Kitchener, Ont. - Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir made history at Skate Canada yesterday, earning the first perfect 10 handed out in ice dancing history.

Skate Canada proved to be the competition where judges broke loose with perfect 10s for the first time. On Saturday, German pairs skaters Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy also received a 10 for performance.

Virtue of London, Ont., and Moir of Ilderton, Ont., also got their 10 for performance, one of five categories in the presentation mark. They also got a rare high average of 9.00 from all nine judges for performance.

Virtue and Moir won the free dance and the ice dancing gold medal yesterday with a total score of 204.38 points, the highest of the Grand Prix season, eclipsing the mark of 201.97 set by training mates Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the United States.

The Canadian couple, who won the bronze medal at the 2009 world championships despite fighting a major injury and are two-time Canadian champions, earned a flood of top bonus marks for their elements yesterday.

 It's rare to see a bonus of plus-3 (the equivalent of a 6.0 in the old scoring system), but the Canadians got 16 of them, many of them for their touchless lift, in which Virtue supports herself on Moir's back by only a lower leg, then she does a single loop off his back onto the ice.

He skates in a squat position while she's doing it.

Moir said they call their touchless lift the "goose."

"We just named it because people were calling it the eagle, and we didn't want to be too American, so we changed it to the goose," he said jokingly.

"It's our inside joke.'' Virtue and Moir earned 197.71 points at a Grand Prix event in Paris six weeks ago to also earn gold.

Their victories send them to the Grand Prix final in Tokyo in two weeks, where they will meet Davis and White, as well as Skate America champions Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto of the United States.

"It felt awesome," Virtue said.

"I think at this point in the season, that's the best we could have done."

She said the routine has improved "by leaps and bounds" since they competed in Paris, and is now faster.

The routine, to Gustav Mahler's Symphony No..5, still has room to grow, the team said.

Virtue said they will keep their victory in perspective.

"We're not getting too excited," she said. "We're not taking it for granted ... but we know where we want to go, where the program can do, and we're on track. ...We still have a lot of work to do."

The Canadians finished 19.37 points ahead of the No..2 French team, Nathalie Péchalat and Fabian Bourzat.

The bronze medal went to Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., the 2009 Canadian bronze medalists who were skating in front of a home crowd. They earned a standing ovation for their Phantom of the Opera routine.

It was their first senior Grand Prix medal. Weaver, who was born in Texas, but gained Canadian citizenship last June, watched as the Canadian flag rose.

"It was great," Weaver said. "It felt great to be on the podium, which was a major milestone for us. But it felt really great to be there with Scott and Tessa, and to have everyone's support is a really nice moment."

She said as soon as they stepped on the ice they could feel the energy of the large crowd.

"We were a little under pressure, because we wanted to skate it well in front of everyone at home, and even though there were a couple of little mistakes, we feel very proud of what we put out there today, and we have definitely have room to grow for nationals.''

Weaver and Poje finished fourth in the free skate behind Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev, but overall their score of 165.64 was 3.96 points ahead of the Russians.