Figure skating news

Skate America 2024 returns to Dallas area, home of U.S. champ Amber Glenn

Amber Glenn, figure skating, Skate America

Plano native Amber Glenn is the reining U.S. women's champion.

Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

For the second straight year, some of the world's top figure skaters and ice dancers will kick off their season in Allen, at Skate America. And it could be an even hotter ticket than it was in 2023 if Plano native and reigning U.S. women's champion Amber Glenn is in the lineup.

The first event in the six-stop ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series, Skate America 2024 will take place at Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, October 18-20. The event will encompass women's and men's singles, pairs, and ice dancing competitions. Contestants will include past Olympic medalists, as well as up-and-comers in the mix for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortino, Italy.

While the Skate America competitors typically aren't announced until mid-summer, it's hard to imagine Glenn won't be a headliner.

The 24-year-old skater, who grew up in Dallas-Fort Worth and has trained in McKinney, Frisco, and Euless, thrilled a home crowd inside the Allen arena at Skate America 2023 when she landed a triple Axel successfully for the first time. She became just the fourth American woman to land the notoriously difficult jump in international competition.

While Glenn didn't medal at Skate America, she went on to win the 2024 U.S. Championships a few months later.

Other big American headliners for Skate America could be recently crowned world champs Ilia Malinin (aka "Quad God"), ice dance world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates, and world silver medalist Isabeau Levito. All competed at 2023 Skate America.

figure skating, Ilia Malinin Will Ilia Malinin and his signature Quad Axel come to Skate America 2024? Facebook/ISU

More big events in the U.S.
U.S. Figure Skating unveiled its calendar of domestically held international events Tuesday, April 23.

The pinnacle event of the season, 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships, will take place in Wichita, Kansas, January 20-26, 2025, in what should amount to a preview of the names to watch for the American team headed to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina, Italy.

The U.S. also will host the 2025 World Championships from March 23-30 at TD Garden in Boston. The full U.S. qualifying season and domestically held international events calendar can be found here.

U.S. figure skaters topped the medal table with two golds and a bronze at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and they could do even better at the next Winter Games. Malinin recently won his first world title with a record-setting free skate, Chock and Bates won a second straight ice dance gold, and Levito took a historic silver in the women’s event.

“U.S. Figure Skating is very excited about each of our top-tier events, both at the national and international stages, for the 2024-25 season,” U.S. Figure Skating chief executive Tracy Marek says in a release. “These events span our nation to provide amazing opportunities for skaters at all levels — from our juveniles to adults — as well as our fans and the skating community."

According to the release, tickets for 2024 Skate America and the 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships will go on sale on the following dates:

Skate America:

Thursday, June 6: All-session tickets
Thursday, Aug. 1: Single-session tickets

U.S. Championships:

Thursday, May 16: All-session tickets and hotel packages
Thursday, July 11: Weekend tickets
Thursday, Sept. 19: Championship single-session tickets
Thursday, Dec. 5: Junior single-session tickets

Skate America typically is streamed on Peacock, with highlights broadcast on NBC.

amber glenn celebrities figure skaters ice dancers isu grand prix skate america sports

Movie Review

The Magic Faraway Tree is a whimsical family lark that fails to take root

Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment

Andrew Garfield, Delilah Bennett-Cardy, Claire Foy, Phoenix Laroche, and Billie Gadson in The Magic Faraway Tree.

With kids and families always on the hunt for entertainment, it’s typically a safe bet for a movie studio to offer up something new, even if it is a film based on an old property. The Magic Faraway Tree, based on a series of books that started in the 1930s, is a very old property, one that its filmmakers have tried to liven up with a few stars, a lot of whimsy, and a boatload of CGI.

The Thompson family, led by stay-at-home dad Tim (Andrew Garfield) and breadwinner mom Polly (Claire Foy), are forced to move to a rundown country home when Polly gets laid off. The kids - Joe (Phoenix Laroche), Fran (Billie Gadson), and Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy) - are used to the perks of city life like wifi and electricity, and each of them rebels in their own way to their new lot in life.

Fran, enticed by a fairy named Silky (Nicola Coughlan), is the first to venture out of the house, making her way to a magic tree that transports her to a world full of strange characters like Moonface (Nonso Anozie), Saucepan Man (Dustin Demri-Burns), Dame Washalot (Jessica Gunning), and more. Her adventures there not only broaden the world she thought she knew, but may be the key to helping her ailing family.

Directed by Ben Gregor and written by Simon Farnaby (Paddington 2, Wonka), the film is a pleasant enough lark, but it fails to fully capture the imagination. The five-member family has a lot going on, from an initially-mute Fran to a domestic situation that raises more questions than it answers. The film tries to incorporate an anti-technology message through Tim’s hatred of a smart refrigerator (voiced by Judi Dench!) and the kids' addictions to devices, but it’s quickly shed in favor of other options.

Once Fran makes it to the Magic Faraway Tree, there’s a nice shift in the storytelling, but it’s unclear what the ultimate goal is. It’s a good idea to have Fran, the youngest of the children, convince her older, more cynical siblings about the virtues of the magic world, but the conflict in the real world doesn’t seem to rise to the level needed for the escape the tree provides.

There also seems to be a missing link in the storytelling for viewers to understand the importance of the fantastical characters. The visuals of seeing Moonface and his crescent moon-shaped hair, a man with a suit full of banging pots, and more are fun for a while, but not enough to carry the whole film. A last-minute revelation feels like it was something that should have been disclosed much earlier to help strengthen the emotions of the story.

A two-time Oscar nominee, Garfield is making his first foray into family movies (if you don’t count playing Spider-Man), and while he does a good job, he doesn’t make the best fit for the semi-goofy role. The same goes for the Emmy-winning Foy, who isn’t given much of anything to do. The movie puts the story on the shoulders of the three child actors, and while each of them acquit themselves well, none of them are so outstanding as to be noteworthy.

With nearly 90-year-old source material, The Magic Faraway Tree needed to be something truly special to stand out in the 21st century movie world. Unfortunately, it features a mostly forgettable story that features some fun visuals, a couple of cute kids, and not much else.

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The Magic Faraway Tree is now playing in theaters.

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