Canada's golden couple aim for a comeback

Olympic and world ice dance champions Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir were at the Skate Canada Challenge event this week in Missisauga to support their team-mates, sign copies of their new book and to let people know that they will be back on the scene very soon.

The pair were forced to miss out on the Grand Prix season this year due to Tessa needing surgery to treat chronic exertional compartment syndrome in her legs. However, they have been back in training and hope to be ready to compete at the Canadian Championships in Victoria in January.

This is not finalised and they will likely leave the decision until they can be sure of being ready. The interview with them can be seen on Skate Canada's Skate Buzz website.

As for the other reigning Canadian champions-

• Patrick Chan will be competing next week at the Grand Prix final. He's had good scores so far this season but a number of falls so will be looking to gain consistency.

•  Jessica Dube competed singles this week at Challenge finishing seventh. She is skating on her own this season as her pairs partner Bryce Davison recovers from major surgery to his knee and femur. Bryce was at the event to cheer on Jess and also spoke with Skate Buzz. He hopes to be back on the ice around late March and states they are very keen to continue competing together and aim for Sochi 2014. 

• Joannie Rochette will not compete at nationals this year. She is touring with Stars on Ice but also states she has not given up competing. Despite missing the grand prix series she still has the highest free skate score of any international lady this season, from her single appearance at the Japan Open. 

The results from the Skate Canada Challenge can be seen here.
The Canadian Championships will take place Jan 21-23 in Victoria BC

Skate Canada

The second stop on the Grand Prix season is the Skate Canada International in Kingston ON this weekend. Canada will unfortunately be missing a few of it's stars as Virtue & Moir and Dube & Davison have been forced to pull out due to injuries. Still - many others will be looking forward to make a first big impression on Canadian soil since Vancouver


Men
Canada's young star Patrick Chan will be looking to re-assert himself amongst the best in the world after a slightly disappointing olympics. His performances at minor summer competitions were well recieved and having been training at altitude in Colorado he should be fighting fit.
He'll face competition from other young talents - American Adam Rippon (now Brian Orser's most senior pupil), Japan's Nobunari Oda and mini-Plushenko Artur Gachinski

Ladies
After the splat fest that was the ladies competition last week at NHK, the door is open for some surprise entries to win a Grand Prix final spot with a good performance here. The list for skate Canada is somewhat devoid of big names.
World bronze medallist Laura Lepisto was due to compee but is not on the start list. She recently started university so may be focussing on that for the moment.
In her absense the medal contenders include russian diva Ksenia Makarova, Canadian Cynthia Phaneuf, and the veterains Sarah Meier, Fumie Suguri and Alissa Czisny.

Pairs
This will be the grand prix debut of canadian Megan Duhamel and new partner Eric Radford - who recently finished 3rd at the Nebelhorn trophy.
The main medal contenders may be relatively junior pairs in this fairly inexperienced field - Lubov Iliushenka & Nodari Maisuradze of Russia and Huibo Dong & Yiming Wu of China.

Dance
In the absense of Virtue and Moir this could be the chance for British pair Sinead & John Kerr to challenge for gold in a season which may be their swansong. The Scottish siblings had long planned to retire after the 2010 games but found they were not yet tired of competing.
The home favourites at this event will be Vanessa Crone & Paul Poirier. Americans Madison Chock & Greg Zuerlin (who train at the Canton school of Ice Dance champions!) could also challenge the Brits with a good performance.


As ever the season after the olympics is a changing of the guard. More famous faces vanish off the radar and new ones arise. We may see a glimpse of the future at Skate Canada.

Full starting orders and results here.
The competition for all skaters starts Friday.

Tessa tells it like it is!

In an interview this week with PJ Kwong of CBC sports- 2010 Olympic and World champion Tessa Virtue made her goals for the new season very clear - “I mean I don’t think it’s a secret. We want to win everything”
Virtue and Moir, along side their training partners and friendly rivals Davis and White made mincemeat of their competition in Vancouver and Torino and paved the way for a new, modern style of ice dance.

I this extract from the interview - Tessa admits to feeling a little surprise at how easily they got back into training and how much they enjoy it.It’s a good thing too as their day at the rink can often go for 8 or 9 hours where they continue to train with Marina Zueva and Igor Shpillband. Tessa says: “Scott and I talked about it and we want to be having fun training as well as competing.- Getting back to skating after a crazy season we know that the challenges will be to come up with innovation and stay within the rules.”

They will start their season with Grand Prix events in Canada and in Paris and will go on from there. She says: :”We can have fun and compete. So nothing has really changed.”

The pair have this message on their official website

WOW! We are still celebrating and trying to prolong the euphoria we experienced at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and at Worlds in Torino, Italy. The Olympic experience was so much better than we could have ever imagined, especially since we were competing in our home country. We will never forget standing on the podium hearing our national anthem.
Thank you for all the congratulatory messages – you inspire us to improve.

For myself I am so glad both V&M and D&W are continuing to compete- They raised the bar last year and I'm sure they can raise it further.

As an aside note - I'm moving into my new house tomorrow and will probably be without internet there for a bit- I'll try to keep the posts coming - but they may be a bit more few and far between!

Dinner with the Queen

Canada's olympic ice dance champions, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were invited to dinner with the Queen in Toronto, during her recent visit to Canada.

Tessa wrote about the experience for Skate Canada/Skatebuzz. Follow the links to see photos of their outfits!

Sunday night – 9:30 p.m.

It was surprising enough to receive an invitation from the Prime Minister to meet the Queen of England and The Duke of Edinburgh, but on the eve of the big event, we got an official invitation to join the Royals at the HEAD TABLE! WOW! We were floored! What an incredible honour - but what could we have possibly done to deserve this privilege??!!!

Monday morning
Scott rented a tux - very 007; classic and sharp. So after picking that up - and waiting while the sleeves were lengthened - we were on our way to Toronto for the big adventure. Scott was driving and we had the tunes blaring – even our new free dance music was on the CD I made for the trip. We made good time, probably because there was very little traffic (not because Scott was driving fast J) -- we even had time to grab lunch at East Side Mario's beside our hotel – The Intercontinental. Everything was going smoothly! Until.....

Monday afternoon
…immediately after I got out of the shower - before blow-drying my hair - the power went out!!!! Getting ready without much light and sans hair appliances was challenging to say the least. Of all times for a power outage!!! Scott and I have a little experience handling stress and managed to pull ourselves together as you can see in the photos!!! Off we marched, in the sweltering heat, across the street to the Royal York.

Monday evening
We registered and entered an opulent grand ballroom. At this point my main concern shifted to not spilling anything on my dress and to not tripping. There was a sophisticated reception abuzz with glamorous guests – we met so many distinguished people! It was great to see one of our friends, Jennifer Heil, Olympic mogul skier and reminisce about the Games!

The time came to proceed through the receiving line - Prime Minister Harper, Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mrs. Harper. Hand shake, curtsy/bow, curtsy/bow, hand shake - did that really just happen?????

Dinner was incredible - we were two of ten people at the head table. This once-in-a lifetime experience was better than I ever dreamed it could be - the grace, charm and kindness expressed by Her Majesty and His Royal Highness was astonishing and heart-warming!

The Canadian Tenors performed three songs after dessert- the energy in the room was so united and electrifying! The night ended with the Tenors singing O Canada and everyone joining in. What a proud moment! Scott and I were absolutely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the entire evening!!!

Monday night
We exited the Royal York Hotel on cloud nine (and carrying Your Majesty The Queen and Your Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh's place cards from the dinner table). We'd met so many inspirational people and experienced something most people only dream about!

Scott added his thoughts about the event as well.

“Oh my, it was an unbelievable evening. Of course Tessa looked stunning in her green dress and it was such an honour to be seated at the same table as Her Majesty, His Royal Highness and The Right Honourable Stephen Harper. I really enjoyed the company of General Walter Natynczyk who had fascinating stories about inspiring our troops overseas and his experiences with the Snowbirds. The whole evening went by so quickly and it was just another opportunity for us to realize how lucky we are to be Canadian and celebrate that with The Queen of Canada herself!”

Tessa and Scott weren' t the only skaters to meet the Queen during her visit to Canada, Joannie Rochette was also invited to, and gave a speech at the royal celebrations of Canada Day on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Skating News and Tweets

Joannie Rochette has been busy - this week she attended the G20 ceremonies as a guest and sat next to Michelle Obama for lunch. She also was at the Canadian Grand Prix and will be a special guest for the official Canada day celebrations in Ottawa on Thursday. Oh and on top of all that she was nominated for an ESPY award for 'best moment'. I hope she wins, she deserves it.
Read more here


Evgeni Plushenko will not be in the Grand Prix this season or in the 2014 olympics. He has lost his ISU eligibility by competing in professional ice shows. Read it here.

Mao Asada has a refreshing new exhibition at Dreams on Ice. The kind of beautiful programme you can just sit back and enjoy. She has become an elegant young woman. Also Daisuke Takahashi unveiled his new exhibition choreographed by Stephane Lambiel.


Adam Rippon will skate to Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet for his SP and Rachmaninov Piano Concerto number 2 for his LP. He was interviewed by Icenetwork.

Changes to jump values under the new ISU rules.
The value of quad toe was raised to 10.3 (from 9.8), tripe Axel to 8.5 (from 8.2). Base value of double Axel lowered to 3.3 (from 3.5).
Jump under-rotated by 1/4 to 1/2 revolution gets 70% of base value. Jump under-rotated by more than 1/2 gets downgraded to next lower jump.

Ilderton, ON honoured its olympic champions, Tessa and Scott.


Scott Hamilton is recovering well after his surgery. He tweeted this
Thank you, everyone, for your love, support & prayers during my recent brain surgery! You lifted me up & gave me strength to get through it!

Denis Ten tweeted

I need new feet for my new skates. Can anybody share them with me?