Meet the Hosts

Daphne Backman

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’s coverage of 30+ events.

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 and IceNetwork.com.

Daphne started podcasting in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. She and good friend Pake Allen launched their movie podcast Run For Your Lives in August of the same year. She is also a co-host on the Yellowjackets and The Handmaid’s Tale podcasts on the Podcastica network.

Daphne lives in southern Maine with her fiance Chris, cats (Chloe, Freya, Cassidy and Dante) and ferrets (Odin, Clementine and Darby).

Gina Capellazzi

Gina joined Figure Skaters Online in 2013 as a way to get more involved with her favorite sport and to use her background in media. Since 2015, she has taken more of a leadership role, leading the team in the growth of Figure Skaters Online. In addition to taking care of the day-to-day updates and designing and maintaining athlete websites, she also coordinates FSO’s event coverage and oversees the staff of writers.

As a journalist, Gina has also conducted numerous interviews for FSO. She also travels to cover skating events and has been among the in-person media for the Junior and Senior Grand Prix events, U.S. Championships and World Championships.

Gina lives in western New York and is the New Media Coordinator for an award-winning Catholic newspaper. She also enjoys skating herself on a weekly basis.

Matteo Morelli

Matteo’s passion for figure skating started in 2006 when he followed the Olympic Games in Turin on television, starting to cheer for Italy’s 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.

Born in Italy, Matteo moved to Great Britain and has been calling London his home for 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 figure skating! He has been a journalist for icedance.com for some years, writing previews and recaps of events and interviewing ice dancers and their teams; he also collaborates with Figure Skaters Online, mainly covering European events and skaters.

After joining TWIS in 2022 as a producer, he became a co-host in Spring 2024, providing his insight on events he has covered in-person.