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This much is certain: Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir will win their first senior Canadian figure skating championship this week, even if they have to skate with banana peels on their feet.

They took another step closer last night by winning the original dance with 65.29 points, 9.69 points ahead of their closest rival. Overall, they now have a commanding 17.19-point lead and sit atop the standings with 105.33 points. Skating to Dark Eyes, Virtue and Moir were spellbinding.

If there were any surprises in the original dance last night, it was in the crush of about six teams fighting for the silver and bronze medals. The original dance created an interesting shuffle, with Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., moving to second from third ahead of Allie Hann-McCurdy of Nanaimo, B.C. and Michael Coreno, of Delhi, Ont.

Hann-McCurdy and Coreno had defeated Weaver and Poje at Skate Canada. But after their second Grand Prix of the season, Weaver and Poje changed coaches, to British-born Matthew Gates and Canadian star Shae-Lynn Bourne.

In the past month and a half, they revamped their original dance totally, with the last-minute help of top Canadian choreographer David Wilson.

Other shuffles: Mylene Girard of Répentigny, Que., and Liam Dougherty of Whitehorse moved up to fourth place from fifth, and last year's junior champions, Vanessa Crone of Aurora, Ont., and Paul Poirier of Toronto, climbed to fifth from sixth with their sweet gypsy routine.

The real surprises last night came in the event before the original dance when a team from a small club in Saskatchewan jumped up 13 places over their effort last year, got a standing ovation — and lost the junior pair title by only .06 points.

Paige Lawrence, 17, of Kennedy, Sask., and Rudi Swiegers, 20, of Virden, Man., were the final skaters to take the ice during a rather lacklustre junior pairs event with only eight teams that skated the long program.

All that changed when the prairie skaters set sail. Lawrence and Swiegers astonished the crowd by landing a very difficult throw triple Lutz — something only the top senior pairs do. And they threw in a throw triple Salchow and a throw triple loop.

Lawrence and Swiegers actually won the long program, but their overall score of 129.07 points fell only .06 short of winning. The gold medalists, Monica Pisotta of Mississauga and Michael Stewart of Toronto, had 129.13. Pisotta and Stewart train at the strong pairs club in Barrie, Ont., under Lee Barkell.

For the past two years, Lawrence and Swiegers have toiled in anonymity, finishing 14th twice at the junior level. Their coach, Patricia Hole, had never coached pairs before Lawrence and Swiegers came along. "We're all just learning together," Lawrence said.

There are only 20 skaters in their Saskatchewan club, and Lawrence and Swiegers are the only pairs skaters. Actually, they are the only pair in all of Saskatchewan.

So where did they get their expertise? They hustled on down to Florida last May to work with former world silver pairs medalist Lyndon Johnston, who was originally from Virden. Hole had known him from years ago. Lawrence and Swiegers had heard of him, but they have never seen him skate. They have watched videos of others. Still, they got only a week with Johnston. Evidently, he worked miracles.

And why move from their humble club? They've got everything they need in Saskatchewan, Lawrence said. "I don't feel there's any need for us to move," she said. "We have a good support system. We have a good coach. I think we'll just stay where we are and see how that goes."

They got a junior Grand Prix assignment in Chemnitz last fall and finished fourth.

Last year, Lawrence credited their 14th-place finish with "being young" and having been together only 11/2 years. "We went home and trained really hard and looked at what we needed to work on and improve on and we just focused on that," she said. "And we got some experience in Germany and we know how to handle things a little better."

Losing gold by only .06 seconds hasn't dampened their spirits one whit. "We're just really excited by how we skated," Swiegers said. "We went out there and really did what we can do."

"It was our personal best," Lawrence said, her buttons bursting. Their free skate score of 84.16 points shattered their previous best mark, 75.40.

"We were just happy," she said. "We can't control the scores, once we've finished our skate. We were happy with getting second. I was so proud of us."

As for that throw triple Lutz, Lawrence said they did a couple when they went to Florida to work with Johnston. But they brought the risky move back only a month ago. They landed the second one they attempted and it's been consistent since. Throws are their strong point because they also skate singles.

Swiegers has one more year left of junior eligibility, but they plan to go senior next year. And next year the Canadian championships will be in Saskatoon. "Having it in the home province, that will be fabulous," Lawrence said.

Their long-term goals are to skate at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, but when reminded of it, Lawrence laughs. "We'll see about that," she said.

"All we can do is work pretty hard and see what happens," Swiegers said.