Howes tops at novice championships International debut at Coupe de Printemps in Belgium next stop for Winnipeg figure skater By: Laurie Nealin Posted: 4:42 PM CST Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023

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This article was published 21/02/2023 (952 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The broad smile never left Winnipeg figure skater Davey Howes’ face after he climbed atop the podium Monday night in Calgary as the incontrovertible men’s winner of the Novice Canadian Championships.

The 16-year-old athlete’s fantastic gold-medal weekend was capped off Tuesday with word he’d been named to the Canadian team that will compete in Europe in mid-March.

The Coupe de Printemps in Luxembourg will mark Howes’ international debut and his graduation to the junior level of competition.

“It was a really exciting experience,” Howes said early Tuesday morning from the Calgary International Airport.

“Going into the year, I wanted to make a lot of improvements and I feel this weekend I really got to show off the improvements and all the hard work.”

The novice championships featured 65 of the best novice-level singles skaters, pairs and ice dancers from across Canada. Howes was the lone Manitoban competing.

The Kelvin High School student opened his winning campaign on Sunday at WinSport Arena with a picture-perfect short program that gave him an astounding 13-point lead over his nearest challenger.

The announcers on the livestream broadcast heaped praise on Howe’s performance set to Telephone Line and Hello, Hello, while the commentator on the French-language stream summed up his thoughts in one word: “Wow.”

“That’s probably the proudest skate I’ve had this year. I was really able to show everything I worked on,” said Howes.

Twenty-four hours later, he delivered another top-ranked — yet less sure-footed — free skate to secure the title, 15 points clear of the rest of the 13-man field.

Howes tallied 148.52 in all, just three points shy of the Canadian novice record. Joining him on the podium were Vladimir Furman and Liam Schmidt, both from Quebec, who posted 133.35 and 132.45 points, respectively.

Coming into the championships, Howes’ goal was to show improvement from the qualifier he won last month in Regina. He paid particular attention to his spins.

That paid off handsomely with all five spins judged to be at the highest level of difficulty and of excellent quality.

Howes’ final performance Monday included four triple-jumps and two double-Axels. Some landings were shaky, but the only glaring error was a fall on a triple-flip.

“With the long, I was definitely a bit nervous with the expectations – not only being first at (the qualifier) – but also with a bit of a lead after the short. I decided I wanted to attack, to fight if there’s errors, to just enjoy skating at the national level against the other great competitors,” said Howes, who bettered his previous total score by 18 points.

On the strength of his skating skills and performance quality, Howes again outdistanced his rivals on the program components side of the equation.

His coach, Kevin Dawe, noted a healthy second mark is a must for measuring up in international competition.

“Davey has all the right tools, the right mindset to be successful, not only in figure skating but also in life,” Dawe said. “He works hard. He’s dedicated to the sport. He wants to improve.”

Howes plans to resume training before the weekend with the European event just three weeks off.