It's week three of the Grand Prix season and two-time and reigning U.S. ice dance champions Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue are right where they want to be: On vacation.
While it's nearly unheard of for elite skaters to take a week off mid-season, Hubbell and Donohue's time away from the ice is well-earned after a Skate America title and silver at Skate Canada International, assuring them a spot in the Grand Prix Final this December in Turin, Italy.
Their only problem? They want to get back to work as soon as possible.
"It's a weird feeling," Donohue said in Kelowna, British Columbia, over the weekend. "We are ready for a break and a rest, but also are anxious to get back on the ice. There are always a few tweaks to be made (to our programs). Our coaches have such keen eyes, (so) we're anxious to hear what they think, too."
For now, however, that will have to wait, as the two go their separate ways for a few days and (with excitement) Madison spends Halloween with her nieces and family in Ohio.
But this is no new territory for the Montreal-based duo, who competed at Skate America and Skate Canada last season before returning to the rink to get to work again, and – especially in the free dance – make changes to what their programs looked and felt like.
The time off will help in that process once again, they say.
"Being able to step away from it allows us to approach it with the same energy (when we come back)," Donohue affirmed.
Little seemed to bother Hubbell and Donohue in Vegas or Kelowna, where they skated four programs in the span of eight days as Donohue battled bronchitis off the ice. Their silver in Canada was the first time they didn't finish atop the podium at a Grand Prix event since NHK Trophy in 2017.
But that didn't seem to throw them, either. They were outspoken in their support for Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, who won their first Grand Prix gold as a team, and even sent them a congratulatory Joni Mitchell book, an ode to the Canadians' free dance to Mitchell music for this season.
"We really enjoyed another really successful Skate Canada," Madison said in their free dance press conference. "I feel like there was so much energy in the rink. We tried to feed off of that."
Hubbell and Donohue have always been two of the most energetic skaters in ice dance. That enthusiasm on the ice has brought a few high-profiles errors, as well, including earlier this year at Four Continents when Donohue moved across the ice during a stationary lift in their free dance. The mistake dropped them to fourth place, their lowest finish since the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang a year prior.
So when Hubbell and Donohue had no events planned pre-Grand Prix this season, some felt like we could see an error crop up in one of those four aforementioned programs.
But none did. Their short dance is flirty and fun, with Hubbell giving into the character of Marilyn Monroe 100 percent. Their free dance is dark, moody and dramatic, set to music from
A Star is Born, with Lady Gaga at the microphone, singing soulfully.
"I've always loved Marilyn Monroe," Hubbell said in Kelowna. "I've wanted to skate to this music for a long time. I hadn't found the right creative combination of choreographer and dance. This year, we were contemplating between
Saturday Night Fever and Marilyn and we asked Romain Hagenauer to do our program for the first time. He told me, very clearly, 'You
are Marilyn.' I love vintage style, I love that era, she was an icon. I want to continue to work on this program. It's not just about her, it's about the men that loved her, too. I want to shine that light on Zach, as well."
The work weeks in Montreal leave time for little else. Hubbell and Donohue are constantly at the rink, running their programs, while also doing off-ice dancing, classes, yoga and work in the gym. Competitions, they added, can feel like a break from a relentless training volume.
So, a genuine week off must feel like heaven.
"When we (get back to Montreal), we are going to figure out every way we can improve," Hubbell said of the pre-Grand Prix Final plan. "These last two weeks we tried to stay in total performance mode."
It's a mode that Hubbell and Donohue do so abundantly well. When they are on, when they are skating their best to programs that take us away and take
them away, they are clearly one of the best teams in the world. That's what they'll use the next few weeks for, to capture that and further it for Turin, and then of course to try and defend their U.S. Championships title in late January in Greensboro.
"When we're on the ice, we're in a bubble," Donohue shared. "We aren't trying to beat (anyone), we're trying to perform to our capabilities. Yes, we want to win, but we've always made our
own wins, be that gold, silver, bronze or last place. We go away with a certain mentality: Attack our programs."
Which is what we'll certainly see them do in December at the Grand Prix Final.
