The St. Albert novice ice dance pair of Natascha Collier and Lee Royer will compete for the first time on the national stage this weekend in Ottawa.
The Ice Palace Figure Skating Club pair qualified for nationals by placing 15th at the Skate Canada Challenge last month in Regina after finishing third at the Alberta-NWT/Nunavut sectional championship.
Collier, 13 and Royer, 15, are one of the youngest ice dance teams at nationals. They started skating together in May of 2011 and last year finished ninth in pre-novice at the Skate Canada Challenge, the highest level at which pre-novice teams can compete.
They have each been skating since the age of five.
Collier is a Grade 8 student at Ecole Secondaire Saint Marguerite d’Youville and Royer attends Grade 10 at Paul Kane High School.
Royer’s sister, Courtney, will also skate at nationals with Addison Voldeng in junior ice dance.
They placed 14th at the Skate Canada Challenge.
Courtney, 18, has been training at the B.C. Centre of Excellence in Burnaby with Voldeng after graduating from ESSMY in June.
They are competing for Saskatchewan at nationals because Voldeng, 19, is from Saskatoon.
Courtney is making her first appearance at nationals since qualifying in 2009 with Steven Paslawsky at the pre-novice level.
The Morinville Kings are the top team in the North Central Hockey League after splitting two games last weekend.
The first-year Kings (9-3) vaulted past the defending champion Devon Barons (8-2-1) in the north standings in Sunday’s 4-1 road win against the Rocky Mountain House Rams (3-8-1).
Cody Issler opened and closed the scoring for the Kings and Jordan Panasiuk was steady in net.
Brayden Arcand and Joshua Lafleche also scored and Joel Pelletier added two assists.
The night before the Kings suffered their first loss after five wins at the Ray McDonald Sports Centre, 5-2 to the Slave Lake Winterhawks (6-6-1).
Slave Lake led 2-0 after the first and 3-1 entering the third.
Dalen Paul tallied twice and Morgan Cardinal assisted on both goals. In net was Curtis Ronaldson.
The loss ended a six-game winning streak for the host team at the March 28 to 30 senior AA/A provincials.
Paul leads the Kings in goals with 13 in 11 games and his 18 points is one back of Arcand’s 19 for the team lead.
The Kings are back in action Friday against the Barons in Devon at 8:30 p.m. The Barons are one point back of the Kings with a game in hand.
In previous games the Kings lost the season-opener in Devon 7-2 and defeated the Barons in Morinville 7-5.
The next home game is Saturday versus the Athabasca Aces (5-8) at 8:30 p.m.
