JUNIOR COMPULSORY DANCE
Report by Daphne Backman

From the ISU Ice Dancing Rulebook: The Viennese Waltz was created by Eric van der Weyden and Eva Keats in 1934. It is a light and graceful dance which must be skated at a good pace with strongly curved edges, soft knee action, neat and unobtrusive footwork, elegant carriage and pronounced free leg extension.

After missing all of the Junior Grand Prix events this season due to his hip injury, Keiffer and Madison Hubbell, who won the silver medal at this event in 2007, took the ice having only showcased their programs in competition at Midwestern Sectionals. The team was unable to train full out heading into the November event, but post-Mids have been able to return to harder training.

"Keiffer is doing much better," Madison said. "He has been undergoing acupuncture recently, and it helps a lot with the pain. We've been able to skate more consistently since he started treatment."

Their performance featured deep edges, nice flow and soft expression. The Hubbell siblings were relatively happy with their performance.

"It felt different because we're used to Olympic-sized rinks and had to adapt to the smaller rink," Madison said. "We dealt with it pretty well, and we're happy with our performance."

The Hubbells received the highest technical and program component scores of the field. They also had no negative GOE's and 15 +2's.

Piper Gilles & Tim McKernan executed their compulsory with deep edges on all of their turns. Gilles & McKernan won the pewter medal at this event in 2007.

"It felt decent," Gilles said. "It was a little forced. Other than that it was a nice performance."

The team had only three -1 GOE's in the performance. Heading into the original dance phase of the event, the team is excited. Their original dance, set to Irish music, is a change from the program they debuted at Lake Placid in August.

"Our first OD was set to rhythm and blues and it wasn't being received as we would have liked," McKernan said, "so we decided after our first international that we would change it."

The duo has embraced the new program, choreographed by Christopher Dean.

Sitting in third after the Viennese Waltz are Pilar Bosley & John Corona. The team has competed at the junior level of this event for the past two seasons, finishing seventh in 2006 and sixth in 2007.

"It was comfortable, really, really comfortable," Bosley said. "The ice felt really great and we adapted to it well. I don't think it could have gone much better. We had a little bobble on the end of the third pattern, but other than that we were really happy with our performance."

The team skated early in the order, but it didn't deter them from delivering a strong performance.

"We were excited about the draw order," Corona said. "We were on fresh ice, so we really could have asked for much better."

"I was a little worried that because we did skate so early that they might hold back the scores, but they didn't, and they seemed to judge it really fairly," Bosley added. "All the teams skated really well."

In fourth place are Junior Grand Prix Final qualifiers, Madison Chock & Greg Zuerlein. The duo, who train in Canton, Michigan, had five -1 GOE's scoring 29.92, while Sara Bailey & Kyle Herring are in fifth with 29.29.

The teams in places two through six are only separated by 2.47.