Minto Skating Club

The 2010-2011 ISU Junior Grand Prix consists of 7 events with the top entries in each discipline moving to the Junior Grand Prix Final which will take place in Beijing, China in December in conjunction with the (senior) Grand Prix final. These are the events:

• Courcheval, France - 25-28 August - results 
• Brasov, Romania - 8-12 September - preliminary entries
• Graz, Austria - 15-19 September - preliminary entries
• Karuizawa, Japan - 22-26 September - preliminary entries
• Sheffield, Great Britain - 29 September-3 October
• Dresden, Germany - 6-10 October
• Ostrava, Czech Republic - 13-17 October

Other information about this series, including standings toward qualifying for the Grand Prix Final, may be found here. Follow the links for each event and/or each discipline.

Congratulations to Canada's Andrei Rogozine who won gold in the first Junior Grand Prix event of the new season!

Congratulations to all the Minto skaters who competed in Minto Summer Skate 2010.

All the competitors deserve our congratulations and thanks for representing Minto well in the competition this year.

Following are the extracted results of all the Minto skaters or, if you'd like to, you can view the full results of all skaters.

This year the Minto Skating Club has joined up with Olympic figure skating bronze medalist Joannie Rochette and the University of Ottawa Heart Institute to support the newly launched iheartmom campaign. http://www.skatecanada.ca/en/news_views/news/2009_2010/10july_29.cfm

The sale of iheartmom T-shirts at Minto Summer Skate helped raise funds for the Ottawa Heart Institute. Joannie's visit to the competition on Saturday afternoon to sign autographs and greet her fans gave a boost to the fundraising effort and added an extra bit of excitement for the skaters and volunteers at the competition.

iheartmom t-shirts will be available for $20 from Colleen at the front office while quantities last . They will also be available onsite at Autumn Skate, Sept. 16th - 19th Jim Durrell Arena.  All proceeds to the iheartmom foundation.

The provisional assignment of 2013 Worlds to London, Ontario from 10-17 March 2013 is included in the lists of event locations assigned by the ISU Council at their meetings in Barcelona, Spain.

Read the full list here: http://www.isu.org/vsite/vcontent/content/transnews/0,10869,4844-128590-19728-18885-308072-3787-4771-layout160-129898-news-item,00.html

Skate Canada has issued a press release about this event which will be held at the John Labatt Centre with practices taking place at Western Fair Sports Centre (the locations of the 2010 CDN championships). Ticket and additional information is expected to be available in Spril 2010 according to this release.

To read the full text, go here: http://www.skatecanada.ca/en/news_views/press_room/news_releases/2010/june21-10.cfm

The 53rd "Ordinary Congress" of the International Skating Union (ISU) concluded on June 18, 2010 in Barcelona, Spain.

This ISU press release highlights some of the key decisions/determinations made there: http://www.isu.org/vsite/vcontent/content/transnews/0,10869,4844-128610-19728-18886-308030-3572-4771-layout160-129918-news-item,00.html

One of the more significant decisions, for those competing or interested in ice dance, was the elimination of the compulsory dance component from future ISU events. The original dance will now be called the "short dance" and will incorporate some compulsory components. More details will be forthcoming.

Skate Canada announced on May 12, 2010 that Victoria, BC will be the host city for the 2011 BMO Canadian Figure Skating Championships and the 2011 BMO Skate Canada Junior Nationals.

The events will be held from January 17-23, 2011 at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre. The 2011 BMO Skate Canada Junior Nationals will run from January 17-20 and the 2011 BMO Canadian Figure Skating Championships will go from January 21-23.

To read more go to the press release: http://www.skatecanada.ca/en/news_views/press_room/news_releases/2010/may12-10.cfm

The post-Olympic world championships took place at the Palavela in Torino, Italy from 22-28 March 2010. This marked the 100th World Championships but it was only the third time that they had been hosted in Italy. The Palavela was also the location for the figure skating at the 2006 Olympics, bringing back memories for some of the competitors.

As at the Vancouver Olympics, the Canadian team included two entries in each of the disciplines although two of the individuals were different - Kevin Reynolds replaced an injured Vaughn Chipeur and Myriane Samson replaced Olympic bronze medalist Joanne Rochette. A number of other Olympic competitors, including several medalists, opted not to compete at Worlds for various reasons, guaranteeing some different podium results from the Olympics. In fact, there was only one gold medal repeat - that of Canada's Virtue & Moir in ice dance.

2010 World Championship medals were presented to the following:

• Ladies - Mao Asada (JPN) - gold; Yu-Na Kim (KOR) - silver; Laura Lepisto (FIN) - bronze
• Men - Daisuke Takahashi (JPN) - gold; Patrick Chan (CAN) - silver; Brian Joubert (FRA) - bronze
• Pairs - Qing Pang & Jian Tong (CHN) - gold; Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy (GER) - silver; Yuko Kavaguti & Alexander Smirnov - bronze
• Ice Dance - Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir (CAN) - gold; Meryl Davis & Charlie White (USA) - silver; Federica Faiella & Massimo Scali (ITA) - bronze

Congratulations to Cynthia Phaneuf for finishing 4th in the free skate and 5th overall thus ensuring spots for 2 Canadian ladies again at next year's Worlds. Based on the results in the other disciplines, we will have spots for 3 men, 2 pairs and 3 dance teams at the 2011 Worlds in Tokyo.

The website for the 2010 World Championships final results and judges protocols is: http://www.isuresults.com/results/wc2010/index.htm

Both TV and online coverage was provided to Canadians during the competition. Articles, videos of the entire event, including some interviews, can be found on the CBC website: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/figureskating/

The Worlds and many other figure skating videos are also to be found on this CBC video page: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Sports/Figure_Skating

This event took place in the The Hague, Netherlands from 8-14 March 2010. Canada was represented by 2 men, 1 lady, 3 pairs and 3 dance couples. Read more about the CDN team members in this Skate Canada press release: http://www.skatecanada.ca/en/news_views/press_room/news_releases/2010/mar8-10.cfm

Alexandra Paul & Mitchell Islam won Canada's only medal, a silver in ice dance. The full results and protocols can be found here: http://www.isuresults.com/results/wjc2010/index.htm

As mentioned in the press release, among the CDN officials who participated in the event was Minto's own Elizabeth Clark, an international judge.

The official event website is here: http://www.wcjunior.com/

As the XXI Winter Olympics were winding down, joint recipients of the Vancouver 2010 Terry Fox Award were announced on February 27th, 2010. The award was created to honour Olympians who touched the world with their determination and character at the Games.

The recipents both were women & both won bronze medals at the Vancouver games. One was the Slovenian cross-country skier, Petra Majdic and the other was Canadian figure skater, Joannie Rochette.

To read more about the award, go to the Press Release: http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-news/n/news/vancouver-2010-terry-fox-award_295826zU.html

Congratulations to both of these worthy recipients!!

After the tragic and sudden death of her mother on Sunday, Joannie put together two performances that earned her not only the bronze medal but the admiration of people everywhere. She certainly honoured her mother and her devotion to Joannie's career and made all Canadians proud. This was only the fifth Olympic medal for Canadian women skaters - something that began with Minto's own Barbara Ann Scott's gold medal in 1948.

Joannie was not alone in achieving great heights at this event - Yu-Na Kim set a world record score in winning the gold medal and Mao Asada made history by successfully landing two triple axels in the long program (and a total of three in the competition) on her way to the silver medal.

Not only is it the first ice dance medal for Canada (and for North America), but they are the youngest Olympic ice dance champions!

The much-anticipated Vancouver Olympics are underway and will continue until Feb. 28, 2010. The links below might be useful for those following all of the competitions but particularly the figure skating.

• The Official Olympic site (including tabs for each sport & updated news & medal counts): http://www.vancouver2010.com/
• Figure Skating page on the official site (including news, photos, etc.): http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-figure-skating/
• Official Figure Skating schedule and results page (including planned elements and live detailed results during events): http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-figure-skating-schedule-results/
• An ISU results page (including entries, schedule, technical & judging panels; updated daily): http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2010/index.htm
• CTV is the Canadian Olympic network and they have an Olympic home page with a subpage for figure skating (including news, photos, videos, background informaton, schedule, etc.): http://www.ctvolympics.ca/figure-skating/index.html
• For TV & online coverage in Canada - check the CTV Viewers Guide (hour by hour, day by day, including all networks in the consortium): http://www.ctvolympics.ca/tv-online-listings/index.html [Much of the full event coverage will be found on TSN or Rogers Sportsnet with highlights appearing on the main CTV network.]

The US Junior and Senior championships are taking place in Spokane, Washington over the period 15 to 23 January 2010. On the first weekend the pairs and men competed and on the second weekend the ice dancers and ladies will compete. Entries and results can be found here.

This event took place in Tallinn, Estonia from 18-24 Jan. 2010.

"Canadians" took place at the John Labatt Centre in London, ON from Jan. 14-17, 2010.

Congratulations to the 12 skaters chosen to represent Canada at the Olympic Games: Patrick Chan; Vaughn Chipeur; Joannie Rochette; Cynthia Phaneuf; Jessica Dubé & Bryce Davison; Anabelle Langlois & Cody Hay; Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir; and Vanessa Crone & Paul Poirier

The Junior Nationals took place at the Western Fair Sports Centre in London, ON from January 11-14, 2010.

The culmination of the junior and senior grand prix series for the 2009/2010 season took place in Tokyo, Japan from Dec. 3-6, 2009. Canada was represented in the senior ladies and ice dance events and in the junior pairs and ice dance events. The CDN team came home with a silver medal in ice dance.

Results for the full event can be found here: http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpf0910/index.htm

The BMO Skate Canada challenges for pre-novice, novice, junior, and senior skaters took place in Mississauga from Dec. 2-6, 2009.