know Montreal is also a really significant city in the circus industry, where the Cirque du Soleil was initially born. And there are so many circus artists and interesting people who live here. And the school has brought in Mimi and Sebastian, who are an acro couple who've been working together for years and years. And so they are our lift specialists. And we spend a lot of time with them, especially off the ice in the summer, creating and training new lifts and skills. We'll even sometimes go to their gym, which is really, really fun because we get to train alongside other circus performers. And it's just like. It's very distracting. Not to stare at those people who are standing on their heads or swinging from ropes across the ceiling. Top of each other in the air. We're like, "Let's do our meatball lift again." Six-second lift again. Our lifts look best on the ice when we have the velocity and the speed. It's different because we're moving. That's what I tell myself. We're wearing blades. We're wearing knives on our feet. I think that about sums it up for everyone we work with on ice. And now there's a whole other group of people that are also part of our team that work off ice with us. And one of them is our music master, the maestro himself, Hugo Schrinard. And we've been working with him for a long time. I don't even know how long, but probably since the beginning of our partnership. He is ubiquitous in the skating world and does music edits and mastering for so many different skaters. He actually lives here in Montreal. And since we've moved to the area, we've now gotten to know him even better and actually see him in person on occasion. He himself is a former skater and he used to skate with Marie, Patch and Jose. They were. Fun fact. Yeah, fun fact. I think they all went to high school together. Yeah, I think. Yeah, something like Patch and Marie didn't go to high school together today. I don't know. I mean they grew up together pretty much. They've been friends since high school. I know that much. And of course, our wonderful costume maker, Matthew Karone, he's been making our costumes since 2016, and he's become a great friend as well as a creative partner. I absolutely love working with Matthew. He and his team do such a wonderful job bringing my creative deas to life, and he himself is just a superstar, a bright diamond, so talented. Speaking of diamonds, say goodbye to the dull gifts this year. Lightbox LabGrome Diamonds are the brightest gift of the year. Using cutting-edge technology and innovative techniques, they've cracked the science of sparkle. Creating the highest quality lab-grown diamonds you can find at a light price of $800 per carrot. Lightbox LabGrome Diamonds are the gift they'll never want to take off and the key to making any outfit sparkle. Awesome, maybe we should get a lightbox diamond for our next team member. Because he is. He's such a big part of our team. I really can't overstate that enough. Patrick McGee. Are you Nikorn? Are resident you Nikorn? So he's an osteopath and a strength coach, and a bunch of things. I saw his name, and there were eight letters afterwards, or nine letters. He's certified in everything. When you have a lot of letters after your name, that means you're in all places. Yeah, you studied a lot. You could do that too, though. You could just add a bunch of letters if you want. Madison Chalk, ABCDEFGHFGHG. I'll just add that whole alphabet. Certified in the alphabet. Yes, you should have learned the alphabet. You should be able to do that. Anyways, so we work with Patrick a lot. He writes and oversees all of our workouts in the gym. He also treats us on a weekly basis, just for maintenance, or anything that might be bugging us. He's so smart and experienced. He's been working for a long time in this industry, in this space. And we've been working with him since basically the day we've moved to Montreal. He also works with some of the other skaters, including Maddie and Zach, Liv and Adrienne, Caitlin and John Luke, Eric Radford. Yeah. He's the one we all go to when there's a little ache or pain. We're like, Patrick, help us. President Unicorn help. There's also an extensive list of physios, doctors, and nutritionist who we've worked with over the years through US figure skating. And most every international competition we go to were sent with a team doctor and a physio. So over the years, we've gotten really close with some of them and we keep in contact. And they'll check in with us throughout the season, which is super helpful. One of those people we've been working with for a long time is our nutritionist, Carrie Banner, who's also a Michigander. So we used to see her very often when we were training in Michigan. And she's just an awesome, wonderful person. And she's really good at what she does. She works with the Detroit Pistons and the US Women's Hockey team as well. And she'll still come up to Montreal quite often. We've seen her. I'd say how many times is here? At least three times, I would say. And she'll come in and she'll help us with nutrition and meal planning and just check in with us. She's just an overall great person. I feel like she does more than just nutrition. She's just a great asset. Then there are the sports psychologists that we've worked with over the years. Some through US figure skating like Alex Cohen and Caroline Silby, others who we've worked with more recently, like our beloved Stephanie Hanlon. You may have seen Steph with us at some competitions. She's actually been working with Marie and Patch since the early 2000s and has an incredible grasp on how skating works. And she's just super skilled, super knowledgeable. She's worked with hockey teams in the past. She's got a ton of insight that she shares with us. And it's so comforting whenever she's with us at competition. So I think you can see a little bit clearer just how many people it takes to get to the final product. It's crazy when we actually list them all and see how many of them there are. I mean, it's really cheesy when they say it takes a village, but looking at this list of people, like together they could actually form a small village themselves. That's so true. But teamwork makes the dream work. So that's everybody. Well, I mean, that's mostly everybody. At least that's everybody we currently work with. But obviously we've been doing this a long time. And there are a lot of people who we have worked with along the way. And all of them have given us something that has contributed to where we are and what we're doing now. Yeah, absolutely. If not for my first coaches, Jordan and Darleen, who recommended I try ice dance, I would not be where I am today. Literally, I would not be sitting here. Right? Thank you, Jordan and Darleen. So thank you so much. And there are two people who still support me to this day. And I know we'll always have my back through the rest of my life. Yeah. And we didn't even talk about our families. But I feel like that would be another episode entirely. Oh, yeah. That would take all day. But you can, I think, maybe get a little bit better picture of just how many people there really are. How many people we work with? It's like over 20. I mean, it's like over 30. I don't know how many do we list? I don't know. I didn't do a numbered list. It's a lot. And we want to say thank you to all of them for just helping us out along the way. They're incredible. We can't do it without them. And luckily, we don't have to. And Henry and Stella. Henry and Stella, of course, are two biggest supporters. And most of the supporters. Yeah. Emotional support. Just they're wonderful. They're listening right now. Yeah. They're sleeping right now. And I don't think they're listening. This has been Unlaced with Chalk and Bates. Thank you so much for listening. Make sure you subscribe for future episodes. You can follow us on social media at Chalk Bates. Talk to you soon. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]