By Dan Plouffe It’s a big tag to carry for a 16-year-old – she’ll be the hometown’s best hope when Ottawa hosts the Canadian figure skating championships and Olympic team selections in 2014 – but make no mistake, Alaine Chartrand’s got Sochi on her mind no matter what her birth certificate may say compared to her competitors.
“Most kids when you ask them, they want to go to the Olympics,” acknowledges Chartrand, who started truly believing it was a realistic possibility when she earned a Junior Grand Prix assignment from Skate Canada last year. “I just need to improve my performance, and get all the jumps in my program, keep working hard, and I think I can get there.”
The Nepean Skating Club athlete doesn’t have a long list of national titles or medals in youth categories, but that’s because she never stuck around in a category long enough to reach the top.
“I like challenging myself,” explains the skater who first competed at the senior level when she was in Grade 10 and already attempting triple-triple jump combinations. “I’d rather push for the next level.”
Just two years ago, Chartrand was 10th nationally in the junior category, but she shot onto the elite scene with her senior-level third-place performance at last season’s Skate Canada Challenge. The ninth-place finisher at last year’s Canadians was then chosen to compete at a Jr. Grand Prix event in Zagreb, Croatia where she placed sixth.
“It was really, really cool to compete internationally,” Chartrand describes. “I always looked up to the kids who had their Team Canada jacket. I’d said, ‘I really want to have one of those.’ I was so excited to have mine come in the mail. It was the same jacket that Patrick Chan had. That was so cool.”
Chartrand made her first trip outside of North America for the event and was impressed flying in “a big plane with rows of seats on the side and also in the middle.”
Chartrand is more used to being a passenger in her family’s 2000 Ford F-250 pickup truck, which now has over 500,000 km on it. The Thousand Islands Secondary School student lives in Maitland, skating three times a week closer to home in Prescott, 2-3 times at the Nepean Sportsplex and in Barrie on most Sundays and during the summer.
“There’s lots and lots of traveling, that’s for sure,” Chartrand smiles.
After attending the past two nationals in Victoria and Moncton, she’s pleased this year’s event is only in Mississauga, but is even more thrilled that it’ll be such a short trip down the 416 in 2014.
“It’s the closest to home it’ll probably ever be for me,” Chartrand says. “I skate all around Ottawa, so I know a lot of people who will be able to come watch. I’m really excited about that.”
Chartrand’s score dipped a little compared to the Challenge qualifier last year at her first senior nationals, which featured a crowd of 5,000 instead of the 50 she’s more accustomed to.
“There were TV cameras around, it was live, and I was in the final group, which meant that I got to be on TV for the short program,” recounts Chartrand, who warmed up with past Canadian champions. “They were right beside me. It was like, ‘Wow. I look up to you guys, and now I’m here beside you and going to compete against you. It was really cool, but I was more nervous for sure.”
Heading into this year’s Jan. 13-20 nationals, Chartrand is coming off a fourth-place performance at Challenge where she scored nearly 20 points higher than the previous edition with a 148.73 total.
“I think I’ll be a little more comfortable this year,” notes Chartrand, who would like to be the top under-18 competitor and get to compete at junior worlds in Italy. “I’ll have to do really, really well at this Canadians to be set up for next Canadians and then hopefully 2014 Sochi. (The Olympics) are just next year.”
Primed for Canadians
Chartrand isn’t alone amongst local skaters looking forward to nationals.
Ecstatic to have stood side-by-side on the podium at the Eastern Ontario Sectionals, Gloucester clubmates Kelsey MacLean and Nikki Mattocks will now get to experience the first Canadian championships of their careers, aside from Mattocks’ appearance years ago when the juvenile category used to be part of the national mix.
Mattocks placed 13th, while MacLean was seventh – one spot ahead of Minto’s Anna McCorriston – at the Dec. 5-9 Challenge in Regina to qualify for their first nationals in their high school senior years.
MacLean had been in a similar position to qualify after the short program last year at Challenge, but a poor long program meant she didn’t make the cut.
“I learned from my mistakes. I know better how to deal with stuff like that,” says MacLean, who feels she matured a lot with the added help of a sport psychologist this season. “It gave me more confidence. I learned how strong the mind can be.”
Also cracking the top-10 at Challenge were Minto athletes Alexis Dion (fifth, pre-novice women), Cameron Hines (eighth, pre-novice men), and Zoe Gong, who moved up from 29th after the short program to sixth overall with the second-best novice women’s long program score.
Other local skaters in the top-20 were Christian Reekie, Hugh Brabyn-Jones, Benjamin Guthrie and Dana Zhalko-Tytarenko, along with ice dancers Talia Rancourt/Alex Gunther, Vanessa Chartrand/Christian Reekie and Samantha Glavine/Jeff Hough.
Buzz builds for 2014
After the announcement officially granting Ottawa the 2014 championships and unveiling Canadian Tire as the title sponsor last month, Glavine and Hough performed their programs on the snow-covered Rink of Dreams outside City Hall for media. The Minto Skating Club ice dance pair were energized by the news of nationals coming to town.
“It’ll be a much bigger fan-base. Nationals in your hometown means all your family and friends and club members can come out,” highlights Hough, who’s looking forward to the prospect of competing on Scotiabank Place ice for the first time since he was playing hockey as a 10-year-old with the Gloucester Rangers. “That’d be amazing. It’d be an experience.”
Minto director of skating Darryl van Luven wasn’t sure exactly what role his club will take in organizing the event, aside from providing volunteers, but is highly enthusiastic about what the competition will mean for the region.
“It’s going to build our recognition in the area even more,” he signals. “Hopefully people from this wonderful city will come out and learn to skate.”
The 2014 event – set for Jan. 9-15 at Scotiabank Place, with the Bell Sensplex serving as the practice facility – will be the 100th anniversary of the Canadian championships, which were first hosted by Minto in 1914.
“All the people around Ottawa have a role and are touched by the history somehow,” says Skate Canada president Benoit Lavoie, highlighting past world champions from Minto like Barbara Ann Scott and Don Jackson, plus 1988 Olympics sweetheart Elizabeth Manley of Gloucester.
“Having it here is really special,” Lavoie adds. “They created not only champions, but they’ve created a big history that we’re very proud of.”
Manley was also present for the announcement, saying that she was “elated” for the city to host the big show, especially since the energy is always ratcheted up for an Olympic trials ratchets.
“It’s what every athlete works for,” notes the three-time Canadian champion. “It’s not going to be your typical Canadians – it’s going to be cutthroat and really good competition.”
Teen mental health on stage
There will be another big skating show at Scotiabank Place before the 2014 Canadians. Elizabeth Manley and Friends – also featuring the likes of Elvis Stojko, Nancy Kerrigan and Joannie Rochette – will be held Jan. 26 in support of the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa and Do It For Daron initiative, and to honour the memory of Daron Richardson and former Glen Cairn Skating Club athlete Allan Hubley – two local teenagers who both took their own lives in recent years.
“A lot of people don’t know my history, but I was in a dark place back when I was 16,” shares Manley, who suffered from depression and quit skating before seeking help and eventually returning to the sport.
“I can understand what some of these teens feel like,” adds the ’88 Olympic silver medalist. “There isn’t anything for some of them and they kind of give up on life. I want them to know they don’t have to. There is life, and the is help out there.”
More information and tickets are available through capitaltickets.ca