{"id":25412,"date":"2020-03-24T21:43:50","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T01:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/?page_id=25412"},"modified":"2026-03-24T20:42:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T00:42:34","slug":"team-idc","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/about-idc\/team-idc\/","title":{"rendered":"Team IDC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Ice-dance.com would not be possible without the volunteer staff who work tirelessly behind the scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Daphne<\/span> Backman<\/span><\/div>
Owner & Editor-in-Chief<\/div>

Since co-founding ice-dance.com (IDC) in 1999, Daphne has spent the last 20+ years focusing the spotlight on all things ice dance and overseeing the growth of the website. In addition to taking care of the day-to-day updates, she coordinates IDC\u2019s coverage of 30+ events highlighted by the year\u2019s banner event\u2014the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships (not surprisingly, her favorite skating event).

Daphne\u2019s web design portfolio includes sites for athletes from the U.S., Canada, and all over the world.\u00a0 In addition, Daphne has volunteered her time and design expertise at Figure Skaters Online. As a journalist and photographer, she has been published in SKATING Magazine and International Figure Skating, as well as on USFigureSkating.org, IceNetwork.com and Netflix.<\/p>\r\n

In May 2022, Daphne and Gina (from Figure Skaters Online) started the podcast This Week in Skating that features weekly news and event results as well as interviews with athletes, coaches and other figure skating personalities.

Daphne lives in southern Maine with her fiance Chris, cats (Chloe, Freya, Cassidy and Dante) and ferret (Darby).<\/p><\/div>

\"Instagram\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"Website\"<\/a>\"Email\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Melanie<\/span> Heaney<\/span><\/div>
Assistant Administrator & Managing Editor<\/div>
Matteo\u2019s passion for figure skating started in 2006 when he followed the Olympic Games in Turin on television, starting to cheer for Italy\u2019s Carolina Kostner and discovering a lot more about this discipline that he immediately fell in love with. He attends competitions in Europe whenever he has a chance, with the dream of being able to go to the Winter Olympic Games one day.\u00a0<\/div>\r\n
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Born in Italy, Matteo moved to Great Britain and has been calling London his home for a almost a third of his life. He proudly works in healthcare management for the national healthcare service, and in his free time he enjoys exercising, going to classical music concerts and theatre plays, and of course following the figure skating! He has been a journalist for\u00a0ice-dance.com<\/a> for some years, writing previews and recaps of events and interviewing ice dancers and their teams. In 2023, he joined the This Week in Skating podcast as a co-host with Daphne and Gina Capellazzi (from Figure Skaters Online).<\/div><\/div>
\"Instagram\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"Website\"<\/a>\"Email\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/span>
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Anne<\/span> Calder<\/span><\/div>
Journalist<\/div>

Anne first learned to skate on the Charles River in Cambridge, MA.\u00a0 After graduating from Boston College, she taught high school English in California, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. She went to her first U.S. Nationals in 1991 in Minneapolis and has continued to attend events in the US, Canada, and Europe. She wrote for Skate Today for two years prior to joining the IDC staff in 2015.

Anne currently resides in Chandler, AZ with her two cats Katarina and Tatiana.<\/p><\/div>

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Matteo<\/span> Morelli<\/span><\/div>
Journalist<\/div>
Matteo\u2019s passion for figure skating started in 2006 when he followed the Olympic Games in Turin on television, starting to cheer for Italy\u2019s Carolina Kostner and discovering a lot more about this discipline that he immediately fell in love with. He attends competitions in Europe whenever he has a chance, with the dream of being able to go to the Winter Olympic Games one day.\u00a0<\/div>\r\n
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Born in Italy, Matteo moved to Great Britain and has been calling London his home for a almost a third of his life. He proudly works in healthcare management for the national healthcare service, and in his free time he enjoys exercising, going to classical music concerts and theatre plays, and of course following the figure skating! He has been a journalist for\u00a0ice-dance.com<\/a> for some years, writing previews and recaps of events and interviewing ice dancers and their teams. In 2023, he joined the This Week in Skating podcast as a co-host with Daphne and Gina Capellazzi (from Figure Skaters Online).<\/div><\/div>
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Morgan Matthews<\/span> Pennington<\/span><\/div>
Journalist<\/div>
Morgan's passion for figure\u00a0skating began\u00a0when her grandmother took her to see the local production of The Nutcracker On Ice in Evanston, Illinois. She fell in love with the spins, spirals, and sparkly costumes. She wanted to become an ice princess just like the Sugarplum\u00a0Fairy in the production. She first stepped on the ice at the age of five and it was off to the races from there. Morgan went on to capture medals at several national and international championships in ice dance, including gold at the 2005 World Junior Championships and silver at the 2006 ISU Four Four Continents Championship. Morgan hung up her skates in 2010 due to several health issues, and in order to pursue her education. She earned a BA in Economics from Wellesley College in 2016. Morgan is now a full time mom and enjoys writing, cooking, gardening, listening to audiobooks and caring for her chickens.\u00a0<\/div><\/div>
\"Website\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Brooke<\/span> Tufts<\/span><\/div>
Solo Dance Correspondent<\/div>

Brooke Tufts started skating at age 3 when her family took her skating and she didn't want to leave the ice. She started solo dance when she was 14 and hasn't looked back.<\/p>\r\n

At the 2023 U.S. National Solo Dance Final, Brooke conducted interviews with the event medalists on behalf of ice-dance.com, all while preparing to compete in the senior combined event. She is the 2021 and 2023 U.S. Solo Dance Champion.<\/p>\r\n

Brooke finished first at the 2024 Helsinki Solo Ice Dance International, one of the first ISU-designated international solo dance competitions.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>

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Robin<\/span> Ritoss<\/span><\/div>
Photographer<\/div>

Robin has been covering figure skating since 2005. She has regularly provided event reports and photos for Skatetoday.com since 2006. She joined the staff of\u00a0ice-dance.com\u00a0after getting sucked into the IDC photography vortex at the 2009 Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships. Robin\u2019s work has been published in the International Herald Tribune, multiple skating magazines, and around the Internet.

Currently residing in California, Robin has racked up more miles on airplanes than in her 1990 Acura Integra. She covered 20 international events during the 2014-2015 skating season alone and has no plans of slowing down now. Her favorite event was the 2005 Grand Prix Final where she got to work with Tatiana Flade as part of the ISU media team and tour her favorite city of Tokyo.<\/p><\/div>

\"Instagram\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"Twitter\"<\/a>\"Website\"<\/a>\"Email\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Danielle <\/span> Earl<\/span><\/div>
Photographer<\/div>

Danielle started her sports photography journey in 2008.\u00a0 In early 2012, she started Danielle Earl Photography and by August 2012 things were taking off - all while she was under the age of 20.

Since then, she has photographed many domestic events in Canada, including Canadian National Championships. In late January 2022, Danielle traveled to Beijing, China to photograph her second Winter Olympic Games.\u00a0\u00a0

In addition to figure skating, Danielle also enjoys photographing dance, gymnastics, cheerleading, swimming and equestrian sports.\u00a0 Her goal is to create picture perfect memories.\u00a0\u00a0

Danielle currently resides in Waterloo, Ontario.<\/p><\/div>

\"Instagram\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"Twitter\"<\/a>\"Website\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/span>
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Harumi<\/span> Akabane<\/span><\/div>
Photographer<\/div>

At the Junior Grand Prix in\u00a0 Colorado Springs 2015, Harumi sat in the arena as an ice dancing fan and a beginner photographer near the media photographers to steal a secret of action photography.\u00a0 Those photographers were Daphne and Robin. With this event as a start, Harumi joined the staff of ice-dance.com<\/a>.\u00a0 As a Japanese member, it was a big pleasure for Harumi to share photos from Japanese national events starting in 2019.

Harumi\u2019s other passions are Dancesport and para Dancesport, bird watching and photographing, and exposing to art.

Currently residing in Sapporo, Harumi has moved sixteen times and lived in several cities across Japan, including Fukuoka, Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Sendai.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>

\"Instagram\"<\/a>\"Website\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/span>
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Yoriko<\/span> Suzuki<\/span><\/div>
Photographer<\/div>

Yoriko was born in a small town in Aichi, Japan. That area has long produced famous figure skaters, and she grew up being exposed to and watching figure skating.<\/p>\r\n

In 2019, she started watching many European competitions, purchased a Sony Alpha camera and started photography in full swing.<\/p>\r\n

As she toured competitions, she discovered the fun of ice dancing and now lives in Tokyo while traveling to many European competitions to take photos.<\/p>\r\n

She loves to fly and never feels the distress of a 15-hour flight.<\/p><\/div>

\"Instagram\"<\/a>\"Twitter\"<\/a>\"Email\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/span>
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Aoran<\/span> Liu<\/span><\/div>
Photographer<\/div>

Aoran watched her first live figure skating competition at the 2004 Grand Prix Final in Beijing, China, and has loved the sport ever since.<\/p>\r\n

She began my journey in figure skating photography in 2017 when she had the opportunity to be the photographer at the 2017 Four Continents. Since then, she has tried to squeeze time from her crazy working hours as an analyst to cover both the domestic and international events. She was impressed by the atmosphere of the big events, such as the Worlds in Japan and also enjoys watching young skaters grow in the local Chinese competitions. Her proudest achievement is that two of her photos at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics were featured in Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir\u2018s biography.<\/p>\r\n

Besides figure skating, she also photographs ballet. She also enjoys musicals and plays.<\/p><\/div>

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Julia<\/span> Komarova<\/span><\/div>
Photographer<\/div>

Julia started covering figure skating in 2007 and started photographing a year later. Julia loves the world and traveling and normally attends 10 events during the season. Her favorite events are Worlds, Russian Nationals and especially Nebelhorn Trophy, which is held in beautiful Obertsdorf.

For Julia, all competitions are enjoyable, whether it\u2019s an adult event, junior, a B competition or a small Russian event. Her photographs have been published in Figure Skating (Russia) magazine and on skater\u2019s websites. In addition to figure skating, she also enjoys attending and photographing tennis and track and field events.

Julia was born and still lives in her home city of Moscow, Russia.<\/p><\/div>

\"Facebook<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/span><\/div><\/span>
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Abril<\/span> Ventura<\/span><\/div>
Journalist & Photo Editor<\/div>
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Born and raised in a small town in Mexico, Abril discovered there was such thing as a Winter Olympics in the year 2018, and decided to watch the figure skating event as it was one of the two winter sports she\u2019d heard of before. She was immediately smitten with the sport, appreciating, as a former gymnast, the impressive combination of art and athleticism.

Abril now studies communications and audio visual arts at university, and enjoys taking and editing photographs, especially if they involve figure skating. She hopes to learn how to skate soon.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>

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Cat<\/span> <\/div>
Profile Manager<\/div>

Cat fell in love with figure skating when she was eight years old, watching Katarina Witt at the 1988 Olympics. Her love of figure skating waxed and waned over time, but was reignited with a fervour watching the Vancouver Olympics from her adopted home in Canada. Although she attends competitions when she can, Cat mostly survives on grainy livestreams and updates from sites like this one.

Originally from the U.S., Cat now lives in Ottawa, Ontario with her partners, her dog, and a cat named Dreadful.<\/p><\/div>

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Photographers<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Jordan Cowan
Se\u00e1n Gillis & Hiro Yoshida from Europe on Ice<\/a>
Naomi Jiang
Katie Pettet
Irina Tsimfer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional Journalists<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Maria Bagdasarova
Alina Ponomaryova
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SPECIAL THANKS TO THOSE WHO HAVE HELPED ALONG THE WAY<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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<\/meta>Mombo #9
Emma Abraham
Jay Adeff
Andriana Andreev
Brett Barden
Bash Beard
Alex Benoit
Jamie Blanchard
Sherry Bosley
Tanja Brand
Nick Buckland
Isabella Cannuscio
Elisabeth Carlson
Christina Carreira
Stefano Caruso
Bob Cepican
Liz Chastney
Penny Coomes
Katie-Katherine Copely
Joi Cowan
Phil Culhane
Monica Cusick
Ashley Deavers
Dianna Deavers
<\/meta>Ryan Devereaux
Damian Dodge
Ashley Duenas
Charissa Ebersole
Dee Eggert
Francesca
Karen Frank
Marni Gallagher<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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<\/meta><\/meta>Barry Gropman
Jonathan Guerrero
Lindsay Higgins
Sherrie Hiner
Payten Howland
Marie Hughes
Frederike Hylla
Joe Johnson
Susanne Kempf
Daniel Klaber
Tanja Kolbe
Anna Kondakova
Adrienne Koob Doddy
Lynn Kriengkrairut
Brenda Lauton
Kevin Leahy
Perry Levine
Chloe Lewis
Howard Mager
Kerstin Maier
Karina Manta
Denise Manzagol
Kate Manzagol
Elyse Matsumoto
Charlotte Maxwell
Casey McManus
Colin McManus
Jim McManus
Tammi McManus
Ashli Meynert
J. Barry Mittan
<\/meta>Holly Moore<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Avonley Nguyen
Ben Nykiel
Amy Page
Michele Peltier
Elliana Pogrebinsky
Natasha Ponarina
Adelaide Ponte Usdin
Wendy Ponte
Cathy Reed
Amy Salamey
Alexandra Sherman
Alex Shibutani
Maia Shibutani
Isabel Silva
Vicky Smith
Adam Stein
Jacquelyn Thayer
Paul Tortland
Jayar Walker
Wendilee Walpole
Sonja Wendl
Jennifer Wester
Michelle Wojdyla
Jean Wyble
Katie Wyble
Nikki Yorgiadis
K. Yuda
Cara Zanella<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A final thanks to those who have visited: the fans, athletes, parents, coaches and officials! Thank you for letting us know of the \u201cgremlins\u201d that need to be fixed within the web site, as well as suggestions you have for new ideas and content. As all skaters know, feedback is crucial, because it makes us improve. When we are buried in photos and html, getting those little notes that say, \u201cthanks, we\u2019re enjoying your site and keep up the good work!\u201d mean so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ice-dance.com would not be possible without the volunteer staff who work tirelessly behind the scenes. Photographers Jordan CowanSe\u00e1n Gillis & Hiro Yoshida from Europe on IceNaomi JiangKatie PettetIrina Tsimfer Additional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":55,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_gspb_post_css":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-25412","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blocksy_meta":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"et-pb-post-main-image":false,"et-pb-post-main-image-fullwidth":false,"et-pb-portfolio-image":false,"et-pb-portfolio-module-image":false,"et-pb-portfolio-image-single":false,"et-pb-gallery-module-image-portrait":false,"rpwe-thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Team IDC","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/author\/idcadmin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Ice-dance.com would not be possible without the volunteer staff who work tirelessly behind the scenes. Photographers Jordan CowanSe\u00e1n Gillis & Hiro Yoshida from Europe on IceNaomi JiangKatie PettetIrina Tsimfer Additional […]","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7GOSM-6BS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25412"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42915,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25412\/revisions\/42915"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}