EVERETT — The world of international figure skating will focus on Everett in one month as the International Skating Union Grand Prix tour arrives at Angel of the Winds Arena Nov. 13-15 for the fourth of six events spanning from Europe, North America and Asia to determine the 2026 grand prix champion.
The tour’s only U.S. event is called Skate America and this will be the third time Everett has hosted the elite, Olympic-level, international competition.
Skate America in Everett will be headlined by U.S. men’s skater Ilia Malinin, known as the “Quad God” who became the first skater to land a quadruple Axel, which has helped him maximize degree of difficulty for competition scoring and literally elevated the complexity of the sport. Malinin’s skyrocketing career has been a constant part of the men’s competition news coverage.
After his unexpected eighth-place finish at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Ilia Malinin achieved a major career redemption by winning his third consecutive world title in March at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechia. In the free skate program, Malinin landed five quad jumps, winning the gold medal for the third straight year.
Jason Brown, 2014 Olympic bronze medalist for the U.S., will also compete against Malinin at Skate America in Everett. Brown, an Olympic skating veteran, knows the pain and disappointment of Malinin’s Olympic set-back. Brown spoke to the EverettPost.com about the emerging focus on mental health for athletes—especially in individual sports like figure skating.
“Throughout the years, mental health plays such a role and is constantly changing in the way of dealing with pressure and anxiety, and that kind of ebbs and flows,” Brown says about the unrelenting spotlight associated with competitive skating. “I always think as soon as I feel like I get a handle on it, another curveball gets thrown my way, or I experience something that knocks me off my feet literally and figuratively,” Brown confides, “and I have to learn how to deal with it. But I think what’s really cool and special, is that sports allow us to deal with these real feelings. I think the lessons that I’ve learned within the sport have served me and will continue to serve me outside of the sport tenfold.”
Brown, 31, was a U.S. Junior champion in 2015. “Mental health is so unbelievably important, and I think for me, I was really fortunate that my coach and parents really recognized that from a young age. So, I’ve worked with the sports psychologist basically once a week since I was 10 years old.”
Calling himself “lucky” to be “a forerunner” in that mental health awareness, Brown tells the EverettPost.com, “It was always just an integral part of my training, and I think for me growing up, it was never looked at as a weakness or a necessity in any negative way. It was just like, if you want to be an athlete and you want to do this, you have your strength coach and you have your off-ice coach and choreographer, and your ice technical coach. You also have your sports psychology, and so that’s just another component.”
Ask Brown about his path to a figure skating career and it immediately turns into a megawatt smile and his older sister’s invitation to go to a kindergarten friend’s birthday party at an ice skating rink where they grew up in suburban Chicago. Brown says his parents decided it might be wise to send his sister, Jordan, to a figure skating lesson before the actual birthday party since she had never skated before. “And so my parents basically just put her into lessons just so she would know how to skate for this party because they felt like, oh my God, we’d be awful parents if we let her go off to a skating party, never being on the ice.” Of that parental decision, Brown beams, “those lessons led to the annual local ice show. And so, then my parents brought me along to see my sister in the ice show.” Brown says he loved the vibe and it drew him to skating.
As a kid, the two-time Olympian, enjoyed sports like cross-country, baseball, soccer and gymnastics. “I just really loved being athletic, but then simultaneously, skating specifically allowed me to express myself in an artistic way as well. Being able to blend those two and create these programs and tell these stories on the ice while simultaneously setting athletic goals that I had and being able to push myself physically were things that just skating allowed me to do that. No other sport did the same way,” he pledges.
“Every day was coming in and setting new goals and trying to better myself in in all those regards. That’s really how it started. I was drawn in from watching my sister in the performance, watching the other kids out there on the ice– skating to music–and that love has carried me through still to this day.”
Brown’s growth as a skater coincided with his maturity and personal confidence. “When I was younger, it was basically my choreographer and my coach would get together, and they would say this is what we want you to do this year.”
At that younger age, Brown shares, “And I’d say, ‘okay.’ I wouldn’t generally push back. I would just be like, ‘I trust you, okay.’ And as a kid, they would really design the costumes or give their feedback and what they wanted. They would choreograph the program. They would give the input on the style that we were gonna do.”
Brown gradually took ownership of his career with the confidence to put his own stamp on his performances. “And then, as I got older, slowly I would start bringing things to the table. I feel like this is the style I really want to try. Or, I just heard this piece of music. Can we explore this? And so then it became a little bit more and more of a collaboration which has been cool.”
Brown willingly shares his emotions about his skating career because he feels you need to convey your performance to the fans. “Sometimes,” he says a competition program will, “go based on, I had a really tough year the year before, and so I just want to like express myself in the program of how I felt or in a way of it’s almost sometimes programs for me can be really therapeutic, so it’s a way of telling a story.”
Adding that personal connection to his skating performance, Brown says “100 percent” is how he communicates himself to the crowd and the fans. “And I think what’s so cool now, too, is I’ve had a career in the sport that has lasted decades, and I think what’s really special, too, is that the audience and the skating fans that have kind of been on this journey with me from the beginning or midway through, or just getting introduced to me now, they’ve kind of seen every program that I’ve had has had some type of story, so they’ve really been on this journey with me–seeing the ups and downs, seeing the good and bad. And I think that’s also really cool and special about our sport is that from our skating that the audience really gets to know us in a different way, and kind of we leave our hearts out there.”
The ISU Grand Prix starts Oct. 23 in Angers, France then goes to Kelowna, British Columbia on Oct. 30, and to Shenzen, China on Nov. 6th before returning stateside on Nov. 13 in Everett for the Skate America event.
The fifth stop on the fall tour is Nov. 20 in Helsinki, Finland, followed by the final competition Nov. 27 in Tokyo, Japan. The top qualifying skaters advance to the ISU Figure Skating Grand Prix Final December 10-13, Chongqing, China.
In Everett, Malinin and Brown will be joined in their respective competitions by some of the top female skaters including three American women, Amber Glenn, Sophie Joline von Felten, and Logan Higase-Chen. Glenn is currently 3rd place in the women’s standings. Defending Olympic gold medalist, Alysa Liu leads in 1st place but is not scheduled for Skate America in Everett. https://isu-skating.com/en/figure-skating/world-standings/4090/
Fifth place in the women’s standings is Japan’s, Ami Nakai, known for strong triple-axel capabilities. She will perform in Everett along with another notable rising start, Yujae Kim, from South Korea, making her senior Grand Prix debut.
All four disciplines, Women’s single, Men’s single, Pairs and Ice Dance compete in each event of the series. Skaters can compete in a maximum of two events of the six scheduled competitions to gain qualification to the Grand Prix final in December. The skaters are limited to two of the six competitions to avoid injury from over-use in too many competitions during such a short time frame and allow time for recovery between competitions.
The top six in each discipline from the series qualify for the ISU Figure Skating Grand Prix Final. Each event features – if possible – an equal number of World/Olympic medalists within the overall four disciplines.
2026 Skate America – U.S. Figure Skating tickets are available at Angel of the Winds Arena’s website.
Here is the schedule for Skate America at Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett:
- Fri. Nov. 13 is session 1, starting at 7 p.m. featuring the Men’s Short Program and the Pairs Short Program.
- Sat. Nov. 14 is session 2, starting at 11:15 a.m. for the Rhythm Dance and Women’s Short Program. Session 3 on Nov. 14, starts at 7 p.m. for the Men’s Free Skate and Pairs Free Skate.
- Sun. Nov. 15 is session 4, starting at 11 a.m. for the Free Dance and Women’s Free Skate. All times listed are Pacific.
To see which skaters are actually scheduled to perform in Everett at Angel of the Winds Arena, the Pairs competitors are listed here.
Women’s competitors are listed here.
Men’s competitors are listed here.