Taking A Bow

Spotted at the Ottawa Sports Awards dinner on Thursday night — ice dancers Allie Hann-McCurdy and Michael Coreno.
The reason? Hann-McCurdy, who spent five years training at the Gloucester Skating Club and still represents them, was on hand to receive the sport award for figure skating for 2006. The 19-year-old from Orleans earned the honour — which included a medal and certificate — in great part because of their efforts at last year’s Canadian championships in Ottawa (Coreno made the long drive from his home town of Delhi, Ont., to share the happy moment with his partner).
In only their second year together, Hann-McCurdy and Coreno won the junior ice dance crown (they’d been silver medallists the year before in London, Ont., the same season they reached the Junior Grand Prix final).
The awards circuit isn’t done yet for the promising duo, which finished eighth in their senior debut at the just-completed 2007 nationals in Halifax. On Feb.12, both will receive the B.C. Premier’s Athletic Award for their accomplishments during the 2005-06 season. Then they’ll be special guests at the Vancouver Board of Trade’s Countdown to 2010 luncheon.
Both skaters returned to their home towns — Hann-McCurdy to Ottawa, Coreno to Delhi — for some down time after the Halifax nationals. They tell me they’re headed back to Vancouver next week to begin planning for next season (they train at the B.C. Centre of Excellence in Burnaby under the tutelage of former world champ Victor Kraatz and his wife, Maikki Uotila Kraatz), when their goal will be a top-five finish (and national team berth) at the 2008 Canadians. No road trip necessary for them: It’s right in Vancouver at Pacific National Exhibition, which will be the venue for the Olympic figure skating competition in 2010.
A stage, Hann-McCurdy and Coreno will tell you, they’d dearly love to dance upon in three years time.