Silver Lining At The Finish

The whispers were rather audible as thoughts pointed toward the final event of the competition at HomeSense Skate Canada International.
If only Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were here. The reigning world silver medallists, without a doubt, would have assured a Canadian medal in every discipline at Scotiabank Place. Joannie Rochette and Patrick Chan had already banked gold medals for the home team on Saturday; Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison came within a whisker of adding a third in the pairs event.
Virtue and Moir, who are absent here because of injury, would surely have completed the full set of hardware with a dazzling performance of their own.
No reason for worry after all, it turned out. Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier had things in hand Sunday afternoon, climbing from fifth place after the original dance to the silver-medal spot on the podium with a fabulous free dance.
For the teens from Toronto, it was a rather auspicious debut in their first senior Grand Prix event. Only Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White stood above them in the final standings. They finished with 178.89 points; Crone and Poirier totalled 162.13 to edge out France's Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat (159.06) for the bronze.
Needless to see, the young Canadians were tickled pick by all of this.
"We weren't really putting ourselves in position to give ourselves a placement," said Crone. "We just wanted to come out here and do our best and perform the way we do every day in practice and whatever happens happens. But we definitely weren't expecting this at all."
Crone and Poirier skated last in the first of two groups, posted the score on the board, then sat back and watched the drama unfold. With four couples still to skate, the Canucks needed two of them to falter to land on the podium. It wound up even better, with only Davis and White able to better the home team's overall total.
Fans at Scotiabank Place watched Crone and Poirier's every squirm, with television images of them watching backstage prominently displayed on the scoreboard.
"It's always emotionally hard, especially for us because we finished skating before all the other (contenders)," said Poirier. "All we could do was sit there and watch and wait. The waiting sometimes is agonizing. You just sit there and sit there and sit there. At that point, we were really happy with the performance and all the rest depended on how the others skated and what the judges were going to do with the programs."
Turned they did exactly what the Canadians needed. And then some.