It’s shaping up to be another solid year of spins, jumps and learning for members of the Flin Flon Skating Club.
All three of the club’s divisions – the CanSkate developmental program, the Junior STARSkate and the advanced-level Senior STARSkate program – are in full swing.
Registration is slightly down from last year’s levels, but club spokeswoman Cyndi Pedwell is not concerned.
“We still have people registering,” she said. “Some parents just can’t get around to it or they forget. You can join skating any time of the season, so we always have a lot of late registrants.”
The biggest event for the season will be the club’s annual ice show, due to take place in March. Skaters from all three main divisions will join the show.
The skating club will also be attending three out-of-town events this year. The first event is a training seminar in The Pas this weekend. The seminar will allow skaters taking part to train with some of the province’s best skating coaches.
“We’re looking forward to having almost all our skaters going to The Pas,” said Pedwell. “We have a bit of a struggle of making sure we have coaches that are certified to coach here. When the kids get to go to that, they’re exposed to a much higher level of coaching.”
The season will also include a regional competition in Thompson in January and another competition in March at Stony Mountain.
The club will not host any regional competitions or training sessions this season. Events in the Norman region are rotated yearly.
“This is our year off,” said Pedwell. “We’re not actually a host to any events outside of our own ice show.”
Two skaters with the club were recently certified as level one skating instructors.
“That’s pretty impressive because figure skating coaches are becoming few and far between, and to be a figure skating coach, you have to be a figure skater and you have to pass a whole bunch of testing levels,” Pedwell said. “The girls were pretty pumped about that.”
One of the two newly certified instructors is Pedwell’s daughter, Victoria.
“She plans to become a figure skating coach and get her level 3 coaching certification,” said Pedwell. “She said she didn’t want to live in a place where kids can’t skate because there’s no coach.”
The club runs skating sessions weekday evenings at the Whitney Forum.
