MEET CANADA’S WORLD TEAM: ICE DANCE

Kaitlyn Weaver / Andrew Poje

In January, Kaitlyn and Andrew captured their second straight national title at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships and will look to ride that momentum right into Boston. The two-time world medallists were riding a perfect season a year ago before settling for bronze at worlds. In 2014, they took silver at the world championships, missing gold by less than a point.

Kaitlyn and Andrew are ambassadors for Right to Play, an international humanitarian organization that uses sport and play programs to improve health, develop life skills and foster peace for children and communities in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the world

DID YOU KNOW: Kaitlyn and Andrew are both taking classes at the University of Waterloo – Kaitlyn is studying public relations and media, and Andrew is focused on biomedical science.

Piper Gilles / Paul Poirier

Always entertaining, artistic crowd pleasers, Piper and Paul notched their fourth Canadian podium finish, and second straight silver, at the Canadian championships in January. Together since 2011, Piper and Paul display a high level of artistry in their programs and despite facing injury issues in recent seasons, remain crowd favourites with creative lifts and extraordinary performance ability. Away from the rink, Piper is immersed in the fashion world, and does much of the outfit design for their programs. One day, she hopes to launch her own line of sports clothing.

FUN FACT: Piper was an extra in a Simple Plan music video; Paul, meanwhile, admits he is “really bad” at parking cars.

Élisabeth Paradis / François-Xavier Ouellette 

Slowly making their way up the ice dance ranks, the Quebec tandem had their unofficial coming out party in January with a bronze at the Canadian championships.  After their moving free program to Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, Tessa Virtue called it “one of the highlights of the season” for her.  Displaying profound emotion and elegance in their programs, Elisabeth and François-Xavier seem destined to only get better as they continue to train under former Olympians and two-time ice dance world silver medallists Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon.

DID YOU KNOW: Élisabeth plays the tenor saxophone in her spare time while François likes to do heavy lifting by renovating houses.