All Right, We'll Call It A Draw

The champs face an uphill climb to run their streak to four.
But it isn't exactly a mountain standing in front of Valerie Marcoux and Craig Buntin.
Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison were the winners of the senior pairs short program tonight at the Metro Centre. But their edge over three-time Canadian champions Marcoux and Buntin is razor thin: 59.94 points to 59.01.
“It's within a point, so basically it's going to be whoever goes out there and does it Saturday (in the free program),” said Buntin, 26, of Kelowna, B.C. “So we're ready to go out there and do our jobs.”
The champs had it going last night until their bugaboo element of the moment — the throw-triple loop, which has been a bit of an albatross for them lately.
“I guess it's one of those things that's not working,” said Marcoux, 26, of Gatineau, Que. “This is four competitions in a row that I've missed it. I don't know what to tell you, but I know tonight we felt good out there.”
Said Buntin: “That element, for us, is just now maybe becoming a bit of a mental block. When we set it up, we got this feeling that 'we have to do this because we've missed it.' As competitors, you can never have that in the back of your mind. So we're going to do some work over the next couple of weeks to get that (thought) out of there and get this going, because it is consistent in practice.”
After going to the Turin Olympics and Calgary worlds together last season, the top two pairs have become rather friendly. They got a little too close in warmups: Buntin nearly collided with Dube and Davison as they flashed by him.
“I just warming up a double toe and I turned around and there were two skaters speeding at me. I have no idea where they came from,” said Buntin. “It happens. It was neither of our fault and we apologized.“
But, he quipped, “it would have been a different story if Bryce pulled my shirt over my head and started punching me hockey style.”
Uh-huh.
Both put themselves in solid position to head to another world championships together, in March in Tokyo. Their efforts in Calgary opened up a third pairs spot for Canada at these worlds and right now, Anabelle Langlois of Hull, Que. and Cody Hay of Grande Prairie, Alta., hold the lead in the chase for it.
Langlois and Hay skated a clean program and earned 55.36 points, about two better than the surprise fourth-place finishers, the brother-sister team of Kyra and Dylan Moscovitch of Toronto (53.34). St-Leonard, Que. based Utako Wakamatsu and Jean-Sebastien Fecteau are also in hailing distance at 52.48.