Advertisement League of Ireland Horse Racing TV Listings GAA Fixtures The Video Review Sport meets news, current affairs, society & pop culture Rugby Weekly Extra Dive into all the news and analysis 3 times a week The Football Family Weekly insights from the week’s big talking points Advertisement More Stories Carolane Soucisse and Shane Firus.Alamy Stock Photo FreeOlympic Dream Skating on thin ice: a world stage for Ireland's compelling Olympian hopefuls Canadian-born Carolane Soucisse and Shane Firus are in action for Ireland at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships tomorrow. 8.31pm, 27 Mar 2025 Share options Eoin O'Callaghan SEAN GILLIS WAS caught a little off guard by the email. As president of the Ice Skating Association of Ireland, it wasn’t a common occurrence for him to receive correspondence from skaters competing for other nations. He stared at his laptop and took a few moments to wrap his head around the message. It came from the Canadian ice-dance team of Carolane Soucisse and Shane Firus. And they had a proposal. They wanted to skate for Ireland. “My initial reaction was surprise,” Gillis says. “I hadn’t realised Shane had Irish roots. We were just happy to make that connection even if they didn’t end up representing us.” For years, the pair had been on the periphery. Always grappling for attention in a crowded field of a super-power skating nation, they had worked their way to the cusp of opportunity. With Canada sending three ice dance teams to major competitions, Soucisse and Firus were leading the chasing pack and racked up a bunch of lower-ranking events, patiently waiting for their breakthrough moment. They got a taste of it in 2018 – just their second season together – when they competed at the World Championships in Milan and finished 14th. There was even a silver medal at the Four Continents that same year, essentially a World Championships without European nations. But the subsequent seasons were a grind and certain obstacles soon began to seem insurmountable. “We wanted to make the next step,” Soucisse says over post-session coffee across the street from their training hub at Centennial Ice Rink in Scarborough, about a 20-minute drive from downtown Toronto. “It just seemed like there was no opening for us in Canada.” Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Their training base at the time – Montreal’s acclaimed I.AM – was a conveyor belt of heavyweights. The celebrated 2018 Olympic event saw the entire ice dance podium made up of I.AM skaters, including champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, whose comeback success and all-round allure led to frenzied online chatter and some particularly queasy fan fiction. As new kids on the block, Soucisse and Firus had the pleasure of studying them up close and absorbed plenty, particularly work ethic, how to deal with setbacks and leaning into the non-linear nature of the sport. “Just great role models,” Firus says. “That first year they came back, everything went swimmingly. They were cleaning up. But the following year, everything turned and they weren’t winning anymore. The French were instead. And they revamped their entire free dance about a week and a half before nationals. Watching that and how they handled it…because it must have been extremely stressful. And that changed their momentum for the second half of that season.” Soucisse marvelled at their learned experience and that lucrative trait of knowing some days were going to be a slog. Advertisement “It was really something to see them work,” she adds. “You can’t expect perfection every day. You want it but can’t achieve it. So watching them deal with days that weren’t as good was extremely interesting. We learned a lot from it.” I.AM basked in the afterglow of Olympic glory and an already hectic skating academy became even busier. Athletes flocked to Montreal from various countries, all looking for the secret sauce. When I.AM’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and partner Nikolaj Sorensen switched allegiance from Denmark to Canada, Soucisse and Firus were immediately usurped in the pecking order. No internal squaring off. No day-to-day competitive combat or battle royale. It was just pre-determined. Just another example of the sport’s peculiar politics. And when Covid-19 derailed a scheduled appearance at the 2020 World Championships, the duo needed a change. “You gotta eat it, to be honest,” Firus says of those demotivating years. “You’re in the system and you’ve got to keep persevering or just walk away. We wanted to change the narrative and give ourselves a fresh perspective. It wasn’t that we weren’t enjoying it. We were just stagnant. We were little fish in a big pond and we wanted to be the bigger fish in a little pond.” According to Soucisse, it was difficult to find the support they required. They felt detached. “The environment didn’t work for us anymore,” she says. “We had two or three other Canadian teams training with us every day who were fighting for the same spot. And we understand it. The coaches couldn’t have favourites. But we wanted a coach who would fight for us to get the spot. We needed guidance and we couldn’t get any. And, look, we get it. They were busy.We didn’t have a great season and needed help. They just couldn’t offer it.” So, they made a big decision and left I.AM. They relocated to Toronto and began training with Carol Lane’s Ice Dance Elite. Best-known for her long-term relationship with three-time World medalists and four-time Canadian champions Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, Lane is a renowned mentor and gifted communicator. Firus describes the current training environment as ‘much more intimate’ and it was Lane, a skating sage of sorts, who started to ask them about their wider objectives and how they planned on achieving them. After all, they had been to a World Championships and done well. They had talent. They belonged at that elite level. But, the doors seemed shut tight in Canada. The dreams were locked away. Unless, Lane suggested, another dramatic change took place. Had they ever thought about representing Ireland? Firus’s grandmother was from Gorey and he was in the process of acquiring his Irish passport, submitting his application just before the post-Brexit backlog. Now, the pair sat down and seriously began to consider a switch. “We started asking each other some big questions,” says Soucisse. “Even though our world ranking was 14th or 15th, we could never go to the World Championships because we weren’t top-three in our own country.” So, more research took place. And then it was decided to reach out to the Ice Skating Association of Ireland and gauge the reaction. Only there was one problem. It wasn’t exactly clear who they should reach out to. “I sent a cold email because we didn’t know anyone specifically by name,” Firus says, describing the ISAI as a ‘boutique’. “We went to the website, copied the general email address and that was it. It was an exploratory message, wondering if they’d be interested. And they didn’t get back to us right away. When they did, it was very non-committal. It was kinda, ‘Y’know, there’s a lot that goes into these decisions…’ They knew it would be a process.” Soucisse could understand the wariness. It was an outlandish concept for a tiny federation to take on board. Famously, the Republic of Ireland is without an ice rink and has been since the closure of Dundalk’s Ice Dome in 2010. Despite think tanks, proposals, half-conversations and the odd media discussion, there seems a lack of any real progress. So, with zero infrastructure, zero profile, zero staff (the federation is run by volunteers) and minimal money, getting Firus and Soucisse to wear the tricolour would be quite the undertaking. “The federation is so small and they don’t have that much funding,” Soucisse says. “They needed to think about this because it’s a lot of work to pull it off. Ultimately, they are volunteers and needed to make sure we were serious about it before beginning everything. We had a call with them shortly after and it was completely different. They couldn’t have been more supportive.” Under the International Skating Union (ISU) rules, athletes need to wait for one year before representing another country. And Soucisse and Firus also needed Canada to release them. That proved to be another challenge. Skate Canada played hardball, digging in their heels. “Every federation has their own rules and ways of implementing them,” says Firus. “Canada needed to sign a document and we had to fight for it, but we got it.” In 2023, Ireland held its domestic skating championships in Dundee, Scotland. Obviously. It was summertime. Soucisse and Firus had been embroiled in a legal standoff with Skate Canada for what seemed an eternity. A verdict was close, but delayed by 48 hours. They stepped on the plane still not knowing if they’d been released. But that first night in Scotland, the email finally came through. They’d won the fight. And the weight was lifted from their shoulders. “Everyone was so welcoming and friendly and there was no awkwardness,” Firus says. “And this was finally face-to-face. We’d still never met any of these guys in person before. It was an incredible trip. Something we’ll always hold onto.” After they initially got over the double shock of (a) skating in June and (b) having to skate both their short and long programs on the same day (‘a condensed schedule’ is how Firus puts it with a laugh), they took to the ice and it was just them. No other competitors. It seemed an apt metaphor. “We’re doing it for us,” says Soucisse. “We know if we qualify and are guaranteed that spot nobody is going to come and take it.” And they won that day. Irish champions. On the same trip they got engaged at the Cliffs of Moher. And the following year, they buried some ghosts and went back to Montreal, only this time as World Championship competitors. For the first time since 2012, Ireland had a skating representative at the marquee event. “I was very proud,” Sean Gillis says. “It’s just wonderful to see the flag at the venue and, of course, on top of that they skated and represented Ireland so well.” It was a 20th place finish on that occasion. One better in Boston in the coming days and they’ll be guaranteed an Olympic place in Milan next year. Soucisse requires her Irish citizenship to come through for them to compete, which is another battle. Though they’re well used to challenges at this point. “We needed to make a change. And this was a great change for us. We are so, so happy with how everything has gone. A slog at times, but worth it. Now, it’s about performing and doing well for us and everyone that has helped get us to this point.” Eoin O'Callaghan Viewcomments Send Tip or Correction Embed this post To embed this post, copy the code below on your site Email “Skating on thin ice: a world stage for Ireland's compelling Olympian hopefuls”. Recipient's Email Feedback on “Skating on thin ice: a world stage for Ireland's compelling Olympian hopefuls”. Your Feedback Your Email (optional) Report a Comment Please select the reason for reporting this comment. Please give full details of the problem with the comment... This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy before taking part. Leave a Comment Submit a report Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines. Damaging the good reputation of someone, slander, or libel. 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