Old faces, new places. Two of Ottawa's top skating prospects will be making headlines from new training bases in the coming season.

Actually, one of them -- Shawn Sawyer of Edmundston, N.B. -- was an import to begin with. He moved to the capital from his Maritime home four years ago to train at the Minto Skating Club, and won the national junior men's title in 2002.

But after a ninth-place finish in the senior men's event at the Canadian championships in Edmonton earlier this year, Sawyer decided changes were in order. So he packed his bags during the summer and set up camp in Drummondville, Que.

He is now under the directon of Annie Barabe and Sophie Richard, the same coaching duo who guided Cynthia Phaneuf of Contrecoeur, Que., to a stunning victory in the senior ladies' event in Edmonton.

While Sawyer headed east, reigning national novice champ Mandy Valentine went in the opposite direction. The 14-year-old from Kanata, who returned to Canada permanently last year after spending much of her childhood in Germany, is now working under the tutelage of renowned American coach Richard Callaghan.

He's the same mentor who guided Ottawa's Fedor Andreev to the senior men's bronze-medal position at the 2003 nationals in Saskatoon.

Callaghan works out of the Onyx Skating Academy in Rochester, Mich.

Valentine trained last season at the Nepean and Minto skating clubs.

BROWN NEARLY BRONZED: Athens Olympian Mike Brown of Perth just missed a sport on the podium in his specialty -- the 200-metre breaststroke -- at the world short course swimming championships in Indianapolis. Brown placed fourth in a personal-best time of 2:08.49 -- just 0.13 seconds back of bronze medallist Vladislav Polyakov of Kazakhstan. "I had a pretty bad start and let them get too far ahead of me," said Brown, a fifth-place finisher in Athens (Canada's best placing in the Games pool). "I was able to reel some guys in but at the end, I ran out of real estate. I came in here with high expectations to get a medal."

AROUND THE AMATEUR SCENE: The Rideau Canoe Club officially opened its Commodores Gallery on Thursday, honouring 13 contributors to the club's storied history ... Kingston's Elizabeth Wycliffe finished fifth in the women's 200-metre backstroke at the short-course worlds.

rob.brodie@ott.sunpub.com