2012 Canadian Nationals

This past week, Canada's best took to the ice in Moncton, New Brunswick to declare National Champions. From my point of view, it just about went by the expected script.

Amelie Lacoste slipped in for her first Canadian Title, finishing second in both the short and free. In this case consistency paid off. She wasn't perfect, singling both a lutz and flip in her free but it was good enough on a night when it didn't take much to win. Cynthia Phaneuf, just fourth after the short, won the free skate (not by much) and pulled up to second. Surprise leader after the short, Kaetlyn Osmond (no idea who she is), in the end could only muster third. Without Joannie Rochette I don't think anyone expected this to be much of a "firework" event...

In Dance, Virtue and Moir won of course. I think the bigger story is that they only beat Weaver and Poje by a little over 6 points. It speaks volumes to the leaps and bounds Kaitlyn and Andrew have made. At the Grand Prix Final I was in tears watching them. It didn't help that I was sitting with Alexandria Aldridge's mom (who along with Daniel Eaton competes for the U.S. in Ice Dance and competed in the Junior Grand Prix Final); Alexandria trains with Kaitlyn and Andrew and her mom knew every step of their free dance and was sobbing the whole way through...which of course made me sob all the way through! I think Virtue and Moir will need to find a few extra points to defeat Americans Davis and White (I'm getting excited for 4CC!). Speaking of Americans, the bronze went to Gilles and Poirier. Piper Gilles, of course, is an American now skating with Paul Poirier (who used to skate with Vanessa Crone). Who new her first senior Ice Dance medal would come from Canada?

In Pairs, Duhamel and Radford skated away with a win. Not sure if sbs triple lutzes are the smartest thing to try, but I guess if your trying to set yourself apart... Dube and Wolfe slipped in for the silver and youngn's Lawrence and Sweigers the bronze. Moore-Towers and Moscovitch finished a disappointing 4th. Pairs skating in Canada right now is reminding me a lot of Pairs skating in the U.S. Some potential is there but nothing seems to be happening in a major way.

The big story was the men where Patrick put on quite the performance. Two clean skates, and a score of 302.14 (yes...he cracked the 300 mark!) gave him a more than 60 point buffer win over Kevin Reynolds. Being a National event, scores are always higher than international competition, so it's unclear if Patrick would have hit that number outside of Canada but what is clear it was an amazing performance (below). He's had some rough skates this season (although his scores haven't really reflected this) but he really had it together here. If Patrick skates like this the rest of the season I'll go ahead and give him the unbeatable stamp. Jeremy Ten made a bit of a comeback taking the bronze.



You can see the full results here. This week gives us U.S. Nationals and Europeans.