North Bay figure skaters successful at Mississauga event

Submitted by Kathy Mathieu, President North Bay Figure Skating Club

Here are the results from 2005 BMO Financial Group Western Challenge in Mississauga December 2nd-5th for North Bay Figure Skating Club and area skaters. These skaters represented their home clubs and Northern Ontario at the event which was a qualifying event for the Junior National Championships and the Canadian Championships.
Five area skaters earned spots to the Western Challenge from the Northern Ontario Sectional Championships held last month in Thunder Bay and were members of the Northern Ontario team. Local skaters finished with 3 top 10 placings which qualifies one entry (junior dance team-Graham and Poje) who automatically advance to the National Championships in London, Ontario in January, and 2 entries that are alternates for the Junior National Championships in St. Foye, Quebec in February (novice dance team-Therrien and Zang and one novice man-Chad Mathieu) as they just missed out by placing 9th- top 8 placements advance directly to the Junior Nationals.

Complete Results for area skaters are as follows:

Pre Novice Men:
Ben Koenderink (South River FSC)- 14th in the short program, 15th in the Freeskate- 15th overall

Novice Men:
Chad Mathieu (North Bay FSC)- 9th in short program, 7th in Freeskate - 9th overall- Alternate for Junior Nationals

Matthew Giles (North Bay FSC)- 17th short program, 17th Freeskate- 17th overall

Novice Dance:
Patrick Therrien (North Bay FSC) & Yang Zang (Skate Winnipeg)- 9th in Compulsories, 10th in Freedance- 9th overall- Alternate for Junior Nationals

Junior Dance:
Alice Graham (North Bay FSC) & Andrew Poje (Kitchener-Waterloo)- 1st in Compulsory Dance, 1st in Original Dance, (withdrew from Freeskate so no overall result)- advanced to Canadian Championships