Figure SkatingVirtue & Moir debut dazzling 'Carmen' at Skate Canada

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There was plenty of good news for skating fans coming out of the Skate Canada International Grand Prix event this weekend in Windsor, Ont., especially for the Canadian team.

I'm still replaying ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's Carmen free dance in my mind. Since learning that they would be using this perennial skating favourite, I was intrigued to see how they would make it memorable. They exceeded my expectations on all fronts, and won their fourth Skate Canada gold.

Virtue is the perfect temptress. Her Carmen character has the sort of allure that could drive a man mad. Indeed, Scott Moir told me in a post-event chat that his Don Jose character does "go insane."

Technically very intricate and artistically off the charts, Tessa and Scott credit modern dance choreographer Jennifer Swan along with Marina Zueva with helping them shape their vision.

The happy by-product is that this program is so good that we now won't be able to think about Carmen without imagining Virtue and Moir. I'm hoping this music will be ruined for anybody else's use in skating like Bolero, Love Story and Casablanca have been. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

Ladies: Golden debut for Osmond

Kaetlyn Osmond: now there's a good news story if there ever was one. Canada's national bronze medallist took the ladies' title at her first-ever senior Grand Prix event against some solid competition. That makes two wins so far this season, and in both cases she defeated world medallists.

At the moment, this was Osmond's only Grand Prix assignment for the season. But Skate Canada's High Performance Director, Mike Slipchuk, explains in this video, first published on my Scribble live blog over the weekend, that Osmond may compete again if an opening can be found:



Men: Chan relieved

After taking the silver in the men's event, Patrick Chan talked with some relief about having Skate Canada behind him. It turns out that his disastrous performance at the Japan Open earlier this month had been weighing on his mind more than one might have thought. He wanted to get this competition under his belt in order to get back on track.

His performances were bumpy technically in both the short and the free. Characteristically, his program components were the backbone that supported his marks and earned him the silver.

Spanish champion Javier Fernandez earned the distinction of being the first skater to perform a quad jump in the second half of a free program. His Charlie Chaplin-inspired free skate was charming. I loved how it created the perfect backdrop for his charismatic performance on his way to taking his first Skate Canada title.

Honourable mention has to go to Japan's Nobunari Oda, who really does seem to be back on track. His speed and height on his jumps were nothing short of spectacular. After a long absence, it was nice to see him on the podium with a bronze around his neck.

Pairs: Duhamel and Radford close the gap

It would appear that Canadian pairs champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford are on their way to making good on their goal of reaching the top of the world championship podium. In order to do that, you have to be able to dream it first.

Duhamel and Radford told me their dream of taking the world title in a pre-season interview. At the worlds in Nice in March, there was a 16-point gap between their fifth-place score and that of the four-time world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy.

Guess what? Savchenko and Szolkowy took the Skate Canada title, but only by 10.93 points ahead of Duhamel and Radford's silver-medal score. Maybe we're seeing that gap begin to close.

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