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Sixteen-year-old Melissa Briggs, coached by Amy Ouellet at the Malobiannah Figure Skating Club in Grand Falls, will participate in the exclusive development camp. This year's camp is moving in a new direction and will focus on sport science as Skate Canada begins to develop a pilot program for a national seminar concept.

"The camp will focus on technical and basic skating skills on ice and educating skaters and coaches on incorporating performance enhancement training into their daily plan. Skaters will be fitness tested and will attend sessions on nutrition, psychology, dance and other activities," said Skate Canada Director High Performance Mike Slipchuk. "We are moving into a new direction with this camp after watching this season's qualifying events. Our goal is to build this camp into a larger learning program to develop more rounded skaters."

Dr. Judy Goss will be leading the sport psychology sessions. Dr. Greg Gannon will be on site to oversee individual fitness tests and Dr. John Philpott will be providing information on injury prevention and planning for healthy competition. Vladimir Lablakov will be teaching the classes on ballet and movement.

Renowned coaches Marijane and Louis Stong, National Coaching Consultant and Olympic bronze medalist Petra Burka and Olympian Mike Slipchuk will be involved in presenting on and off ice sessions with the skaters.

On ice, the young skaters will have sessions with some of the world's best:

Lee Barkell is an award winning coach and coach of the current 2008 Men's World Champion Jeff Buttle. Barkell coaches many elite skaters out of the Mariposa School of Skating in Barrie, Ont.

Anne Schelter is the founder of "Annie's Edges" a program and video that helps to develop edge control, power, speed and flow. Schelter has worked as choreographer for all skating disciplines with many international skating federations.

Tracy Wilson, who with partner Rob McCall held the Canadian title in ice dance from 1982-1988 and won the bronze medal at the 1988 Olympic Winter Games, is also working with the skaters. After hanging up her skates in 1991, Wilson went behind the scenes to be a television figure skating analyst for American and Canadian networks.

Brian Orser is a Canadian figure skating legend. Orser is the holder of two Olympic silver medals, a world title and eight national titles. Orser is currently coaching at the Toronto Cricket Club with many up and coming skaters including, Korean skater Yu-na Kim the 2008 World ladies bronze medalist.