28. Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue USA
2017 Worlds short dance
It was a program that had many doing double-takes when it was announced. A journey through decades of music that includes MC Hammer and Salt-N-Pepa selections, plus Ice Ice Baby and Turn Down for What? Turn down for a potential hot mess.
But wow, Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue stuck to their instincts, took every piece of feedback they got to heart, and transformed this short dance into a fun, personality-driven, and technically intricate program that earned them a career-high third in the short at Worlds.
It's a program that grew on me during the entire season partly because of the superb and improved skating that Hubbell/Donohue brought to this season and partly because of their full-on loyalty to this theme. Their stubbornness in continuing with this short dance when every other team would have stepped away and played it conservative is exactly what made this program work the way that it did. No other team could have carried this short dance the way that they did.
No matter the mistakes that they made in the free dance at crucial points of the season, they must not forget the strides they took over the past 12 months from being outsiders to being contenders.