A Sharp-Dressed Gang

The streets of Ottawa were awash with some rather, um, interesting sights as I headed home from Scotiabank Place on Friday night.
Halloween, of course, was the annual call to arms for ghosts and goblins (and a policeman or two, no doubt) to make their appearance once more. They were pretty much everywhere you turned and if you didn't see something, well, just peek around the next corner.
But if you've been to a figure skating competition or two, you know ice dancers have it over just about anyone when it comes to costumes. Flamboyant doesn't even begin to describe some of the garb but mostly, the idea is to match the outfit to the music. And let's face it, we've run quite the gamut when it comes to our tastes in that area over the years.
Take the Canadian duo of Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier, for example, who broke out a snappy ragtime theme for Saturday morning's original dance (the theme for this season is the Charleston or Foxtrot) at HomeSense Skate Canada International. Crone's attire included a bold plaid skirt and something you rarely see on a skater (at least a competitive one) — a hat.
"This is actually my first year doing that," said Crone, 18, of Aurora, Ont. "At the beginning of the year, we had a different hat which was too big, so we had to go to a little hat. It's a little hard sometimes but it's not much different."
Added the Ottawa-born Poirier, 16: "We've practised with the hat lots of times. We've been doing it in practice so we know exactly what it's going to feel like when we skate in a competition."
And if you're wondering, no, Crone hasn't lost the hat when it counts. A clear strap holds it snugly in the place (oh, those tricky ice dancers).
But Crone and Poirier are about more than just fancy duds. This is an ice dance team clearly on the rise. They were second at the world junior championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, last season and also came within a hair of qualifying for THE worlds in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Clearly, that's the young couple's goal this season. And with world silver medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir forced to withdraw from this weekend's proceedings because of injury, it's a great opportunity for Crone and Poirier to bask in the spotlight.
"There's definitely a little bit more pressure but the Canadian crowd is amazing," said Crone. "Once you get onto the ice and you hear them, everything goes away and you don't think about anything. Then we're just happy to be representing our country."
There's more than just a chance they'll do the red maple leaf proud before this event ends. While Crone and Poirier had one stumble today and slipped a spot to fifth, the silver and bronze-medal spots are wide open behind favoured Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S., who have totalled 90.65 points through the first two phases of the competition.
Behind them, though, it's a logjam. France's Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat currently stand second (81.27), but the margin is slim over Americans Kimberly Navarro and Brent Bommentre (80.35), Kristina Gorshkova and Vitali Butikov of Russia (80.32) and Crone and Poirier (80.24).
Meaning we're in for some free dance finale here on Sunday.
Or, dare we say it, spook-tacular?