Members of the Hay River Figure Skating Club got the opportunity to compete at the Grande Prairie Skating Club’s Peace Region Invitational over the Jan. 29 and 30 weekend.
Club president Jaime Harris said that the club took six skaters down for the annual Star Skate event.
Hay River competitors ranged from the Star Skate 3 to 5 levels, with the higher the ratings of the athletes, the more advanced their skills and jumps.
“Normally the competition runs Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but due to a lack of numbers this year, it only ran on the Saturday and Sunday with our skaters competing on the Saturday,” Harris said.
“It was nice just to be able to go again. We had already signed up for the competition before (Covid gathering orders) shut us down.”
Harris said that not having the three weeks leading up to the competition due to the Aurora Ford Arena being off limits was a bit of a concern as it came to how her skaters would fare, but the team was able to squeeze some ice time in at the last minute.
“The kids really had to try and pull out what they could without having that ice time for three weeks,” she said.
“We rented out a couple hours of ice time in Grand Prairie, just so the kids could get some skating and practice in before they competed.”
The club has been lucky to get out to other competitions this year, despite some of the pandemic restrictions. Four skaters from Hay River competed at the Edmonton Region Competition in St Albert from Dec. 3 to 5.
Looking ahead, the club is intending to send skaters to the Airdrie Skating Club’s Combined Winter Invitational that will take place Feb. 18 to 20.
Plans remain in place for Hay River skaters to take part in the NWT Territorials Star Skate Invitational. That event had been scheduled in Yellowknife over the Feb. 11 to 13 weekend however, it has been postponed to March 13.
But the event won’t be taking place in-person at all.
“Because of people not having ice for three or four weeks because of Covid, they postponed it to March and it’s all going to be virtual judging,” Harris explained.
“So the kids will have to just submit videos of themselves skating.”
Harris said organizers of the competition are still working out the logistics but the club will have the competitors video themselves doing their skating programs in a controlled environment.
The taped demonstration can only be done once and the video will then be submitted to judges for review. Scores are later sent back by the judges.
The video submission deadline is Feb. 28.
Since the reopening of user group programming on Jan. 31 at the Hay River Recreation Centre, the figure skating club has returned to normal practice. The club of 55 skaters practices five times a week on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
