It took 16 days after arriving back in Chicago to get everything posted from Canadians. This might seem like an excessive amount of time, but it makes me kind of proud, only because I know how hard I worked in those 16 days. That means I must have done a lot, perhaps even enough, to give the ice dancers the coverage that they deserve to have. It’s been nice to see the links and photos pop up on Facebook. Someday, maybe IDC will have a dedicated staff to follow me around at events, making sure that things get posted within minutes after the event concludes...or maybe I will turn into bionic woman. But until then, I do what I can, and I do it because I love it.

Canadians is the best family reunion in skating. Of course, I’m a little biased, and I’m sure that other national events have that feeling as well, but Canadians is the event that I attend and the event that I love most. I love reconnecting with people that I haven’t seen in a year, and I love seeing others connect with their friends. I love the domino effect when two friends find each other and share a reunion hug, then others see them, and come over for more hugs, and more hugs. Obviously, I’d love to see the sport thriving and I’d love to see us pack an arena like GM Place in Vancouver again, but the cozy reunion feel is a little more prevalent in small arenas like the Moncton Coliseum.

The competition may have been close in the short dance, but in the free dance at the 2012 Canadian Figure Skating Championships, Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir (pictured, below) reminded everyone that they are the golden standard in Canada. The champions sailed easily to their fourth national title, earning a total of 180.02 points after scoring 111.61 for their "Funny Face" free dance.

The dance was a crowd-pleaser, but the outing was not a season's best for them, and the duo will certainly be looking at their protocol before they take the ice against their primary rivals, Americans Meryl Davis & Charlie White, at the Four Continents Championships. They earned +3 for 44 of the 56 individual GOE marks, and the remaining 12 were all +2, but the duo is aiming for all level 4 elements by the World Championships, and they fell short on both step sequences and the rotational lift, all judged a level 3. They also received a one-point deduction for an extended lift.

"We're very happy with our skate today," Moir said. "It was definitely one of our goals this year, to get our title back. It was a little bit of a grueling week for us, we had a lot of new stuff in our programs, and the pressure of competition was actually pretty intense for us this week, but we came out today and we skated really well. We're extremely happy with the growth of that program."

As in the short dance, Virtue & Moir had made changes to their free dance after the Grand Prix Final, taking into consideration the criticism that parts of their program did not continue moving. They cut down on the posing, concentrated on maintaining a good flow, and incorporated a new lift.

"We're happy to be where we are," Virtue said. "We're right on track, we're healthy, and we're training really well. I think we have a whole plan in mind and we're going to peak at the right time. There's a lot of strategy behind that. We're excited, it's fun, this is what we love. We're in the middle of the season, we're just coming upon our favourite time of year, when it just comes to perfecting the programs and letting them grow."

"We're constantly reminding ourselves that the final goal is Four Continents and Worlds," Moir said.

Everyone knew what would happen in the senior short dance at the 2012 Canadian Figure Skating Championships. Everyone knew that Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir would top 70 points, blow away the field, bring the crowd to its feet, and make all the unlucky teams that had to skate after them look silly in comparison. Everyone knew that Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje would close the event with an electrifying short dance, earn great marks, and settle comfortably into second. It was practically a done deal, weeks before the competition even opened. But everyone was almost terrifically wrong.

Dance fans around the world collectively gasped when Virtue's feet got tangled on the first twizzle of their sequence. Her partner's sharp reflexes allowed him to nearly freeze for a couple of seconds, waiting for her to get back in place so that they could complete the sequence in perfect unison, minimizing the damage to their score. The twizzles earned level 2 and one judge even gave the element +1 GOE, but they ultimately netted -.50 GOE.

Twizzles were not the only issue for Virtue & Moir, who had revamped their program in the weeks since the Grand Prix Final. Citing excitement as the reason, they developed a new lift with a twisting entry, but despite the "wow" factor, it only earned level 3, as did their opening Rhumba sequence. All of the small issues added up to a score of 68.41, at least three or four points below the mark expected for the Olympic champions at their own nationals.

Last year's results are a factor in determining the short dance start order, and since Virtue & Moir did not compete at this event in 2011, they led the final flight. Four teams later, Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje (pictured, left) closed the night of competition. The short dance has been a strength for them this season, and they had the ability to do the unthinkable—dethrone Canada's standard of perfection, at least in the initial segment in competition. A squeaky-clean performance would have done it, but Weaver & Poje's dance was not their absolute best, either.

Their Rhumba sequences earned level 2 and 3, well below the standard that they had set for themselves, and their twizzles, although level 4, did not sing like the rest of their elements did, perhaps losing them a few tenths of a point in GOE. A few tenths are not always a big deal, but in this case, since they scored 68.27, a few tenths would have given them first place.

The close call did not appear to cause any sour grapes for Weaver & Poje, though. They did not enter this competition expecting a win in either segment.

"It was kind of a shock, really," Weaver said. "We've gotten two level 4s in the Rhumba already this season, and we got level 2 and 3 here—which we're not really that happy with—so even if those were a little bit higher, we would be ahead, which is just really creepy to think about. But knowing that we were that close certainly gives us a boost of confidence and of course we're going to go home and work on those Rhumbas, because we don't ever want to be lower than 4."

"We practice every day trying to better ourselves and to better our performances," Poje added. "We knew that we had a great performance at the [Grand Prix] Final of the short dance and we just wanted to build on that, to go out there and to get the audience moved and get them to enjoy the program."

Being within 0.14 points of one of the reigning Olympic Champions only fuels the fire that Weaver & Poje have this season.

"I don't get as nervous as you do," I said to a parent at junior free dance warm-ups, "but I'm nervous for a lot longer, for every single team. I just want everyone to skate their absolute best."

Nerves and all, junior free dance day at Canadians was the day that I was most excited to experience. It was also the toughest, when things started going downhill. I had been up late, writing articles for Golden Skate, but I was still determined to get to the arena for early senior dance practice, so I jammed my left contact in my eye, figuring that the pain and redness were just signs of being overtired. After junior free dance warm-ups, though, one of the parents realized that my eye was turning yellow, and whisked me off to a pharmacy for antibiotic eye drops. Great. I was already behind and exhausted, and now I had an infected eye. To make matters worse, I had to resort to glasses and stop wearing eye makeup for the rest of the week, which makes me terribly self-conscious when I am surrounded by beautiful figure skaters. And of course, the media room was still half-empty and hadn't started serving meals yet, so I hadn't eaten much besides a few handfuls of cashews and a lot of Nutella.

But of course, the day wasn't about me. I had butterflies in my stomach all afternoon, waiting for the juniors to take the ice for free dances. They absolutely lived up to my high expectations, creating the most exciting competition of the event. And all too quickly, it was over. The season ended for 14 teams, and once again, the day that I'd been looking forward to for months was gone in a flash.