So here are my thoughts from Skate Canada, the last Grand Prix event.

Mens

The mens event really had all to play for, but Jeremy Abbott took the gold, landing the only quad jump of the night. Both him and Takahashi made the Grand Prix Final based on those performances, but the real star was Alban Preaubert, who has the only truely clean long program of the night, to a medley of Rolling Stones songs. He is really a fun skater to watch live! Disappointment for Denis Ten though, who dropped from third to seventh with a mediocre free skate. Also there was disappointment for Chan who, despite a masterful program, had a number of falls.

1 Jeremy ABBOTT
USA
232.99 1 2
2 Daisuke TAKAHASHI
JPN
231.31 2 1
3 Alban PREAUBERT
FRA
212.28 4 3
4 Michal BREZINA
CZE
202.32 5 5
5 Samuel CONTESTI
ITA
202.25 7 4
6 Patrick CHAN
CAN
198.77 6 6
7 Denis TEN
KAZ
193.33 3 9
8 Stephen CARRIERE
USA
188.31 10 7
9 Armin MAHBANOOZADEH
USA
186.48 8 8
10 Joey RUSSELL
CAN
168.71 9 11
11 Kevin VAN DER PERREN
BEL
168.54 11 10
12 Jeremy TEN
CAN
148.96 12 1

Pairs

Shen and Zhao have looked pretty unbeatable so far this season, but at this event Savchenko and Szolkowy managed show that they're going to be frontrunners - it was looking shaky after their disasterous outing in Paris. Their new LP, to "Out of Africa", was absolutely incredble, gaining them what might be considered the first 10 for performance and execution PCS ever (though definitely not the last, as we'll see!) It's definitely an "Olympic" program, and their overall score landed them a world record to boot. Other pairs fared pretty well - Dube and Davison weren't perfect, but managed to get the bronze, whilst Mukhortova and Trankov did a nice performance of "Love Story" to nail the silver. Notice that it was exactly the same medallists from Trophee Eric Bompard, but in a completely different order!

1 Aliona SAVCHENKO / Robin SZOLKOWY
GER
206.71 1 1
2 Maria MUKHORTOVA / Maxim TRANKOV
RUS
185.71 2 2
3 Jessica DUBE / Bryce DAVISON
CAN
166.93 3 3
4 Anabelle LANGLOIS / Cody HAY
CAN
159.95 4 4
5 Caydee DENNEY / Jeremy BARRETT
USA
157.09 5 5
6 Kirsten MOORE-TOWERS / Dylan MOSCOVITCH
CAN
146.91 7 6
7 Caitlin YANKOWSKAS / John COUGHLIN
USA
143.61 6 7
8 Ksenia OZEROVA / Alexander ENBERT
RUS
113.36 8 8

Ladies

I didn't get to see the ladies long program, but from what I can tell it was a pretty weak field, with missed jumps from almost all of the skaters, including the medallists. However, Suzuki and Rochette still did well enough to make the Grand Prix Final.

1 Joannie ROCHETTE
CAN
182.90 1 1
2 Alissa CZISNY
USA
163.53 2 4
3 Laura LEPISTÖ
FIN
158.52 4 2
4 Mirai NAGASU
USA
156.83 3 3
5 Akiko SUZUKI
JPN
147.72 8 5
6 Amelie LACOSTE
CAN
141.13 6 6
7 Cynthia PHANEUF
CAN
132.48 5 9
8 Caroline ZHANG
USA
132.46 7 8
9 Sarah HECKEN
GER
124.40 10 7
10 Jenna MCCORKELL
GBR
123.50 9 10
11 Joshi HELGESSON
SWE
108.41 11 11

Dance

Dance seemed to be the most predictable of the disciplines, but actually had a different podium to what people expected! Despite Tessa slipping twice in the OD, Virtue and Moir walked away with the gold, gaining one 10 for performance and execution PCS in their beautifully executed free dance. They got a huge score as well (204) which is three points above what Davis and White have achieved this season, so we'll have to see who comes out on top in Tokyo. Pechalat and Bourzat did a nice job with their innovative but somewhat errative FD to Requiem for a Dream - that music's getting used a lot this season (both them and Cappelini/Lanotte will be performing to it at the GPF). Speaking of overused music...Weaver and Poje took an unexpected bronze in front of their home crowd to the "Phantom" music, and I like their cuts far more than Chan's and Davis/White's - far more subtle. With a suprise bronze, there has to be some who lose out, and in this case it was Samuelson and Bates, who ended up in fifth with some errors in the free dance.

1 Tessa VIRTUE / Scott MOIR
CAN
204.38 1 1 1
2 Nathalie PECHALAT / Fabian BOURZAT
FRA
185.07 2 2 2
3 Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE
CAN
165.64 3 4 4
4 Ekaterina BOBROVA / Dmitri SOLOVIEV
RUS
161.68 5 5 3
5 Emily SAMUELSON / Evan BATES
USA
160.76 4 3 5
6 Madison HUBBELL / Keiffer HUBBELL
USA
141.63 6 6 7
7 Carolina HERMANN / Daniel HERMANN
GER
141.61 7 7 6
8 Andrea CHONG / Guillaume GFELLER
CAN
128.70 8 8 8

This event determined the Grand Prix finalists, who I've put below.

Pairs

Shen and Zhao
Pang and Tong
Mukhortova and Trankov
Savchenko and Szolkowy
Kavaguti and Smirnov
Zhang and Zhang

Men

Nobunari Oda
Evan Lysacek
Brian Joubert
Jeremy Abbott
Daisuke Takahashi
Johnny Weir

Ladies

Yu-na Kim
Miki Ando
Joannie Rochette
Alena Leonova
Ashley Wagner
Akiko Suzuki

Dance

Davis and White
Virtue and Moir
Belbin and Agosto
Pechalat and Bourzat
Cappellini and Lanotte
Kerr and Kerr

Going to be an exciting competition; I'm looking forward to 3rd December already!