Canadian pairs skaters Jessica Dubé, left, and Bryce Davison want their breakout season to coincide with the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. (Harry How/Getty Images)

The Canadian pairs team of Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison began the figure skating season by surprising a talented field to win the Skate America championship in Reading, Pa., three months ago.

Since then, the team has maintained its strong performance, finishing on the podium in three of the four Grand Prix events this season.

With the BMO Canadian figure skating championships beginning Thursday (Country Canada, 4 p.m. ET) in Vancouver, and Dubé and Davison on top of their game, the duo is expected to win its second straight title.

During a conference call, and later, in an interview with CBCSports.ca, Davison, of Cambridge, Ont., and Dubé, from Drummondville, Que., discuss their early success, long-range goals and the unusual way they recovered from an ugly and now famous skating accident, when Dubé was accidentally cut across the face by Davison's skate blade.

Obviously, your team will be heavy favourites to win the Canadian championship, but how do you rate the rest of the competition?

BD: This is Canada and we're a competitive figure skating nation and we love it that way. As for the competition, any one of them can step up and have a great skate and we can find ourselves in third or lower, so who knows really? Any of the Top 5 teams, like Rachel Kirkland and Eric Radford or Anabelle Langlois, can come out and be the No. 1 team at any point. So you always want to be at your best.

Jessica, you will also compete in the women's singles event, but last season you only performed the short program. Will you compete in the entire competition this time and how do you think you'll do?

JD: This year I'm going to do both programs for sure and I think I'm pretty much ready for the nationals and I'm looking forward skating. It's been two years since I've done both [programs] and I know that if I skate well I could be in the Top 5 so that's my goal right now.

Bryce, you're not competing in the men's singles event. Why?

BD: For me it was a little bit too much. I actually would've had to be perfect at [the Skate Canada] Challenge to qualify. I haven't trained at all in singles for the last three years. And the men's event is so strong and has so much depth that just to make it through [qualifying] would've been a little bit too much to ask from myself.

You both will be competing at the Vancouver venue where the 2010 Winter Olympics will be staged. Does this give you an edge with the Olympics only two years a way?

BD: It'll be an advantage for us. We're doing all of our high-performance camps with Team Canada in this venue so we're very excited about that. People don't really realize that [being in an unfamiliar setting] can be a stress to skaters. Like where the dressing rooms are and situating yourself so you can have your own warm-up place, and it's particularly important in pairs that we have a ceiling high enough that [we can practise] before we step onto the ice.

You've made considerable progress against the Top 3 teams in the world (China's Dan Zhang/Hao Zhang and Qing Pang/Jian Tong and Germany's Aliona Savchenko/Robin Szolkowy) this season by beating one of the three at Skate America. How has that helped your progress?

BD: What this year has done for us is that we're not the kids who are happy to be there anymore. Jess and I realize that now. We can be happy with just competing with the best. We want to be among the best and compete to win eventually. We can see we are among the best and we can beat them. We have a little more confidence now.

Davison, top, says he doesn't have any lingering effects from the ugly accident where his skate blade cut Dubé's face last season. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

You said after the Skate America win that your goal is still to have your breakout season in 2009 or 2010. How do you remain patient?

BD: It's never easy to say we don't want to be the best right away and it's hard for us. It's a maturity thing. We need to be able to look at ourselves and what we're doing compared to the top teams in the world right now. We're not that far off but they still have a few extra advantages on us that we don't quite have yet. Even if we had that success at the beginning of the year, it doesn't change our outlook to where we want to be when we sat down in the spring and looked at our short-term and long-term goals.

Our goal is still the same. We're looking to finish in the Top 4 at worlds [in Sweden] and if we finish higher than that then, great, we're ahead of our plan. But even if we finish lower it doesn't change too much for our future. Everyone would like to be Top 3 right now, but the way we planned it out, a fourth or a fifth-place finish this year would be perfect for us. [This season] is just another stepping block towards where we want to be in a couple of years.

Part of that plan is putting in a new jump - the throw Triple Lutz - but you haven't landed it yet in competition. Is this jump vital to competing against the best in the world?

BD: That and of course there's other things we need to do like triple twists and our other jumps in order to be equal to them. This jump is new for us and Japan [the 2007 world figure skating championships in Toyko] was the first time we tried it, but it didn't work. We're looking forward to getting it in and landing it with more experience.

Last season the both of you endured an ugly accident when Bryce's skate cut Jessica across the face during a camel spin at the Four Continents event in Colorado Springs. Are there any lingering effects from that night?

BD: It doesn't bother me. It happened, it was a big disaster and it was terrifying but we don't think of it at all when we skate. Even now I think we've grown from it and I we won't say it was a positive factor, but some day when we look back it could be one of those factors that changed the way we view things in our lives.

You had an unusual way of coping with the accident by continually watching it on YouTube. What prompted that kind of therapy?

BD: Our sports psychologist wanted us to desensitize ourselves to it – to be able to watch it without feeling a thing and it took a while because even if a person who [never knew us] watch the video, they would feel something. It was terrible but now it doesn't bother us. Sometimes I'll go on an internet site and see it there and I actually click and look at the pictures and watch the video just to see if it will affect me, but it still doesn't.

JD: From time to time I go on the internet and I look at it so it doesn't do anything to me anymore. Even when we're pretty close to each other on the ice it doesn't bother me at all and it's fine now.

Jessica, you are currently receiving treatments to help with the scars on your face. Are the treatments working?

JD: I've had two treatments so far. It's like a small laser to take off the redness and they tell me that after a year I'll be able to have the other treatments when they level the whole thing.