The State of Canadian Ice Dancing- Orford and Hill Retiring

Nicole Orford and Asher Hill released a statement this week announcing they are retiring. After skating together only one year, they placed in the top 5 at Canadian nationals, which should have guaranteed them a spot on the Canadian national team.

However, they were not named to the national team. The National team was announced on June 13, and Orford and Hill were excluded from the list. A few days later, on June 16, Orford and Hill announced on their social media pages that they were retiring.

The question then becomes, which came first? Did Orford and Hill decide to retire, and therefore not get put on the national team, or were they not put on the team, and then decided to retire because of the lost funding and opportunity.

They should have been given the funding, so I think it's most likely they decided to retire first (though if that's not the case, there's something fishy going on at Skate Canada). If they chose to retire, my suspicion is that they decided to leave because Virtue and Moir are returning to ice dance, meaning Orford and Hill stand essentially no chance of getting a slot at Worlds, potentially not even a spot at 4 Continents.

However, I would guess there's a good chance at least some of the top Canadian ice dance teams will retire after the next Olympics, which is only 2 years away. After those 2 years, if Orford and Hill stay on the trajectory they were on this season, they would have almost certainly stood a chance at becoming the top Canadian ice dance team.

It's always a little disappointing when skaters with potential retire before their careers really have the opportunity to get off the ground.