Episode 2: Home from Finland

[Music] Hello and welcome to Unlaced with Trockin Bates. I'm Madison Trock. And I'm Evan Bates and we're Olympic Ice Dancers for Team USA. This week we're back at our training base in Montreal where we'll be preparing for next week's Grand Prix event, Skate America, in Las Vegas. Vegas, Barrett. Vegas Barrett. What happens at Vegas? Get's broadcast on NBC. We spent last week in Espoot, Finland where we kicked off our season at Finlandia Trophy. It was our first competition in seven months. Our first time debuting our new programs for the Olympic season. And it was our first time with a live audience in 18 months if you can believe it. How was it? So how did it go? Yeah, what did you think? I thought it went pretty well. I had a lot of fun. I had a great time actually. We came in second place and we. Oh, yeah, congrats to you as well. I'll job well done, sir. You too. Thank you. Yeah, performance wise, fun wise, food wise. We got to hang out with our friends while we were there. We went to the mall like every day. Not every day, but we did go to the mall a couple times. It was beautiful. They had a lot of nice things. We bought stuffed animals. Yes, we found a really cute stuffed astronaut and a little alien which could coincidentally fit perfectly with the theme of our free dance. So of course we brought them home. And not for the dogs for us. Yes, no chewing on these. We competed Saturday and Sunday and flew back Monday. We were back on the ice Wednesday. Yeah, the trip home was mostly uneventful. Save for a slight two hour delay on the runway in Frankfurt. You know, like it's always worse when you get on the plane. And then there's the problem. And the captain says, we have to make a repair. Like if the delay happens when you're at the gate and you can still like walk around and eat food, eat, go buy a magazine. It's always better. But when you get in the plane and then you sit down and then there's a delay and you just have to sit there and it just stands. I didn't mind it. I felt asleep. I took a little nap. I watched black widow. I had a great delay. I'm happy for you. It's just like a two hour delay and then a seven hour flight. And that was already the second flight of the day. So yeah. At least we didn't have another connection though. Yeah, at least we were just coming home after that. Yeah. And I sound like a big complainer. But I mean, it was quite long. It was a long travel day. We woke up at 3.30 in the morning after going to bed around one. So that was pretty brutal. I find that we were having a nice dinner with the whole isochademy group. We had a lot of friends there. So we had a nice dinner in the evening. And then yeah, we packed and then time just got away from us a bit. But we made it back and slept. Well, I slept like a log the night we got home. So I was happy with that. And I feel like we've adjusted pretty quickly back to a normal time schedule. Yeah, jet lags not been too bad. Yeah. I would say my favorite part of the whole trip home was when we were at the airport in Finland and it was about 5 a.m. We were pretty hungry. We were with our friends, live in Adrian. And we just stumbled upon this restaurant that was open. I wouldn't say it was a restaurant. Okay, it was more of a hot dog stand. It was a gourmet hot dog stand. Gourmet hot dog stand. And what do you do at 5 a.m. in Finland? Do you get a hot dog? Do you not get a hot dog? Well, they were gourmet. Of course you get a hot dog. We had, I had more than one. Yeah, you had what two and a half? I had two and then I finished yours. Yeah, they were delicious. They were so good. I had no regrets. Well, I had a slight regret after the mango smoothie that I also had with hot dog. Oh, not the best combination. I wouldn't have paired those together. No, I didn't really think that through. I just was like, oh, mango smoothie sounds great. Oh, hot dog also sounds great. It was a bacon wrapped hot dog too. Not so great. It was bacon wrapped right? Yeah. Oh, man. I couldn't have finished the hot dog or the smoothie. It was just like they were not down the road. Yeah, our athletes by the way, like normally we're pretty good with nutrition. But I don't know after the competition, you just kind of let your guard down a bit. We certainly did that. It was like 5 a.m. We were so tired. We were tired, you know, like, and then we saw this gourmet hot dog stand. It's like when you're walking in a desert for a long time and then you start to imagine things. Is this an oasis? It was like the mirage from the desert. It was a gourmet hot dog stand from our sleepy delirious state. We're like, ah, there it is. It was good. It was good. I don't regret that. No. Do you regret the third hot dog you had though when we got to Frankfurt? You know, I don't know what got into me, but hot dogs obviously. They say a hot dog takes like 15 minutes off your life or something? No way. Yeah. Really? Where did you get? We get that stat. The internet. So clearly I had a lot of bad memories to my life span in that travel day. Yeah, we went to Germany and had a quick layover and we got in line for food. And for some reason I was possessed to order another hot dog. Maybe I should have had a hot dog. I ordered a vegan bowl that I didn't quite finish. Just to balance out the hot dog. Just to balance out the mango smoothie and the hot dog. I really needed that just healthy choice. I feel like I need to go on a juice cleanse for like days. Actually, I feel pretty fine. Yeah, we had a green smoothie this morning. So the start of your juice cleanse. There you go. So what are we going to do between now and next week? So this week, this week, back in training, before Skate America next week, we'll be making some very small tweaks and adding some details to our programs and making some slight adjustments to our costumes. Get my blood out of your dress. Oh, yeah. So to give you context, I have a lot of stones on my free dance dress. And when we do a couple of our lifts, I really just get Evans ear and neck. And just tear up his skin. I feel terrible about it. I'm so sorry. Thanks. It's okay. There's really not a lot I can do about it though. I feel bad because I don't know what to do to help you. I'm so sorry. I feel bad that I'm bleeding on your dress. Well, yeah, that too. But I mean, that'll come out. And I guess your ear will heal. All as well. So anyways, we're going to clean the costumes up a bit next week. Small adjustments. Sorry, Matthew. Yeah, but mostly in training, we'll just be building off the performances we put out in Finland. We're excited to grow our programs and perform them in front of more live audiences. Especially the rhythm dance that's just a young bud of a month old. Yeah, some mileage with that one would probably be good. I mean, both of them really. They're both, they're both new. So Skate America next week, it'll be our first time at Skate America in six years. Wow. So much has changed since then. 2015. Last time we were at Skate America, Barack Obama was president. We weren't a couple off the ice. And Henry wasn't even born yet. Oh my gosh. Henry's our toy poodle. Henry, did you hear that? One or two. Wow. That's crazy to think about. Yeah. Henry's like all gray now. Oh, yeah. He's a distinguished guy. But he wasn't even alive last time we did Skate America. That's crazy. We've actually only done Skate America twice in our 11 seasons together in 2014 and 2015. Wow. Yeah. What's your best memory from Skate America? What's your favorite or what's just our memory from Skate America? A memory. I guess the one in Chicago, I remember the most. That was, I think we did American in Paris for our free dance there. And gosh, I just, I remember, I think I remember like at the end of the program, I kind of like tripped you and you just. At the end of the diagonal. You just did this like incredible cat like shoot the duck and just like, I'm not gonna fall. Yeah, I was like, I'm not going down. Remember that. That's funny. And yeah, I remember your black and white dress. That was pretty cool. Yeah. Thank you. I did like that dress a lot. I remember from that same event actually right after you have a practice in the morning and then you have a warm up and then you can pee. And so in between, the practice and the warm-up for the free dance. We were having to alter the entrance of our first lift because we were doing another assisted jump. I think that was that was that might be counted as a lift and so if that got counted as a lift then our actual lift wouldn't be counted as a lift. So we had to adjust that right before five more warm-up. We got on the bus to go compete. And we're talking about it with our coach. Our coach was like, "Guys, I have some bad news." I think we might need to just change the program a little bit before you go compete it in 45 minutes. We're like, "Oh, okay." Yeah, that was stressful. Yeah, but it worked out. Actually, we made the change and I think that was our warm-up was just like recoreographing part of our program. Yeah. Didn't actually warm-up. No, we had to have formed up. I don't even remember, but yeah, I do remember that moment just being a tad stressful, but we ended up doing it. We pulled it off and the program went off without a hitch. Well, it's the end of the day. It's funny when we remember. Yeah. Wow. Also last night, we joined Trent Micho and Mike Maranero on their podcast, The Ice Lab Podcast, which is definitely worth checking out and subscribing to. They're both just awesome guys. Their banter is incredible. They have such good chemistry. It was just, I forgot we were even on it. I was just wanting to listen to them go back and forth. They were wonderful. So charming. I love those guys. They're just good Canadian guys. Yeah. And Trent and his partner Evelyn will be with us in Skate America next week. So we'll get to see him in person. Nice. And Mike was in Finland, so we got to see him last week. Yeah, it was good to see people again. Especially those live audience, that live audience in Finland. Boy, that made a huge difference. Oh, they were fantastic. Yeah, the Finnish audiences really, really appreciate Skating. I feel like they're a really smart, well-educated audience. They know what's going on. They appreciate what the skaters are doing. And yeah, it was just so, so awesome to have their support and hear them cheering everyone on. Yeah, it was almost full for the free dance. Yeah. We love it. You miss performing for a live audience. We're going to have a live audience in Vegas. Yeah. That's exciting. I'm going to see some family members I haven't seen in a really long time next week. I'm very excited. Yeah, we get to see our parents. My brother, I haven't seen him since 2019. He's going to be there with his family and his two young daughters. And I'm just so excited to see them again. Oh, so am I. I can't wait. It's going to be so fun. Hopefully we have some time. Yeah, I'd love to go walk around the strip. I don't think you haven't been to Vegas before, have you? No, I'm the Vegas in January. No, wait. I remember. Yeah, that we were together. You know when we competed in national events. But I mean just for fun, like, sightseeing or yeah, no, I haven't been. Yeah, so it'd be fun to like walk down the strip and maybe go to the Bellagio and see the fountain show. Just like ocean to 11. Yeah, except minus the casino robbery. Right. We could just like play Clare DeLune on our phone and then just like walk away one by one. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. That'd be the ending. Maybe that's a good ending for the pod. Sounds great. Well, that's a wrap on this week. We will talk to you next week in Viva Las Vegas. You don't want to hear everything. So you can. I thought you were going to help me close that out. Oh, yes. Also classic skating music. Yeah, I don't know why they just played that. It works. So it's on on brand for what we were talking about. Yeah, excited. Very excited. It was fun to compete and ready to do it again. Yeah, let's go. All right. Well, that'll do it for this week. Thank you so much for listening. Make sure you subscribe for next week's episode and we will talk to you soon. [MUSIC]