France's Yannick Ponsero (who has been skating in the shadow of countrymen Brian Joubert and Albert Preaubert this season), is the surprise leader at Skate Canada after the Men's short program. You will be surprised to hear that I actually agree with that placement! However, my notes for this man are a thing of beauty, starting with "What the heck is he wearing?" to "Could not take my eyes off of him during step sequence, not sure if that is a good thing." I decided that it was a good thing, even though the music was nuts. You have to hand it to someone who wears fingerless gloves and can keep the crowd awake. But my favorite note is "with that hair he looks like all the boys I went to high school with on Long Island." Anyway, arbitrary notes aside, a very solid and dare I say, fun, performance with a SKY HIGH quad toe combination is a good reason to have this guy in first. He has a 78.05.

Patrick Chan, Canadian National Champion, who I think was probably under loads of pressure since this is his big post-Buttle debut, was in second. I am going to put it out there right now that I love, love, love to watch Patrick Chan skate. This just happens with certain performers and me. I will try not to be biased. He was not perfect; he had a touchdown at the end of his triple axel and I think he may have slipped at the end of his program. But he is a close second with 77.47, due to a very high presentation score. I think Ponsero should probably be a bit farther ahead, but I like Chan's performance enough to be happy he was in second.

In third is another surprise with American Ryan Bradley, who was also rewarded for a quad toe/triple toe combination, but the landing of the triple toe was all over the place. Bradley can be congratulated for coming out in what looked like a bowling shirt (but was emulating that Elvis style of clothing), and starting his program to maybe the worst rendition of "Jailhouse Rock" I've ever heard. It got better though, and he had some fun footwork. He also appeared to put his hand down at some point, and as is the trend lately, I couldn't tell if it was part of his choreography or what. He scored a 72.50.

So, American Champ Evan Lysacek, coming off a rough loss at Skate America, stepped out of his triple lutz landing before doing the triple toe, and lost himself mega points. Had a nice double axel, and a triple flip that even I thought was underrotated. I thought his presentation was better than in Skate America though (he didn't seem to be remembering the steps here). But he scored a whopping eight points lower than Patrick Chan in technical elements, although Chan's skate was flawed also (but not as big a mistake on his part). Yikes Evan, you better figure out how to land the quad, stat. The worst part was watching him in the kiss n' cry. He knew what was coming. A total of 71.40.

My pick for bronze, Sergei Voronov, of Russia, sits in fifth with a 70.45. Also, the article below says he landed a quad/double combination but I thought it was a triple/double, but maybe I blinked? Someone let me know. Not much to say about his performance, nice step sequence.

America's Brandon Mroz saved his triple axel and had a clean performance, although it was marked by attempts to engage the audience that I found fell flat (keep working on that!). He scored a 67.03 and sits in sixth place.

Here is an article from Globe and Mail with some more information.