At the break of dawn, Casey sneaks out of her house to accompany the other ice princesses and their parents to the regional championships. Tiffany's father explains that she will be much more valuable to him if she wins, while Gen warns Casey not to fall for psych-out tactics. Gen also notices the sexual tension between Casey and Teddy, while Tina resolves to play Outkast on the car ride home if someone brings home a trophy.

Upon reaching the venue, Gen and The Jumping Shrimp immediately engage in combat with a goth-looking skater named Zoey Bloch. Gen indicates that Zoey has a history of stealing her competitors' ice skates. Later, Zoey approaches Casey and makes fun of her battered old skates, but Gen comes over and reassures Casey that this is another classic psych-out. Gen also volunteers to put makeup on Casey, pronouncing her "hot."

The regionals begin: Zoey is up first, dazzling the judges with her edgy performance. Tiffany falls down during her performance, to the dismay of her father. The Jumping Shrimp wows the judges as well, and Gen's performance goes smoothly. Finally, Casey takes the ice and easily wins the crowd with her routine to Madonna's "Ray Of Light." Tina is shocked to see Casey pull off a triple, suspicious that "she figured that out on her computer."

As Casey leaves her house, she literally closes the door on one life and begins her new one in the high-stakes world of competitive figure skating. And as she quickly learns, the competition begins long before anyone hits the ice: specifically, it begins when Zoey Bloch shows up. But that comes later.

For such a special occasion, Tina has broken out her "cool mom" persona, offering to play hip Outkast tunes on their drive home. Interestingly, 2005, the year Ice Princess was released, was the ONLY year between 1993 and 2007 that Outkast did not release any singles or albums ; this is not to say that Outkast was irrelevant at the time, but merely to point out that even Big Boi and André 3000 knew to avoid Ice Princess in any way possible. Additionally, the band's mention here is a subtle reminder that Casey herself is an "outkast" as a closet heterosexual, not to mention being the least cool person everywhere she goes.

Fortunately, the Harwood family has decided that Casey is VERY cool, taking this self-described "stray" under their wing and enmeshing her in their larger game of emotional and sexual intrigue. Notice how Gen subtly twists the knife regarding Casey's mom's absence, even though she can already see from Casey's presence in the Harwood van that she is on her own today. We also observe that Gen and Teddy's competition for Casey's heart reaches overt new heights in this chapter; to be sure, this developing storyline only confirms our suspicion that Ice Princess is a modern "tween" adaptation of Brideshead Revisited , with Casey in the role of Charles Ryder.

The most significant new addition to the film, however, is the character of Zoey Bloch. By her combative attitude and edgy sense of style, Zoey is clearly indicated as the villain of this portion of Ice Princess. But upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that Zoey is actually the most appealing character in the film. For example, she engages in the following exchange with The Jumping Shrimp:

Zoey: Well, well, well. If it isn't The Leaping Dwarf.
Nikki: It's The Jumping Shrimp, actually.
Zoey: Like that's a step up.

In fact, it is a well-known hallmark of a Slow Roll-able film that the antagonist wins over the audience by exhibiting more talent and honesty than the main character. Zoey is so awesome that although Gen calls her out as a "skate thief," we would probably assume that she needed the skates more than their original owner, especially since Casey is basically stealing actual money from Gen, Nikki, and Tiffany anyway.

Zoey further wins our sympathy after going out of her way to approach Casey and wish her luck in laying groundwork to place at next year's regionals, before flicking Casey's boot and sneering, "Nice skates!" But immediately following this stirring display of sportsmanship, Gen approaches from wherever she was eavesdropping and dismisses Zoey's comment as an intimidation tactic, before taking Casey by the hand (!) and giving her a cheap makeover. Thus the true purpose of this scene reveals itself, as Gen gazes into Casey's eyes with her fingers all over her mouth and declares at Casey, "You're HOT!" The sexual politics at work here defy explanation as Gen proceeds to pimp out her brother with the same big smile on her face.

As for the actual performances, it must be acknowledged that Zoe as well as The Jumping Shrimp are actually excellent skaters (played by real-life athletes Juliana Cannarozzo and Kirsten Olson ); Tiffany, on the other hand, falls on her face to the hilarious disappointment of her father. Even so, however, Casey's routine is the only one suffering not just from being choreographed by PowerPoint, but surely being disqualified after 17 seconds for using a non-instrumental music track.

As "The Jumping Shrimp," watch Nikki overcome the obstacle of being an actual jumping shrimp and win the regional championships despite the limited amount of time she is able to survive out of water.