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Pairs event will be a highlight at nationals
They're good, very good, and third-place finishes at Skate Canada and at the Japanese NHK Trophy meet against more experienced pairs stamp them as contenders for the national title during the Canadian championships in Ottawa, Jan. 27-31.
"We're really happy with the way things are going and how we're competing," says Sale. "It's our first year and nobody is expecting us to be No. 1 so there is no pressure on us."
Sale, 21, of Edmonton, whose name is pronounced Sal-eh, and Pelletier, 24, of Boucherville, Que., are coached by Richard Gauthier.
The defending champions are Kristy Sargeant, 24, of Alix, Alta., and Kris Wirtz, 29, of Marathon, Ont., coached by Paul Wirtz. Their Grand Prix season included a second at Skate America in Detroit and a fourth at the Lalique Trophy meet in Paris.
Both pairs train in the Montreal region.
Add to the mix 1997 champions Marie-Claude Savard-Gagnon, 26, and Luc Bradet, 29, and the pairs event looms as the one to watch most closely at the nationals. The Baie-St-Paul, Que., skaters were fifth at Skate Canada in Kamloops, B.C., in their only Grand Prix appearance. Training in Mississauga, Ont., with former world champion Paul Martini, they are working hard to regain the title.
But look out for Sale and Pelletier, the most dynamic new pairs team to emerge in this country in recent years.
"We'll be going in as nobodies," says Sale. "It's going to be very interesting, a very emotional week."
The international season continues with the inaugural Four Continents meet in Halifax, Feb. 22-28, which will bring together skaters from North, Central and South America and the Far East.
The ISU senior Grand Prix final is in St. Petersburg, Russia, March 4-7, the ISU junior Grand Prix final is in Detroit, March 12-14, and the world championships are in Helsinki, March 21-28.
The only Canadians to qualify for St. Petersburg are three-time world champion Elvis Stojko of Richmond Hill, Ont., and ice dancers Shae-Lynn Bourne of Chatham, Ont., and Victor Kraatz of Vancouver.
No Canadians earned enough points to qualify for the junior final.
David Dore, director general of the Canadian Figure Skating Association, explains why he's encouraged by the results.
"In the senior Grand Prix, we've never had more than two entries in the final," he said. "And Emanuel Sandhu was not far off, and two of our pairs (Sale-Pelletier, Sargeant-Wirtz) did well enough to be listed as alternates for the final.
"'We did improve our overall standings in both the junior and senior series. Our rankings improved by 30 to 40 per cent. We were at the bottom last year and we're around the middle this year. That is progress."
Ottawa's Fedor Andreev and Hugh Yik of Moncton, N.B., impressed on the junior circuit, as did pairs skaters Jacinthe Lariviere of Princeville, Que., and Lenny Faustino of Woodbridge, Ont. A national junior team was formed only two years ago.
"We really didn't target to get (into the junior medals) before 2000," said Dore. "We didn't have good junior results last year, but our junior results were a lot better this year.
"Every junior skater got a ranking this year. It takes a while to get going. We're commencing year three, and all is going well."
In reviewing 1998, the Olympic meet in Nagano, Japan, stands out -- Stojko's pain from groin and abdominal injuries, yet, a silver medal; the ice dance judging fiasco that kept Bourne and Kraatz off the podium; and Russian Ilia Kulik and American Tara Lipinski, only 15, winning singles gold.
Bourne and Kraatz won their sixth national title in Hamilton last January. Stojko won his fourth, and Sandhu zoomed to No. 2, getting a load of unwanted attention over the controversial decision to leave him off the Olympic team.
The proliferation of open events, creating showdowns such as the one earlier this month between Kurt Browning, Canada's four-time world champion, and reigning world champ Alexei Yagudin of Russia, has enlivened the figure skating scene.
"It has provided more opportunities for skaters," said Dore. "It has accomplished one of the things it was meant to do -- retain some of these skaters in the sport (for world championship and Olympic competitions)."
It has been a year of much change on the ice -- quads in singles short programs, technical requirements in free dances, throws in pairs short programs.
"The bar has been raised," said Dore. "And the open events have opened up the interpretative artistic side."
The CFSA continues to grow and prosper. Membership has hit 200,000, up 25,000 from five years ago.
"We're enormously healthy and extremely stable financially," said Dore.
Next season, the CFSA is staging a new meet in Montreal's Maurice Richard Arena in September that will be included on the ISU junior Grand Prix schedule. The Skate Canada senior Grand Prix meet will be in Saint John, N.B., in October.
Notes: Stojko's recent cross-Canada tour will be presented as a two-hour TV special Sunday, Jan. 10 (8 p.m. EST, CBC) . . . The Legendary Night of Skating, on March 2 at Toronto's new Air Canada Centre, will be unique. Current stars such as Bourne and Kraatz will perform, and there will be video presentations on skaters such as 1948 Olympic champion Barbara Ann Scott, who will attend along with dozens of others who have represented Canada internationally. Sandra Bezic is the producer . . . Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay, the sister-brother act from Aylmer, Que., that won the world ice dance championship in 1991 for France, have joined the coaching staff at the J.P. Igloo skating centre in Ellenton, Fla. Kerry Leitch of Cambridge, Ont., is figure skating director at the expanding state-of-the-art facility.