Canada's short track season launches today with the beginning of the Canadian championships!

Today is the day! Canada’s top 16 short track speed skaters battle it out to decide who will represent the country on the world stage this season.

By Carl Savard

Photos by Patrick Charbonneau

Although the new format for this year’s Canadian championships was a hot topic two weeks ago, fans and skaters can’t wait for this new season to start. While the athletes trained at the Place Bell in Laval for a few months during the summer, they are now back home to the Maurice-Richard arena and that’s where the action will take place this weekend. In case you’ve missed the news yesterday, the Maurice-Richard arena will also play host to the best junior skaters in the world next January because Canada stepped up to replace Korea to organise the ISU short track speed skating junior world championships. But let’s go back to the Canadian championships for now.

Almost all the top short track skaters in Canada will be in action for the next 3 days. The only major absent will be Kim Boutin who’s training plan has been modified for the time being. The competition will be hard fought, especially since the new format makes this competition the only way possible for a skater to get his chance to represent Canada this season on the World cup circuit and at the World championships. It’s now or never for the athletes looking to wear the Maple leaf this season. With veteran skaters such as Marianne St-Gelais and François Hamelin retiring from the sport and Valérie Maltais making the switch to long track, it will be interesting to see who from the batch of future Canadian stars will make his or her way to the top. You should definitely keep an eye on Cédrik Blais, Steven Dubois, Alyson Charles and Courtney Sarault. The action will start at 9:40am all weekend starting today.

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