The Pride of Saskatchewan

It's a bitterly cold night in tiny Wawota, Sask. (minus-34 with the wind chill), and bones are no doubt shivering in this Prairie town.
We're thinking, though, that a warm breeze emanating on the West Coast might just do plenty to help its 620 residents forget about Old Man Winter's icy grip.
They're the pride of Wawota and now, on a night they'll likely never forget at Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, Paige Lawrence and Rudi Swiegers became junior pairs silver medallists at the BMO Canadian figure skating championships. It capped a meteoric rise for this young duo, who placed 14th in their previous two cracks at nationals.
They almost wrote the ultimate fairytale finish, as it turns out. Lawrence and Swiegers won the free skate and finished a mere .06 points (129.07) behind the gold-medal winners, Monica Pisotta of Barrie, Ont., and Michael Stewart of Mississauga, Ont. (129.13). The bronze went to Christi Anne Steele and Adam Johnson of Chatham, Ont. But afterward, a crowd of media only had eyes and ears for the almost-Cinderellas, the couple that hails from a club that's populated with a mere 20 or so skaters.
So 14th to almost national champions in a year. What gives here?
"We were still young last year and still learning a lot," said Lawrence, 17. "We'd only been together for only a year and a half ... But we took what we learned last year and then we just went home and trained really hard. We looked at what we needed to work on and improve upon and just focused on that."
They did it so well that Skate Canada handed them a Junior Grand Prix assignment in Chemnitz, Germany. They finished fourth there and have been riding that momentum ever since, arriving in Vancouver as Western Challenge champions.
"We got some more experience in Germany, so we just know how to handle things a little better and it worked well for us," said Lawrence.
A fabulous throw triple Lutz showed the kind of potential and room to grow that they still have. And on this night, they weren't going to play the 'what if' game about that tiniest of margins that separated them from the gold.
"Nothing we can do about it now," said the 5-foot Lawrence with a smile. "We've just got to be happy with what we did, and I think we're both really happy with it.
"I was just so proud of us. Knowing the score or the what ifs or what we could have done ... that's not going to affect us."
Added Swiegers, 20: "We're just really excited about how we skated. We went out there and did what we really can do."
It's been quite the adventure already for the only pairs team in all of Saskatchewan, and for a coach (Patricia Hole) going down this road for the first time herself.
"We're her first pair team," said Lawrence. "We're all just learning together."
They'll move up to senior next year — "We just feel it was time for us to do it," said Swiegers — and they'll do it in Saskatoon, site of the 2009 BMO Canadian championships.
"That's going to be great to have it in (our) home province," said Lawrence. "I think it will be fabulous."
Folks there, too, are much more likely to have heard of Wawota (Lawrence describes its location this way: "It's in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan. Two hours southeast of Regina, two hours from U.S. border and an hour from the Manitoba border").
In the figure skating world, though, Wawota — which celebrates its centennial later this year — just got put on the map in a major way. And we can only imagine the cheers two of the town's youngest residents will receive after they make the long trip home.
Reason enough to get the big party started a little early, don't you think?