By Elvin Walker
A year ago, Emily Chan and Spencer Howe were riding high as the 2023 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose, California, approached.
A stellar autumn season was rewarded with a trip to the Grand Prix Final, a first for the duo, where they finished in sixth place. A strong showing in Silicon Valley allowed Chan and Howe to ascend to the second spot on the podium and clinch their first trip to the World Championships last March.
Despite the somewhat meteoric rise to the top of the international pairs scene, Howe was struggling with a shoulder injury that limited the pair from training full out for most of the season. So, after a fifth-place finish at the World Championships in Saitama, Japan, Howe made it a top priority to seek out further medical care to get to the root of the pain.
“I had a labral tear in my right shoulder, and it was determined that I would need surgical intervention to get me to a place where I was able to train without pain,” Howe said. “The labrum basically keeps the shoulder joint in place and mine was ripped away from the bone about halfway.”
Howe would need to decide if he wanted to continue to push through the pain and delay the surgery or to take care of it before things progressed in the wrong direction. After discussion with Chan, Howe decided to go under the knife to repair the shoulder in mid-May.
“We decided to take care of that right now instead of waiting as we get closer into the Olympic season,” Chan explained. “We knew that it was a possibility that it could tear more or be irreparable later down the line, so this was the most responsible decision for Spencer’s long-term health.”
Following the surgery, Howe headed to the United States Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for rehabilitation, while Chan stayed behind in Boston and trained in anticipation of her partner’s return.
“Previously I was a singles skater, so I was used to skating by myself, but since then I have always skated with Spencer,” explained the 26-year-old. “I actually started to appreciate spending the time alone and reconnecting and grounding myself back into the sport. I worked quite a bit on my jumps, my technical skating skills and strengthening my body.”
Meanwhile, Howe was spending his days on the other side of the country with one thing in mind — returning to the ice.
“After my surgery, I spent about three months in Colorado Springs, where I was pretty isolated and focused on rehab. I think that that process kind of felt like my life was flipped upside down a little bit because I went from skating every day with Emily and coaching to a new routine that was basically my life while I was in Colorado,” he shared. “I basically stayed on campus and had a lot of free time between physical therapy, eating and just getting ready for the next day. That all kind of took me out of my comfort zone and was great time for me to kind of reflect on the things that I want to do.”
Although Howe’s recovery took a bit longer than the four to six-months that his medical team projected, Howe was able to return to Boston at the end of July.
“I had gotten on the ice a handful of times when I was in Colorado but never even more than I would say 15 minutes,” he said. “The first four weeks or so after the surgery I was in a sling, and it was pretty important that I didn't do anything too dangerous, so skating was out of the picture for a while.”
Once reunited, Chan and Howe had to take things slowly and focus on small, incremental progress. As the new season approached, the reigning U.S. silver medalists sat down with their coaches Aleksey Letov and Olga Ganicheva to discuss goals for the season.
“I felt just so much joy having him back and being able to do some type of pairs skating again. It really brought back that spark of excitement,” Chan said. “When we discussed the season with our coaches, we had to figure out what was really realistic. Given the timelines from doctors, we were really pushing just to try to make the last two Grand Prix events, but as the events got closer, we realized that the shoulder wasn’t responding the way that we wanted it to.”
Howe added, “We realized it was too much risk for the reward, so we decided to take a step back and respect my body. We want to be able to make the most of the season, but the most important thing is that we utilize this time to get healthy and strong so that we don’t jeopardize our future.”
After forgoing the Grand Prix season, Chan and Howe shifted their focus to prepare for their season’s debut at the 2024 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships this week in Columbus, Ohio. With World Champions Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier sitting out this season, Chan and Howe have become the heir apparent to the U.S. title. The duo is tempering their expectations, however, sharing that they are still under a modified and very calculated training plan to mitigate the risks of pushing too hard too soon.
“There is an awareness that we do have some pressure, but we’re really just putting ourselves first,” Howe stated. “The biggest limited factor that we have right now is the lift elements — it’s kind of the last piece of the puzzle as we phase into that full recovery, and we are just trying to safely train them as best as we can before the U.S. Championships. That’s kind of our limiting factor right now. With regards to the other elements, we are pretty much back to normal. I do have some limits and that is okay — it’s a matter of listening to my body and respecting what it can do at this point of my recovery.”
They will show up in Columbus with two new programs — a short program set to music from the soundtrack “Elvis” choreographed by former U.S. champion Benjamin Agosto and Katherine Hill, and a free skate to Muse’s “Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3,” choreographed by Ganicheva.
“The short program showcases a different side to our skating, and it’s something we connected to early on,” Chan said. “It’s kind of a cross between the classic Elvis that we all know with an updated modern sound from the movie. Our free is a lot more melodic and in a style that we are more familiar with.”
With three World Championships berths on the line, Chan and Howe are hoping to finish on the podium in Columbus and extend their abbreviated season on a high note.
“We’ve really tried to push the boundaries of the in-betweens and we are working hard to put those together with our technical elements so that we can really showcase two beautiful programs,” Howe said. “Our main goal is to be ready and prepared for the U.S. Championships, and then hopefully looking down the line by finishing the season with a berth on the World Championships team.
To see Chan and Howe skate in person, purchase tickets to the 2024 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships here.
