Typically, those phrases are mutually exclusive, like, say, scrapple and Le Bec-Fin, or spread eagle and the Eagles' spread.

But Brett Bommentre is both - a world-class figure skater and a 23-year-old Eagles fan who would rather watch football than his own sport.

"Why would I watch skating when there's the draft, and I can sit in front of the television four days and watch?" Bommentre said.

Next week, Bommentre, a Philadelphia native who lives in Horsham, won't have that option. He will be out of range of the NFL Network and too busy, to boot.

He and ice-dance partner Kim Navarro will for the first time be competing for the United States in the World Figure Skating Championships in Göteborg, Sweden. Their arrival in Göteborg was not a smooth one. Bommentre's luggage, including his skates, was lost.

The duo, who train at the Philadelphia Skating Club in Ardmore, qualified as one of the three American teams with a third-place finish in January's U.S. championships.

Bommentre and Navarro, a California native and a cum-laude Columbia graduate, followed that with a third-place finish last month in the Four Continents Championships in South Korea, their first medal in an international event.

For a team that has been together just three years - the couples who finished ahead of them in South Korea had at least 10 years' experience - their rise has been remarkable.

They were fifth in their first nationals in 2006, fourth in 2007, and third this year in St. Paul, Minn., where they were aided by the injury withdrawal of Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov, who had finished second in the 2007 U.S. championships.

"You're not happy about their withdrawal because as competitors, you want to compete against the best," Bommentre said. "If you get a spot on the world team, you really want to earn it. But at the same time, we know the kind of work we've put into this season and the previous seasons. Our skating was at that [world-championship] level. So whether we made the world team or not this year, we'd have been very happy with the strides we'd made."

No one would be surprised if five-time American champions Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto won the Swedish event, which will begin today with the compulsory dance. The original dance will take place Thursday, the free skate a day later.

Bommentre and Navarro, like the third U.S. team of Meryl Davis and Charlie White - competing in their second world championships - have more modest goals.

Navarro said a top-10 finish would be a huge step in helping them rise through the caste system that, despite the new scoring system, continues to dominate figure-skating judging.

"That's always a good goal - to be top-10 your first year in what's the biggest competition of the year. We've never been there, so we're going to take a lot away no matter what happens," she said after a five-hour practice session last week with coaches Robbie Kaine and Cheryl Demkowski Snyder at the isolated Ardmore rink.

"I'll tell you right now we are not going to win," Bommentre said. "We could skate lights-out, and if everyone else competes, we probably won't win. It's something that comes along with the territory. For us, putting together three strong performances, that's all we're really looking for. The opportunity to perform at this level. The recognition for the work we do. And there will be a lot more eyes seeing us."

Navarro comes from a skating family in Santa Rosa, Calif. Her mother, Lisa, competed as a pairs skater, then toured in ice shows for 27 years. She exposed her daughter to all the sport's disciplines, but the youngster liked the flow and elegance of ice dancing best.

Bommentre, meanwhile, had never seen an ice skater when his grandmother, concerned that the 6-year-old asthmatic was getting too little exercise, got him skating lessons.

"I'm a huge sports fan, but I wasn't very good at other sports," he said. "I started out in freestyle skating, but I was very bad at jumping. I had some success in ice dancing, and that's what kept me in it."

By the time he graduated from La Salle High in 2002, he knew what he wanted to do. Though he is on "the 20-year-plan" and taking courses at Villanova, he did not initially apply to college.

"I was the only kid at La Salle who didn't apply to any college," he said. "The guidance counselors hated me. But I knew I had a limited time to commit to this. College is not going anywhere. I like to take classes now when I can, but I'm not in a rush to get it done."

The duo came together three years ago when, after an 18-month hiatus from the sport while she finished earning her English degree at Columbia, Navarro went looking for a new partner. Bommentre, four years younger, was seeking one, too.

Navarro had noticed Bommentre - then skating with Kendra Goodwin - at the 2005 nationals in Portland, Ore. When she heard later that they had broken up, she made arrangements to come to the rink off Holland Avenue in Ardmore.

The audition "just felt right," Navarro said. "That's my least favorite part of the sport. It's hard sometimes for a girl because there are less guys in skating. You can't avoid feeling that you are the one being tried out."

Somehow the shy, soft-spoken, 5-foot-3 Navarro and the more gregarious, 5-foot-8 Bommentre hit it off immediately, as their fifth-place finish at the 2006 nationals in St. Louis quickly demonstrated.

"Time is definitely an important factor in our sport," Bommentre said. At worlds, we'll be the newest team by many, many years. There are teams that have been together 15 years. We're still trying to make up that experience gap. But if you look at it in that sense, we're doing phenomenally."

One of the things that has aided their rise is their willingness to take risks. When teams were instructed to add a folk-dance program this year, they were the only duo to pick an African theme.

"They could easily have taken the easy road and done Italian or Russian or whatever," Snyder said. "Nobody else was doing [African]. They took the time to research it. They'll continue to improve because they push the envelope. And, if nothing else, they'll be noticed. That will put them on the radar for going ahead to the Olympics or whatever."

Bommentre and Navarro said it was too early to think seriously about winning an Olympic berth. Their focus for the last month has been on Sweden.

Navarro said she would stay there after the event and visit her Swedish boyfriend's family. Bommentre, until recently, had a more ambitious to-do list for the trip.

"It's a shame Peter Forsberg came over [and signed with Colorado] already," Bommentre said, "because had I seen him in Sweden, I would have convinced him to come back to the Flyers."

See video of Brett Bommentre

and Kim Navarro ice dancing at http://go.philly.com/icedance.

at 215-854-5068 or ffitzpatrick@phillynews.com.