Ilia Malinin 'surprised' by fans tossing Toothless dragon stuffies on ice
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Ilia Malinin 'surprised' by fans tossing Toothless dragon stuffies on ice
Christine Brennan, USA TODAY January 9, 2026 at 3:53 AM
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ST. LOUIS — Ilia Malinin, the 21-year-old "Quad God" of figure skating, had just finished another typically superlative performance in Thursday night’s men’s short program at the U.S. championships when dozens of black stuffed animals began raining down onto the ice.
These weren’t the typical teddy bears or the flowers of days past showered upon a skater finishing his or her program. These were — well, what were they exactly? What did it all mean? It looked strange, and oddly menacing. They were all being thrown onto the ice from one side of the arena. Someone along press row wondered aloud if it was a protest of some sort.
It turns out that NBC and U.S. Figure Skating made the bizarre and cringe-worthy decision to link Malinin’s short program costume to the network’s cross-promotional efforts of the Winter Olympics and the 2025 movie "How To Train Your Dragon." It turned the moments after Malinin’s program into an NBC promotion on the arena’s big screen.
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1 / 10See the emotions: Figure skaters compete to represent the USKatie McBeath and Daniil Parkman perform in the pairs short program during the 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Enterprise Center on Jan. 7, 2026 in St. Louis, Mo.
The black stuffed animals were actually Toothless, the dragon from the movie, in honor of Malinin dressing like the main character. The movie is part of NBC’s Olympic promotion and is available on Peacock, NBC’s streaming service.
Although this was a collaboration between USFS and NBC, according to USFS — including the planting of all the stuffed dragons in the crowd with instructions to throw them when Malinin finished his program — Malinin said he knew nothing about it.
“I was definitely surprised with that,” he said. “I did not expect that. That was definitely not my plan at all. So I was just as surprised as you are for that.”
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Source: “AOL Sports”
