Two Yukon figure skaters will look to jump up in the standings at the Canada Winter Games in Halifax, N.S., with strong performances in the pre-novice free skate tonight.

Bryn Lauren Hoffman and Rachel Pettitt are representing the territory in the pre-novice figure skating event while teammate Teneil Caron is competing in the novice event, which will resume with the free skate tomorrow.

Lauren Hoffman found herself in sixth place after the short program with a score of 26.47 behind fifth-place Jennifer Mahoney of Nova Scotia with 26.74.

"The short is about doing the elements, and she did her jump elements,” Team Yukon coach Trish Pettitt said.

Skater must land a double-double combination and another double to make up the elements in the short program at the pre-novice level, Pettitt explained.

Lauren Hoffman landed a double-lutz, double toe combination and a double flip.

"She performed her elements cleanly. The short program is about that, so she did a great job,” Pettitt said.

Trish's daughter Rachel finished in 17th after the short program with a score of 19.79.

Trish said Rachel's goal was to come in the top 10, which means she would have needed another 4.10 points to catch 10th-place finisher Grace Woodland of Newfoundland and Labrador.

"She had a little mishap in there … so I think it wasn't her best performance, but she fought and she got the two doubles in and stepped forward and kind of tripped,” Trish said. "But you know what, that's OK. She's excited to skate tonight.”

This is Rachel's first year competing in pre-novice after jumping up from juvenile last year.

"(Rachel) wants to do her best and show what she can do, and she's just focused on what she wants to do tonight and I think that's the main thing,” Trish said. "The other thing is done and gone; we learn from it, we don't dwell on it anymore, it's done.”

Caron finished 15th out of 16 skaters in the novice short program yesterday with a score of 21.94, and will look to add to that score with the free skate tomorrow.

"They're all looking forward to skating – and that's the main part,” Trish said.

"The competition is much like what we would be facing when we went to B.C. Sectionals, just basically a higher category. It's the excitement of another competition. The whole atmosphere of the Games is awesome. Everything's well run … they've done a great job on this, so the kids are having a good time.”