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Joannie Rochette has finally found herself, it seems.

The 22-year-old skater from Île-Dupas, Que., won the short program at Skate Canada yesterday with a new-found confidence, defeating world silver medalist Carolina Kostner of Italy.

Rochette, a three-time Canadian champion whose best performance at a world championship was her fifth-place finish last season, exceeded her previous best short program score by 4.7 points, emerging with 64.74 points.

A rejuvenated Fumie Suguri of Japan, 27, finished second with 57.92 points while 15-year-old Caroline Zhang of the United States is third with 53.28.

Kostner finished only seventh of 12 women, after under-rotating the second part of her triple-triple combination, and falling while heading into her double Axel jump. She deftly added the double Axel at the end of the program but still finished with only 48.56 points.

Former Canadian champion Cynthia Phaneuf, of Contrecoeur, Que., is still searching for the confidence that Rochette has found and is in ninth place, while Myriane Samson, of Greenfield Park, Que., is 12th.

Phaneuf singled a Lutz that was supposed to be the first part of a triple-double combination and fell on a triple flip.

"I came here feeling a lot more confident than usual," Rochette said afterward. "I'm feeling better on the ice. My training is going better. My main goal for the season was to improve my component [presentation] score and to become more at ease, more loose, more calm on the ice. I think I did that [yesterday]."

Rochette, skating to choreography by former world ice dance champion Shae-Lynn Bourne, earned a total of 28.04 marks for presentation. She said her previous best score on this part of her skating was about 25 or 26.

Bourne stood at the rink boards with Rochette's long-time coach Manon Perron. Rochette had always turned to Toronto choreographer David Wilson to design her routines.

"He took me from nothing," Rochette said. "That's the only influence I had. But this year I wanted to have a little change, some fresh air, a different look." Rochette hired Lori Nichol to design her long program.

"It made a big difference," Rochette said. "I'm able to perform more free with my upper body, more loose, and that was a big goal for this season."

Perron said Bourne has been a good influence on Rochette. "She is a nice lady with a lot of power [of expression]," the coach said. "She is so nice with people, but so angry to win at the same time. She knows how to fight. She's helped Joannie a lot. When she's there, there is a positive energy."

Rochette still has room to improve, even if she won. Her triple flip-triple toe loop combination turned into a triple-double and earned the highest levels of difficulty (four) for two spins and a spiral sequence.

Rochette is now taking advantage of the new judging and skating rules, but Canada's world pair bronze medalists Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison fell afoul of them yesterday in the short program.

The pair rules changed for this season and sometimes, the skaters have found, they are vague.

Dubé, of Drummondville, Que., and Davison, of Cambridge, Ont., slipped to third place in the short program because of a misunderstanding about the new rules for a spiral sequence.

Russians Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov, fourth behind the Canadians at the world championships last season, skated flawlessly to the beautiful The Swan by Camille Saint-Saens, and finished first with 65.02 points.

Young U.S. champions Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker finished second with 60.66 points, just ahead of Dubé and Davison at 60.14.

Two other Canadian pairs — Mylene Brodeur with John Mattatall and Rachel Kirkland with Eric Radford — finished sixth and seventh among eight teams while competing at their first senior Grand Prix.

Dubé and Davison scored only a level one (one is the most basic level, four is most difficult) for their spiral sequence, although a week ago, they figured it was a level four.

Coach Annie Barabé said the pair was monitored several times by international judges earlier but were told their spiral sequence was a level four. But last week, Barabé watched the pairs event at Skate America and saw other pairs doing different things. She made phone calls when she got home. Once again, she was assured that Dubé and Davison were on the right track.

"When I got here, it wasn't fine," Barabé said. "I had to make a decision this morning to make it a level four and take the risk of messing up what comes after, or just keep it a level two. I decided to keep it just for this competition."

With only a half-hour practice yesterday morning, the Canadians had no time to make changes. Davison said if they had another day or two, they could have.

Also, Dubé and Davison lost points and levels of difficulty on a new element, a triple twist, that didn't go up right and that Davison couldn't make right when it came time to catch his partner. Dubé banged into his shoulder when she landed.

"Doing a triple right now is a big step," Barabé said. "We stopped doing it for four weeks, maybe five. Maybe she had a little lack of confidence going into it."

Davison said on the way up into the air, the twist started turning a little too soon, so it didn't get as high as it should. That made it more difficult for him to catch her on the way back down.