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Arctic Edge takes in bronze at regional championships

Whitehorse's Arctic Edge Figure Skating Club did not have to wait long to get the first piece of hardware of the season.
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Whitehorse’s Arctic Edge Figure Skating Club did not have to wait long to get the first piece of hardware of the season.

Competing at the BC Coast Regional Championship in Mission, BC, over the weekend, Whitehorse’s Kelcy Armstrong won bronze in the introductory ladies interpretive event with a new program put to the song Mystery Inc. from Scoobie Doo.

“She did great in her interpretive,” said Arctic Edge coach Trish Pettitt.

Armstrong also reached the top-10 in the junior bronze ladies 12-and-under event, taking seventh with a personal best score of 18.45.

At last season’s Yukon Gold Nugget Championships, Armstrong topped every division she competed in, winning gold in the preliminary creative, preliminary elements, junior bronze ladies freeskate and the pre-introductory interpretive events.

Also representing the local club in Mission was Rachel Pettitt, placing 11th in her short program with a score of 24.99 and 14th in the freeskate, scoring 36.03.

“I just kind of got my short (program),” said Rachel Pettitt. “It’s more of a fun one, so I got lots of points for the performance. It’s more of an upbeat one - the long is to more of a slow piece.”

Pettitt, who won handfuls of medals last season, just moved up to the pre-novice ladies category, which makes her eligible for February’s Canada Winter Games in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

“It’s been a lot better now that I’ve improved a lot more,” said Rachel Pettitt. “It’s like any other level, when you improve more you get more confidence. So it’s alright.”

“Our goal for this year was top-10 in pre-novice, and she placed 11th in her first time,” added Trish Pettitt. “And she made a small mistake, so had she not made that mistake she could have been in the top six or seven.”

Last November, at the BC Sectionals, her biggest event of the season, Pettitt won silver in the pre-juvenile ladies event, producing a personal best score of 26.38.

Arctic Edge was also represented by Teneil Caron who took 14th in the short program and 12th in the long, for 13th overall.

“I had a really good long program!” wrote Caron in and e-mail to the News. “I landed everything and I just felt relaxed during the whole program!”

Caron, who is a first-year student at Simon Fraser University in BC, had the added stress of balancing the competition with her studies.

“School was a little bit of an added pressure,

especially with the two midterms I had to write in the following days of the competition,” wrote Caron. “Trying to study and also spending five hours at the competition - two hours of driving - was a little difficult but in the end I found time to study. Then it was easier to focus on my skating and what I had to do in the competition.”

At the Arctic Winter Games in March, Caron won gold in the long program and silver in the short, taking second overall in the Games’ Ladies 4 division.

Caron and Rachel Pettitt will be back on the ice competing at the BC/YT Sectional Championships, November 10-14 in Kelowna, BC.

Contact Tom Patrick at

tomp@yukon-news.com