Thank You, Ottawa ... Next Stop, Kitchener

It's never easy saying goodbye.
But the blog, as it always must, shuts it down when the lights go out on the competition. And so it is with the 2008 HomeSense Skate Canada International, which wrapped up a frenzied run at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa a little more than an hour ago.
This is the part where your humble blogger usually devotes a moment or three to praising the people he's met in a new part of the country that he's discovered. But for reasons detailed earlier, this one is ending a little differently.
No plane to catch. No shuttle bus to the airport. Just the same 25-minute or so drive home from the rink that I've made numerous times over the past 13 months.
That being said, we'd hardly be against another figure skating event of major proportions landing in the building we call home sometime in the near future. While Skate Canada CEO William Thompson noted today the capacity of the NHL-sized rink is probably too steep to place a BMO Canadian championships within its walls anytime soon, he didn't entirely rule out bringing the world to the building.
The world figure skating championships, you see, are a "different animal," with fans travelling from all over the globe to attend. They'd surely travel in greater numbers than the 16,000 plus who turned out over three days for Skate Canada International.
It is almost a certainty that the next worlds held in Canada will occur in the eastern part of the country, given that the last three contested here all took place in Western Canada (Edmonton 1996, Vancouver 2001 and Calgary 2006). Let's just say Scotiabank Place proved it's a worthy candidate to own the host's nod for that worlds, likely in 2012 or 2013.
First things first, though. Next year, this event heads a few hours west to Kitchener, Ont., with dates of Nov. 17-19. That's two weeks later than usual, but the Olympic year has turned the Grand Prix schedule for 2009 on its ear, with a reversal of the usual order of things (it'll start in Asia, with Skate Canada the series finale).
Until then, though, it's au revoir from Ottawa.
We'll see you again soon from the other end of Canada's most populous province.