Oona and Gage Brown always try to make the most of a situation—whatever it is. Whether it’s posting pictures from trips abroad, eagerly anticipating competitions, or making light of having to stay in a tent at their summer training base, the duo always seek to look on the bright side. 

“That’s kind of our mindset,” Gage Brown confirmed. “We really try to find the joy in whatever we’re doing, whether it be skating or another thing we’re involved in.”

“You have to,” Oona Brown agreed. “If you don’t like it, then what’s the point?”

It’s a good thing the Browns are optimists by nature, because this season, they’ve faced a bit of a crisis. The brother-sister team, who won the World Junior title in 2022, grew up on Long Island, where they have always lived with their mother and five other siblings. But amidst ongoing financial problems, the Brown family recently had to move out of their longtime home due to foreclosure. And with the current nationwide housing affordability crisis, finding a new home is a challenge.

It’s even harder while also trying to finance an elite skating career. This summer, the Browns lifted the curtain on their ongoing money struggles via a post on their GoFundMe page and an IceDance.com article. The duo shared a bit more when we spoke with them at Skate Canada in October and at the 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita this week.

“We are very private people, and we don’t really talk too much about our personal lives,” Gage said. “But we just felt like it became too much. So we wanted to voice that, and to let people know what’s going on, maybe to get a little bit of help, or just so people know.”

The Browns are a tight-knit and supportive family, but with seven children and a single mother (their parents are separated), finances have long been an issue. For the past four years, Oona, 20, and Gage, 22, managed to largely finance their skating themselves, despite their youth. The siblings rely on a mix of funding from U.S. Figure Skating; donations via GoFundMe, the New England Amateur Skating Foundation, and other sources; and their own earnings from soccer refereeing and other gig work.

“We’re looking at making as much as we can to support ourselves,” Gage said. 

Nonetheless, it’s a tricky balancing act. And that balance is tested by the additional need to find new housing. For now, the Browns are staying with extended family on Long Island, which allows them to continue training with their primary coaches Joel Dear and Inese Bucevice. They also train at the Ice Academy of Montreal in the off-season, working with coaches Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon, and Romain Haguenauer.

“There was a point when we were super-stressed,” Gage said. “Whenever it was that we found out [about the family’s financial crisis]–last year, or two years ago–it definitely was a hard hit. Now, we know our situation. Obviously, we’ve been in the process of moving and putting things in other places or in storage. But we don’t think about it that often.” 

Skating at the elite level adds to the Browns’ financial burdens. But the sport also provides them an escape from day-to-day realities and a source of joy.

“It completely blocks your mind off of what’s going on,” Oona said.

“Skating definitely is a release from other things,” Gage agreed.

And the Browns continue to press forward. In October, they won a silver medal at CS Denis Ten Memorial in Kazakhstan. Then in early December, they scored their first senior international victory at Santa Claus Cup, a senior B competition. The duo also placed 6th and 8th at their two Grand Prix events. Although they’re proud of the season’s accomplishments, the Browns hope to do even better this week at the U.S. Championships. 

“We want to skate like we know that we can,” Gage said. “There have been competitions this season and at last Nationals where there was a mistake. Those moments are tough to look back on and cope with, because that [usually] doesn’t happen. So we’re looking to put out two really strong performances.”

The Browns’ rhythm dance is set to the 1970s funk song “Get Up Offa That Thing” by James Brown. The high-energy program is proving a success with both audiences and judges. The Browns chose the music themselves.

“The idea was ours. We knew it was going to work,” Gage said. “Romain loved it. He even texted me and said: ‘Perfect. And the last name is the cherry on top!’ He choreographed it, and Sam Chouinard [dance instructor at I.AM] did a lot of the dance parts, arm movements, and fine-tuning.”

The Browns also picked the music for their free dance to “Baba O’Riley” [aka “Teenage Wasteland”] by The Who. The choice arose a bit unexpectedly.

“We were in the car driving somewhere–me and our older brother–and this song came up,” Gage recounted. “And our brother suggested–not really as a joke, kind of serious–’Why don’t you skate to this song?’ Then the next week, it came up on a shuffle of songs I was playing [at practice]. We really enjoyed the big sound it had on the ice, in the rink. We started improvv’ing [improvising] to it. At that moment, we knew that was the one we wanted. The last, fast part was good for choreo steps. And the fact that we hadn’t really heard anyone use this song in skating, at least to our knowledge, we liked that as well.”

In the runup to Nationals, the Browns worked on adding more nuance and variation to the free dance.

“We’re looking to put more depth into it, because at the beginning of the season, it was very one-dimensional and [gave] workhorse vibes,” Gage said. “So we’re very focused on layering our emotions, to show different parts of the program.” 

Since their junior days, the Browns have often skated to hip-hop, funk, and rock music. The modern music choices resonate with them personally and help them connect with audiences. 

“We love being original in the things that we do and the music that we choose,” Gage said. “We’ve done a lot of rock. And all the rhythms that we’ve done thus far [in the rhythm dance], we loved pretty much all of them, whether it be hip-hop or James Brown or Elton John. It just fits into our style. But at the same time, we don’t want to be just doing one style. We do want to reach out into other genres.” 

Although they focus a lot on performing for the audience, the Browns are, of course, conscious of the need to impress judges as well. They’re working on specific aspects of their skating to help draw better scores from judges. 

“Speed is a huge one. And also just focusing on maturity. That’s something that we have challenges with–to look more mature–because of our [shorter] stature and because we’re very upbeat people,” Gage said. “We feel like the upbeatness can get carried away into looking young. We do want people to see different dimensions of our skating, and maturity is one of them.”

In keeping with that theme, the Browns upped their costume game this season–for one of them, at least. Oona Brown revealed that her costumes were designed by Josiane Lamond for Lamond Signature in Montreal. 

“It was a good fit,” Oona said of the collaboration.

Gage, however, is re-using his rhythm dance outfit from a previous program. 

“You can’t even tell it’s the same one,” he said with a laugh. “What I’m wearing is not important. Oona’s the star of the show [with costumes]. I’m just there to frame her.”

As the Browns prepare for this week’s competition in Wichita, they say they’re energized and ready to compete against a stacked field in senior ice dance.

“We get psyched up in practice,” Gage said. “We’ll do simulations where we’ll announce a team that we’re competing against here [at Nationals], and we’ll say what scores they got, just to boost us and get the adrenaline going. We know how good everyone is, and how good everyone’s programs are this year. It’s exciting to see all of them.”

The duo’s off-ice challenges continue. But in typical fashion, the Browns are making a determined choice not to dwell on that right now.

“It’s been pretty hard, but we’re going to put that behind us and just focus on skating,” Gage said. “We’re super-excited for this week.”