Powerhouse Ice Academy of Montreal goes for Olympic podium sweep in ice dance

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States compete during the figure skating ice dance team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

MILAN — Marie-France Dubreuil compares it to choosing a favourite child when she weighs the prospects of the skaters she’s prepared to compete at the Olympics.

The decorated coach’s powerhouse Ice Academy of Montreal boasts 13 of the 23 ice dance teams at the Milan Cortina Games — including the co-favourites to top the podium.

But only one can leave with gold medals around their necks.

“It's hard!” Dubreuil said. “We know if everybody does well, it will be tight and it will be a matter of what flavour you prefer on that day.

“It's a heartbreak.”

Still, having so many talented teams in contention is a good problem, she says, because Dubreuil lives by a mantra of “doing stuff that hasn’t been done.”

So while Canada is unlikely to sweep the Olympic ice dance podium, this Montreal-based powerhouse just might.

Dubreuil and her husband Patrice Lauzon formed the academy in 2010, with former French skater Roman Haguenauer later joining them in Montreal. Two-time world silver medallists for Canada had retired from competition in 2007 and were puzzled by the lack of elite training centres in a country filled with skating rinks.

The school rebranded in 2014 and eventually became the Ice Academy of Montreal — or I.AM — and has since blossomed into a dominant force in the sport, attracting teams from across the globe.

Canadian sweethearts Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir joined the academy in 2016 — after training in Michigan earlier in their careers — before memorably capturing Olympic gold at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.

"They have to be considered the best school in the world,” said Moir, who now oversees the school’s London, Ont., campus. “In 2014, when we were really low, didn't really have trust in our coaching staff, Patrice just made his presence known. We started to feel some of this love from him … just the coaching through care and through the well-being of an athlete.”

Added Virtue, “What struck us was how positive a high-performing culture could feel.”

At Beijing 2022, another pair of students — France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron — topped the podium.

In Milan, I.AM goes for a three-peat, with reigning world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States looking to hold off the newly formed duo of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron.

And Dubreuil has her sights set even higher as individual competition begins Monday with the rhythm dance.

“We also would like to be the first (academy) to have a full podium at the Olympics,” she said in a phone interview before the Games. “I feel it's totally possible this time around. I feel very confident.”

Canadian skaters Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, who do not train at I.AM, joined Chock/Bates and Fournier Beaudry/Cizeron on Netflix’s “Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing” docuseries as another presumed podium contender.

But scores this season have favoured Great Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, another I.AM team, and Gilles has openly voiced her disappointment in the judging.

Fans on figure skating forums have also frequently suggested that at least some of I.AM’s dominance — the academy held the top three positions after the team-event rhythm dance in Milan — is the result of a cosy relationship with the judges.

Dubreuil says that notion undermines the hours they dedicate to attending events, learning from judges on ways to improve and implementing their feedback.

"We're not politicking as much as we are strategizing for every team that we have,” Dubreuil said. “Trying to just shine a light on what they do well and hide what they don't do so well in the choreography.

“(We) go to meetings, take in the notes, put in the work.”

Lauzon, meanwhile, says suggestions that the academy receives preferential treatment stem from a misunderstanding of how ice dance is judged.

“Our sport has always dealt with controversy of judging,” he said. “Even my skater will come out after a competition and look at a score sheet and say, 'Oh I didn't get a nice score because that judge is from that country, that judge doesn't like me'

“Once you start analyzing it, you understand the scores, and I actually find it quite easy to understand. I think that's why we've been successful, we're very good at that part of the job.”

Dubreuil is representing Canada in Milan, but can often be seen giving hugs and words of encouragement to Chock and Bates in the bowels of Milano Ice Skating Arena. Lauzon, meanwhile, stands rinkside in an American jacket. And Haguenauer is typically side-by-side with France’s Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron.

Making sure skaters feel equally cared for, Lauzon says, is the easy part of the job compared to building a meticulous, colour-coded daily schedule so the entire operation runs smoothly.

He also points out that the I.AM system works because figure skaters don’t physically go head-to-head on the ice.

“I'm not sure this would be doable in a sport like tennis or a team sport where you have to beat another team,” Lauzon said. “They have to beat themselves.”

The academy takes pride in its holistic approach, which many skaters have praised. But in her recent memoir, which recalls a troubling and "controlling" relationship with Cizeron, Papadakis describes a less rosy picture of her time training at the academy.

“It makes me really sad that through her filter, that's what she saw,” Dubreuil said. “But I cannot change her perspective in her filter. But it did make me really sad.”

Gilles and Poirier, meanwhile, say their smaller setup out of the Scarboro Figure Skating Club in Toronto works for them, with close-knit relationships with coaches Carol Lane, Juris Razgulajevs and Jon Lane.

“It's just a family,” said Gilles, who moved to Toronto from Colorado in 2011. “Right away when I moved to Canada, I felt it was such a unique environment. There was no drama, no nothing. I came here and I was like, 'What is happening?'”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 8, 2026.

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press