Two Ontario Ice Dance teams finish on the podium at HomeSense Skate Canada International

(November 22, 2009 – KITCHENER, ON) – Two Ontario teams finished on top of the podium in the ice dance event at the 2009 HomeSense Skate Canada International.

Tessa Virtue, 20, London, Ont., and Scott Moir, 22, Ilderton, Ont., won gold with a free dance score of 103.12 and a total of 204.38 points – the highest total score achieved by any team in the world this season.

Coming back from a bit of a rough skate in the original dance, Scott said, “Tessa and I were extremely determined today to come out and skate well.  We obviously didn’t have our best skate yesterday so we were a little bit fired up.  We were just trying to skate together and check off the elements one by one.”

The strategy obviously worked because when asked to walk through the program, Scott couldn’t do it, “One moment I’m looking into Tessa’s eyes and the next minute, it’s done.”

The 2009 World Ice Dance bronze medallists used to train in Kitchener/Waterloo, and Tessa commented on the crowd’s reaction to their skate. “I think there’s more pressure but at the same time there’s also more support.  We try to think of this as good practice, skating in Canada in front of a home town crowd – we’ll also have that at Nationals in London – and that all adds to our experience heading into the Olympics which I think will be very beneficial.”

Kaitlyn Weaver, 20, and Andrew Poje, 22, of Waterloo, Ont., won bronze with 82.28 points in the free dance and 165.64 points overall.

“As soon as we stepped on the ice we could feel the energy from the audience.  Of course, everywhere we look we see someone we know.  So that was a pleasant feeling especially starting our program.  We felt a little under pressure because we wanted to skate it well for everyone at home.  Even though there were a couple of little mistakes we feel very proud of what we put out there today,” expressed Kaitlyn.

In the men’s event, Patrick Chan, 18, Toronto, Ont., finished in sixth with a total of 198.77 points.

Despite his mistakes, Patrick remains positive about his first skate of the competitive season, “The first one’s always tough.  I felt good and it felt good to be back after being out for a couple months.  I’ll be ready the next time.”

Kirsten Moore-Towers, 17, St. Catharines, Ont., and Dylan Moscovitch, 25, Toronto, Ont., were crowd favourites in the pairs events, earning 146.91 overall which put them into sixth place.

For full event results, visit the ISU website.

Photos from this event are available in the Skate Ontario photo gallery.