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

Safe cracking is a snap for White Lotus alum Leo Woodall in Tuner

Photo courtesy of Black Bear

Leo Woodall in Tuner.

Of all the ways that movies depict people trying to steal money and other valuables, safe cracking is among the least exciting. By design, it’s a laborious process that only those with a very certain set of skills can do. While clever editing and the right music can enhance scenes of safes being cracked, there’s a reason that the method is among the least used in heist films.

In the new film Tuner, Niki (Leo Woodall) has a job and a condition that just happens to lend itself well to committing that specific crime. He works as an apprentice piano tuner for Harry (Dustin Hoffman), usually doing the hard work while Harry schmoozes the client. Niki is well-suited for the job because he has a rare condition called hyperacusis, which makes him both sensitive to loud noises and able to hear subtle things that others cannot.

When he runs across a trio of criminals trying to break open a safe at a house where he’s tuning a piano, he helps them more out of frustration than avarice. But when Harry goes into the hospital and racks up huge bills, Niki decides to join the group to make some quick money. They soon want more than he’s willing to give, and he must find a way to extricate himself from them without losing himself completely.

Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher (making his narrative feature debut) and co-written by Robert Ramsey, the film has a nice pace to it despite there being relatively little action. Roher and Ramsey spend the first third or so establishing Niki, Harry, and Harry’s wife Marla (Tovah Feldshuh) as characters, letting the audience understand their relationships and how they interact with each other.

The time they devote to the personal storytelling pays dividends when Niki starts to descend into crime, as his divided loyalties - not to mention the danger of the thefts - insert tension into the plot. That stress is heightened even more when Niki starts a relationship with piano student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), as getting closer to her necessitates a series of lies.

There comes a point, though, where the plot stagnates to a degree. Niki’s end goal, if he has one, is never clear, and it’s obvious that it’s only a matter of time before things start to fall apart. After starting strong in their character development, Roher and Ramsey take shortcuts as the film rushes toward its conclusion. This is most notable in a weird argument scene between Niki and Ruthie that comes out of nowhere and seems to serve no purpose in the story.

Woodall, who had a memorable turn in season 2 of The White Lotus, is on the cusp of breaking out, and this understated-but-compelling lead role should help him become an even bigger name in Hollywood. Hoffman has a small role, but he remains as interesting as ever despite the lack of screentime. Liu (Bottoms) is also an up-and-coming actor who should become a star with more roles like this one.

Tuner is a low-key thriller that succeeds because of the way the filmmakers approach the under-used method of robbery. Even if it doesn’t quite reach its potential, the film maintains a high quality throughout thanks to its storytelling and acting.

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Tuner is now playing in theaters.

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