Still Coaching after 60 years!

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Paul Tatton then and now.

Paul Tatton then and now

It began as a way for a sickly child to get exercise but eventually turned into a life-long love affair with skating.

In the mid-1940s, Paul Tatton was 10 when he began skating at the North Bay Figure Skating Club. “I had been in bed with Pleurisy for over a year so naturally I wasn’t able to take part in active sports. Somehow I managed to pass my Preliminary Figure Test during my second season … and with that my love for skating was born.”

Young Paul Tatton.

Young Paul Tatton

His efforts in his first ice show never indicated the kind of career that lay ahead. “While Sonya Henie was the star of the show, I was a frog along with two other young boys. We were skating on natural ice in an inch of slush and carried on so much that when we took off our costumes, we were green all over – the dye didn’t come off for a week!”

From the beginning, it was a family commitment, his parents volunteering for every job at the club, his mom eventually becoming a gold test judge. “After my second year’, says Paul, “my father drove me all the way to Toronto to get a half hour lesson with Coach Gerry Blair. At the end of the lesson he told me that I could be as good as I wanted — he could show me what to do but the rest was up to me.”

When Paul arrived back in North Bay he informed his parents that he had to live away from home to get skating time. His parents agreed and the next day drove him to Copper Cliff, west of Sudbury, got him a room, arranged for meals at a boarding house and enrolled him in the Copper Cliff Skating Club. “I was 13 years old”, tells Paul, “and got up at 4am every morning, walked to get breakfast, then to the rink and skated from 5am to 8.30, then off to school. I trained there with Mr. Blair on weekends and practiced on my own during the week.”

Paul Tatton as a young boy.

Paul Tatton as a young boy

Paul admits that Gerry Blair took him under his wing and insured he had the things he needed to improve. “I had trouble with skating boots breaking down so Mr. Blair took me to see a friend of his, John Knebli. John made shoes for handicapped people. When shown my skates his immediate reply was ‘I CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT’! He took me back to his shop, measured my flat feet … and two weeks later I had the very first skating boots Mr. Knebli ever made. The rest is history.”

Under the guidance of Gerry Blair and later Sheldon Galbraith, Paul competed all the way to third place at Senior Canadians in 1954, finishing his free program despite experiencing an asthma attack part way through the performance. Returning home to skate in the official opening of North Bay Memorial Gardens, he knew his competitive career was at a turning point. Money was tight and with strict rules regarding amateur status, Paul felt he was almost forced to turn professional.

Paul Tatton pairs skating.

Paul Tatton pairs skating

“Arena manager Morris Snyder asked me to run a Spring School for him. He thought I might have a good turnout and of course, loving a challenge, I wanted to see if I could do it. It turned out to be a success with all high tests passing.”

That started Paul on his life’s work. “The transition to coaching was easy … I’m a tremendous planner … and not just in skating.” Whether it was learning to fly and getting his certification after one month, being scouted by the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL or receiving a scholarship to develop his high tenor operatic voice in Italy, whatever Paul set his sights on, he did with determination.

Thankfully Paul’s dedication to coaching skating won out.

He worked in the US, most notably in Hershey, Pennsylvania, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio as the Director of Skating and finally back in Canada in 1976 after which he started his own school in Sundridge, Ontario. “Today I work for Riverside Skating Club, Windsor Skating Club and La Salle Skating Club in Western Ontario.”

Wherever Paul landed, he discovered it was the science of skating that kept him challenged, particularly during school figures. “I loved to see what happened if I turned my head one way, not the other. I still love doing skating research and then seeing the effects … it’s fascinating … I never get bored.”

He’s sad figures are gone. “Figures taught you to concentrate. Learning quality turns, body control and the tracing of a perfect edge was a real art form. It was the great divider; today it’s often just acrobatics.”

One of Paul’s former students, Jen Jackson, now a coaching colleague, recalls her early days under Paul’s tutelage. “I have known Paul since 1987 when I first moved to Windsor and was looking for a coach to help me finish my gold tests. I chose him because when I came into the rink to watch, even though he wasn’t teaching the best skater on the ice, he gave her a lesson filled with enthusiasm. I could see his passion for the sport … and he never watched the clock.”

Paul Tatton coaching.

Paul Tatton coaching

Paul admits his priority has always been to instill confidence in the skaters he teaches. “I like to think that with each lesson I’ve accomplished something that will help them. You learn a lot about yourself in skating. You learn to face challenges that will benefit you for life. My coaches sure gave me confidence and for that I am grateful. Now it’s my job to pass that confidence on.”

In many ways, Jen has followed Paul’s teaching model. “When I began coaching, Paul was so generous and had me work with all his skaters. Now that he’s getting older, he’s stepping back, letting others take more leadership so he can work on specific areas with the skaters. He loves teaching turns and has become the Spin Doctor. The kids just love him. He always has a kind word or a story about the good old days and how each skater reminds him of someone wonderful he used to teach.”

Getting older has meant facing other challenges for Paul. Two years ago he had shoulder surgery and also broke his back, injuries which kept him off the ice for months.

As Jen says, it may have kept him out of the rink, but it did not curtail his enthusiasm. “When I would go to visit him, all he could talk about was how the kids were doing. He never complained about his situation and instead just kept telling me that he couldn’t wait to get back and hopefully by then he was still needed.”

Paul admits, “I’m proudest of the moments when I’ve helped kids do something they didn’t think they could do.”

Teaching from the boards, although Paul doesn’t put his skates on these days, he is as enthusiastic and involved as ever, this week attending the Annual General Meeting of Skate Canada Western Ontario and celebrating his 60th year of coaching.

Congratulations Paul!

Master Coach Sheldon Galbraith Leaves Lasting Legacy

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Sheldon Galbraith’s funeral was anything but quiet and sombre.

Old friends by the numbers filed in and the chatter filled the room. The chatter became a din. It was like an old family reunion. Galbraith always had lots to say. So did his family and that includes folks who felt his big presence over the years.

Galbraith was just short of 93 when he died on April 14, and it was clear from all the gibber, that the life he had lived was full and meaningful to many. He was a man who was a game-changer, ahead of his time, with a big personality that radiated gloriously through glossy black-and-white photos of him skating shadow pairs in his early Ice Follies days with brother Murray.

Photos lined the room of Galbraith’s life: an incredibly handsome photo of him in naval uniform; Galbraith toting an enormous golf bag, with an amused look thrown back over his shoulder; Galbraith going deer hunting, or perhaps it was for moose (the bigger the game, the better); Galbraith in his familiar coaching uniform – long baggy coat, big galoshes, cap with floppy ear flaps pulled over his head – as he leaned over to inspect a compulsory figure; Galbraith with family, wife of 69 years, Jeanne and their four daughters and one son; Galbraith receiving the Order of Canada.

Galbraith’s list of accomplishments is long: coach of Barbara Ann Scott, winner of the first Canadian Winter Olympic gold medal in 1948; coach of world champions in three of the four skating disciplines; coach of Olympic champs Barbara Wagner and Bob Paul, the first Canadian pair to win this gold; two-time world champions Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden, who also took Olympic silver; coach of 1962 world champion Donald Jackson, who became the first skater to land a triple Lutz in competition, coach of Vern Taylor, credited with the first triple Axel.

He also earned a string of awards: he was the first figure skating coach to be inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame (1980), and he’s also a member of the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame (1990), the Canadian Figure Skating Hall of Fame (1991), the World Museum Hall of Fame in the United States (1996) and the Professional Skating Hall of Fame (2003). Galbraith, the first president of the Professional Skating Association in Canada, also received the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario.

But reading between all of those lines is even more astonishing. Brian Foley, the Pied Piper of Canadian dance who also choreographed for Dorothy Hamill, Robin Cousins, John Curry and Toller Cranston, said he first set foot at the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club in 1966, when he met Galbraith, then the head coach.

“I’ll never forget that first introduction with Sheldon,” Foley said. “He was, in his way, very polite in chastising me, that I was standing and teaching in his space.”

In a far corner of that space, Foley saw the many teaching tools Galbraith used to bring out the best in his skaters: “a homemade flying contraption,” Foley said. “Trampolines with crash mats. A few wooden poles. Some climbing apparatus and other paraphernalia that reminded me of an early Cirque du Soleil.”

And who could ever forget the video room? “I want to assure everybody that nobody was invited or allowed into that room,” Foley said. Well, international judge Jane Garden did. Galbraith showed her videos, taught her to see errors, made her a better judge. Later, he advocated for judges to pass on what they learned at skating events. Not only did he teach skaters. He taught judges.

Galbraith spent his life researching and developing his own philosophies, adapting his training as a flight instructor to figure skating. He made it all a science, but intuition worked too. Technique in figures, jumps and spins was all-important. He taught the science of momentum and balance and centre, which are elements that you need to do quality spins, Foley said. He researched the physical transfer of weight from edge to edge, carrying the weight appropriately over the ball of the foot. He measured the amount of velocity required in order to skate forward and backward with great flow.

If there is anybody who carries the Galbraith torch of technique, it is Gary Beacom, the master of the skate blade. “I am grateful that my most influential coach plumbed the depths of technique with such enlightenment and a sense of adventure,” Beacom said. “I credit my skating proficiency and capacity for innovation to decades of training the Galbraithian relationship of speed, curve, lean and rotation. Sheldon Galbraith advocated continuous harmonious motion using momentum and rhythm for both technical and artistic advantage.”

Beacom says he had Galbraith to thank for reviving the cross-foot spin as a compulsory program element during the mid-1970s. The cross-foot spin became Beacom’s signature move.

Casey Kelly, now an international judge, began to take lessons from Galbraith when her family moved back to Canada in 1973. She remembers his fairness and sense of equality. Cranston had a habit of drifting over the lines of the space allotted to him for training figures. He was working toward a world championship: Kelly was working on her third test. She would politely step aside for Cranston.

However, Galbraith told her: “Don’t you dare stop. You deserve to be here just as much as he does.” Kelly smacked into Cranston three times, before he finally moved back into his own space. “That was something I never forgot,” she said.

Donald Jackson also discovered Galbraith’s sense of fair play before he even began to work with him. Jackson had been training with Pierre Brunet in the United States, but Galbraith, the Canadian team coach, took over watch on Jackson during the 1960 Olympics when Brunet was too busy with other skaters.

Galbraith was the official coach of Wendy Griner at the time and the question became: who would take to the practice patch first? “It was always better to skate second, because the ice would be a little bit softer and more like the ice you were skating on when you skate in front of the judges,” Jackson said.

Jackson was astonished when Galbraith flipped a coin to determine who he would coach first. He could easily have saved the best patch for his own student. “That was just the type of man he was,” Jackson said. “Fair. Honest. It was what I really appreciated.” The next season, Jackson moved into Galbraith’s fold.

Galbraith changed the technique on all of Jackson’s jumps, laboriously. Then one day, he asked Jackson to do a double flip, which Jackson could do with his arms folded. But Galbraith told him to relax into a backspin position as he went up. “No problem,” thought Jackson, who promptly landed on his toes and fell, hard. Galbraith glided over and said: “I saw what I wanted to see. Don’t do it again.”

It was too late for Jackson to change that technique on a flip. But now, everybody does jumps with backspin technique. “Every time I see the skaters doing triples and quads, I think of what Mr. Galbraith developed for skating,” Jackson said. “And I think of my bruise, too. I guess I was the guinea pig.”

And yes, he was Mr. Galbraith to everybody. Hardly anybody ever called him Sheldon. Barbara Wagner said she called him Mr. Galbraith even as she became an adult. Kelly said her mother, Andra, never called him Sheldon, even though they’d sit next to each other at Hall of Fame functions, because of her husband, hockey great Red Kelly.

“He was a very special man who was way ahead of his time,” Wagner said.

World-class coaches work with Canada’s rising stars at Development Camp

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Markham, ON – In one corner of the Angus Glen Community Centre Arena was Brian Orser, perhaps one of the most-sought coaches on the planet these days.

Just down the ice was Orser’s coach from his competitive days: Doug Leigh. Twenty-five sets of young eyes were transfixed on them at various times during the three-day development camp for Canada’s future rising stars.

Skate Canada started the development camp four years ago to target skaters that are potential candidates for the Junior Grand Prix circuit (no senior skaters here). Orser, Leigh, Tracy Wilson, Anne Schelter, Lee Barkell, Joanne McLeod and Yuka Sato all directed skaters aged 12 to 17, teaching them basic skating skills and edges, transitions, jumps, spins, all the goodies they’ll need in years to come.

It seems to be working. Skate Canada high performance director Michael Slipchuk says four of the girls who attended early camps have already been to a world championship, even an Olympics. Nam Nguyen and Roman Sadovsky were in that first group. Now both have moved into the top echelon of senior skaters in Canada, with Nguyen breaking the speed limit to be fifth at the world (senior) championships in March.

“It just shows us that we are targeting the right level of athlete,” Slipchuk said. “We want to have a better idea of our talent pool coming up. And it gives us a chance to see them in a training setting.”

It’s also a development camp for coaches, to hear and watch and see and take the torches that have been passed by others.

So there was Leigh, a coach for more than 40 years, the creator of Olympic silver medalists and world champions Orser and Elvis Stojko at the mighty Mariposa Skating School in Barrie, Ont. Leigh was carrying a torch, too, for he’d been coaches for a couple of years by coach-to-the-stars Sheldon Galbraith. “Everybody… has fingerprints on the person you become,” Leigh said.

On ice, Leigh was part teacher, part entertainer. He kept talking about “threads and strands” – the minute details that make the difference between success and landing on one’s butt. It was about control and balance, the placing of the free foot just so. He talked to girls about doing triple Axels. It’s clearly here. “Let’s get the party going,” he said. ”We’re not sitting on the park bench.” If you master these details, he proffered, “you will go to first class. If not, you’ll go to the cargo bin.” The result will be like an insurance policy.

His subjects grinned. “He’s so funny,” said Rachel Pettit, a 16-year-old from Whitehorse, Yukon, who is Canada’s reigning novice women’s champion, set to become a junior this season. She’s heard the points he made before, but “the way he explains it is so different, that you just think of it a whole new way,” she said. “He has a very cool way of teaching.”

Stephane Yvars, now head coach at the Boucherville Centre Elite, decided to train with Leigh as a competitive skater, but in 1993, he already had a long-term plan in mind: to learn about coaching skaters, too, from the best. “He’s really generous,” Yvars said. “He’s the most generous person I know. He gives everything,”

When Yvars was a skater himself, he had landed a triple Axel only once (at age 16) before injuries took over. He knew he needed one when he returned. “We spent a month on the back edge,” Yvars said. “He’s so patient.” Yvars arrived in April. By the end of May, he was doing triple Axels. “He’s a great mentor,” Yvars added. Every year now, he invites Leigh to give seminars at his club.

So out there on ice, Leigh was now working as a colleague alongside Orser. What is it like for him to watch Orser ascend to international coaching heights? “He asked me if he was allowed to call me grandfather,” Leigh said.

“He was a world champion, and he’s got an Olympic and world champion,” Leigh said. “It’s really cool. It’s the person that is left after you’ve done that chapter. And you watch them go onto the next chapter. And they are great coaches and they can step up and take on the world and doing a good job.”

Orser said he’s taken much of what he learned from Leigh as a coach to what he does now, although he’s evolved with the times. “Skating has changed and technique has changed,” he said.

The takeoff and flights of jumps are now different than in Orser’s day. “We used to say we’d climb up into the jumps,” Orser said. “We’d swing that free leg through, whether it was an Axel or a Salchow or even a toe loop. You’d bring that free leg and you’d climb like you were climbing a stair.”

Now the feet stay together more. Skaters get into the rotation sooner. “You’re still climbing, but you’re not climbing like you are stepping on a stair,” Orser said. “”If you are talking about quads, this is imperative. You have to start teaching it this way now. “

The beauty of Dartfish showed that Orser was one of the only people who could do the big step up into a triple Axel and still get 3 ½ rotations completed while he was a skater. He does not teach Axels the way he learned them.

Other things he learned from Leigh have been vital to his success as a coach. “He was the hardest working person in the rink, who was always the first one there and the last one to leave,” he said. “He stepped on every session on time and with lots of energy.

“And you can still see that in him, that fantastic energy, but that’s what you need to have in a centre, when you try to create a community of skating. You have to do it with enthusiasm and energy and excitement and everybody feeds off that.”

Over the past two years, Leigh has stepped back from the boards at the Mariposa Skating School that he founded and works now as more of a general manager. But he’s always willing to pass on what he knows and he finds the development camp “wonderful.”

“Coaches are the leaders of the next generation,” he said. “This is team building. It’s great to be a part of it. It’s fun watching everybody develop.”

2015 Skate Canada Development Camp Participants
Justine Brasseur, 14, Brossard, Que.

Edrian Celestino, 17, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Que.

Antony Cheng, 17, Richmond Hill, Ont.

McKenna Colthorp, 14, Fort St. James, B.C.

Marjorie Comtois, 15, St-Hubert, Que.

Kim Decelles, 16, Quebec City, Que.

Cailey England, 17, Quesnel, B.C.

Gabriel Farand, 14, St-Antoine-Sur-Richelieu, Que.

Ajsha Gorman, 14, Kelowna, B.C.

Brian Le, 15, Delta, B.C.

Grace Lin, 14, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Que.

Nicolas Nadeau, 17, Boisbriand, Que.

Conrad Orzel, 14, Woodbridge, Ont.

Rachel Pettitt, 16, Whitehorse, Y.T.

Joseph Phan, 13, Gatineau, Que.

Alicia Pineault, 15, Varennes, Que.

Triena Robinson, 15, Fort St. John, B.C.

Alison Schumacher, 12, Tecumseh, Ont.

Gabriel St-Jean, 15, Grand-Mère, Que.

Sarah Tamura, 14, Burnaby, B.C.

Amanda Tobin, 14, Burlington, Ont.

Bruce Waddell, 13, Toronto, Ont.

Semi Won, 13, Barrie, Ont.

Matthew Wright, 14, Waterloo, Ont.

Megan Yim, 13, Vancouver, B.C.

Tracy Wilson Brings Elite Skaters Back to the Basics

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Tracy Wilson figures she learns as much as she teaches.

Yes, we all know she’s a crack skating analyst for various television networks, having won Gemini Awards for her work. But the former Olympic ice dancing medallist has quietly and behind the scenes fashioned a stellar career as a skating coach to some of the world’s best. Teaching all manner of skaters the true art of the blade, Wilson has become the wind beneath the wings of Olympic champions and world contenders.

And she’s done it through partnerships: Learning from other sports as she teaches their athletes. She’s deconstructed puzzles, and has come out on the other side with exercises and methods that seem to work wonderfully well. Several weeks ago, three of her students placed among the top five in the men’s event at the world championships in Shanghai: new world champ Javier Fernandez, Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu and the irrepressible Canadian champion Nam Nguyen who made believers out of many with his fifth-place finish at age 16.

Wilson’s exercises are a hybrid of many things, starting with what worked to make her and partner Rob McCall seven-time Canadian champions, three-time world bronze medalists, and the first Canadian ice dancers to win an Olympic medal (bronze in 1988.) She and McCall did foundation exercises every day as they trained. “It really helped us to find our balance, to create muscle memory so that we weren’t ever having to think,” Wilson said. “Our bodies just know how to maximize efficiency.”

After the death of McCall in 1991, Wilson didn’t skate for five years. She returned to the ice only because her children wanted to skate. Her oldest son, Shane, started playing hockey. Everything changed after a chance meeting with a hockey coach at a cocktail party. Wilson found herself telling him: “Guess what you guys need to do?” The coach asked her if she’d like to do it. Wilson said: “Sure.”

She worked with her son’s team from the time he was about seven or eight until he was in his mid-teens. Another son, Ryan also played hockey. “I just took my ice dance exercises and that’s what I did with these hockey players with music,” she said. She adapted the exercises to the needs of the players.

And of course, the needs were different. She learned that hockey players didn’t care how they looked on ice. They had no need for the pointed-toe thing. They cared about balance and speed and power. She quickly discovered that she had to always stay one step ahead of nine and 10-year-olds, and always tried to come up with new exercises.

“What I gained from them was a freedom,” she said. “It was really interesting to me.” And in turn, she brought that to her figure skating exercises. It’s great to have the correct technique, but best if you couple it with power and energy.

One day, son Shane was on the ice at the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club because he had asked his mother to work with him. Intrigued, U.S. skaters Adam Rippon and Christina Gao, who were training in Toronto at the time, asked if they could train with him. “It was fabulous,” Wilson said. “They got on the ice and you could really see the difference. They were going for style over power. And I said: ‘Guys, just for fun, get in behind Shane. And always listen to his blade and forget about how you look. Just stay in there.’”

She and cohort Brian Orser have both honed in on what works to help different skaters. There is no set formula. When Wilson actually went back to coaching figure skating, her first students were astonishing: Chinese pair stars Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao. Lori Nichol, who had been choreographing for them, sent them over to Wilson to tinker with their skating skills just as both Orser and Wilson had started at the club.

Together, they worked five hours the first day. Wilson took them right back to the basics. At the time, Yu Na Kim’s mother was in the rink, coming to work with choreographer David Wilson, and she asked if Wilson would work with her daughter.

“Sure,” Wilson said. “When?”

“Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,” she said. So Kim became Wilson’s second student. She had a whole year to work with Kim. Eventually, whatever Wilson could think up for her, Kim could do.

“If you haven’t really broken down the skating basics to their most simple form, you can’t build on top of it,” Wilson said. She had set Shen and Zhao right back to doing two-foot skating exercises, called bubbles (feet go in and out together), and it was to teach them knee action and balance. They spent about 30 to 40 minutes on the first exercises and then moved to inside edges.

“I just knew if I was going to do for them what they needed, we had to start from the very beginning and I didn’t know any other way,” Wilson said. Later she called Nichol and told her she was going to apologize in advance for frustrating Zhao in particular. Nichol said on the contrary: they had loved it and wanted to do it every day. They trained with Wilson for 10 days in a row.

Last spring, Zhao, now a coach, sent three of his pair teams to Wilson so that she could work with them in the same way. They are the same exercises that Wilson and Orser use to teach beginner skaters and adults.

Wilson has also developed off-ice training over the years, too. She herself had worked Pilates, and dance on the floor and adapted some of those exercises onto the ice. “You can be very creative once you have the basics and see how the principles follow through at all levels,” she said.

Most importantly, in the beginning, Wilson wasn’t sure – coming from an ice dance perspective – if what she was doing was what a single skater or a hockey player, or a synchro skater needs.

“But you know what?” she said. “It is. It’s the same.” Yes, partnerships and cross-discipline learning works.

Thank You to the Greatest Volunteers in Skating

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How Judges Decide Who Takes Home Synchro Gold

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The four S’s – synchronization, spacing, speed and strength – were on championship display at the 2015 ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships at FirstOntario Place in Hamilton, Ontario on Friday, April 10 and Saturday, April 11th. Relive the short and free program performances from the world’s premier synchronized skating teams, including the gold medal performances from Canada’s NEXXICE of Burlington, Ontario.

Read below to learn how the judges determined who deserved to take home the gold medal.

Synchronized Skating – The Secret Weapon

After slightly more than 30 years as an official discipline, synchronized skating is still relatively unknown outside the circle of skating. With the world’s best synchronized skating teams competing for the global title in Hamilton in April, the sport is quickly finding its place in the spotlight … and hopefully someday soon into the Olympic Games.

Skating fans have been so entrenched in the traditional disciplines of singles, pairs and ice dance that it has taken time for this fifth on-ice member of the skating family to gain recognition and credibility. Thanks in part to huge interest here at home, Canada has been a giant force in helping develop synchronized skating and bringing it to the international stage.

So what exactly is “synchro” and how does it differ from the other forms of skating we already know and love?

Think team skating.

With teams of eight to twenty skaters on the ice performing fast-paced and intricate moves side-by-side at the same time, the sport requires nerves of steel, adaptability, control, confidence and teamwork. Just like in other skating disciplines, speed, power, edge work, skating skills and choreography are important but so are additional technical elements like accuracy of formations (see below), transitions, and precision of movement within the team. Consider how difficult all those goals are to achieve with only two people on the ice in pairs and dance, then add in additional skaters and more hard stuff to do … and you’ll have a much clearer idea what the sport is all about, why it’s so difficult and why it’s growing in popularity around the world.

Many involved countries have their own version of a synchro program which starts with introducing young skaters to the experience and benefits of belonging to this specialized area of the sport. As part of a team, every skater can enjoy the thrill of competition and the success that comes from participating. But be warned! Like skating anywhere, once the synchro bug gets hold, what may start out simply as wanting to learn to skate for fun can become seriously competitive!

To attract members, Canada’s synchro program starts early through a gamut of stages of expertise, Beginner through various levels to Junior, Senior and Adult, each one based to some extent on age and ability. Teams may form merely for fun and recreation, like for an appearance in an ice show, or they may take a more serious route with competitive goals, auditions, fund-raising, long-range commitment and extensive training on and off the ice.

To align high level synchro competition with other skating events, junior and senior teams must compete in short and free programs, each with required elements to ensure a well-balanced program. Performances are judged using the International Judging System where the Technical Score is based on the difficulty of the element and the quality of its execution, and the Program Components score reflecting the quality of skating skills, performance, choreography, transitions and musical interpretation.

Sound familiar?

As similar as the structure of these events may be to traditional competition, you won’t see triple jumps or complicated spins during synchro … or at least not yet. Although these elements will likely come to the sport eventually, what you will see today is some of the most technically demanding skating and creative choreography on the planet.

In synchro, keeping in mind that every element should be skated in unison with speed, power and control and with maximum ice coverage, here are the basic formations to look for.

Line: one line, parallel lines or diagonal lines

Block: a rectangular formation with a minimum of three parallel lines covering the length of the ice with lines close together and skaters evenly spaced

Circle: a consistently round shape rotating for at least 360°, skaters evenly spaced with no pulling or tugging between individuals

Spin: solo spins performed in unison with a minimum of 3 revolutions

Intersection: one half of the team intersects individually with the other half

Wheel: formation must rotate at least 360° where all skaters rotate around a common point, like spokes of a wheel

Group Lift: two or more skaters will lift one or more skaters to any height and set them back down

Creative: innovative movements, free skating elements or moves that reflect the music, performed individually, as pairs or as groups

Moves: a flowing sequence of at least 3 different skating movements, e.g. spirals, Bauers, spread eagles, etc. skated with strong edges and linking steps

No Holds: similar to a block formation except the skaters are not connected – team must hold the block of 4 or 5 lines and maintain spacing while skating turns and linking steps in unison over the entire length/diagonal of the ice surface

The first step to enjoying synchro is being able to ID the above formations. Once you have a taste for those, next you’ll want to ask yourself the following questions to determine the quality and difficulty of the move.

  • Is every skater doing exactly the same thing during formations?
  • Are skaters close together and equidistant from one another? (Closer is much harder!)
  • Do elements appear easy and comfortable without pushing or pulling (tension) between skaters?
  • Are the formations clear and accurate?
  • Are they held for the required amount of time or ice coverage?
  • Are the transitions between moves seamless?
  • Are lines straight?
  • Is the performance skated smoothly and with confidence?
  • Has any element been made more difficult by the addition of footwork, changes of direction, pivoting or by choreography that makes the element harder to skate well or the formation harder to hold?

There you go … now you have the basics.

While the athletes test their skills … with these guidelines … now you can test yours too.

Skate Canada Celebrates National Officials Day

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Happy National Officials Day to all our Skate Canada volunteer officials!

Today we celebrate and honour the contributions of our dedicated and passionate officials all across the country. From the grassroots to Olympic level, officials provide the backbone for our sport in all disciplines. As judges, referees, data specialists, evaluators, technical specialists and controllers, our officials support the participation of all skaters through test days, competitions, monitoring sessions, workshops and much more!

Why does one become an official? What does it take to be a successful official? How do I get involved? These are some of the questions that may come to the mind of anyone with an interest in the sport (skater, coach, parent, etc.) so we have reached out to some of our current officials from across the country to collect a brief snapshot of their journey as officials to share with you all.

Richard Vallee – NO Section, Judge/Evaluator (Officiating for nearly 40 years)
Deciding to conclude my coaching activities, yet wanting to stay involved in the sport, it was suggested that I consider joining the judging ranks. My mother, a low test judge, encouraged me to continue to pursue this avenue which would eventually assist our local skating club by defraying future costs of importing judges for test sessions. I began the educational aspect by reviewing judging materials and attending test sessions to learn as much as possible. As I advanced through the test levels, Norm Carscallen, an International judge from Sudbury, Ontario who had judged several of my skating tests served as my mentor, encouraging me to progress through the ranks.

Advancing through the competitive levels resulted in involvement in related activities such as sectional and national committee work, facilitating clinics and seminars, and monitoring skaters.

As a competitive judge, I was fortunate to reach Canadian and international status with the guidance of several highly esteemed officials: Jane Garden, Joyce Hisey, and in particular Jean Mathews and Elizabeth Clark. As I reflect on my nearly 40 years as a Skate Canada official, I believe that it is extremely important for judges to share their knowledge, expertise, and experience in order to assist others in attaining their goals. My life has been enriched through the wonderful judging experiences, lifelong friendships, and the immense satisfaction I have received from working with parents, coaches, volunteers, and in particular, the skaters.

Lyse Prendergast – BC/YK Section, Data Specialist (Officiating since 2013)
After many years of involvement in figure skating, beginning as a skater myself and later as a parent, club volunteer, board member and then club administrator, I decided to continue my participation in the sport by beginning training to become a data specialist about two years ago. It has been a great experience so far. It’s given me a way to stay involved in skating while really challenging myself and developing new skills and knowledge. As well as learning the particulars of the data specialist role, I have enjoyed learning more about the sport itself, and continuing my connection with the skaters, coaches and officials I’ve come to know over my years as a club volunteer and staff member. We have a great team of data specialists in BC and the mentoring I’ve received from people like Sharon Dahl, Lorraine Mapoles and Wayne Sutherland has been incredible. For data specialists, the competition hours are often long and demanding, and sometimes punctuated with challenging technical crises, but I really enjoy being part of a team where everyone is dedicated to the sport, works hard and looks out for each other, and pulls together when needed.

Chelsey Schaffel – AB/NT/NU, Synchronized Skating Technical Specialist/Technical Controller/Judge (Officiating since 2006)
I was always quite analytical about synchro programs that I skated, and that I watched, so I was very interested in the technical specialist role when the new judging system was introduced. I was invited to attend the technical specialist training seminar right around the time I could start to see my career as a skater winding down due to cost, injuries, and other life commitments. I passed the exam, and though I competed for two more seasons, I was also given opportunities to officiate and discovered that I enjoyed it immensely. Being able to continue skating and test the waters of officiating at the same time made the transition away from competing much easier, and I found the technical specialist role was a great fit because I still got to work in a team environment, which was what had drawn me to synchro (“precision” when I started!) in the first place.

I love educating coaches and skaters, and giving teams feedback. Judging criteria and processes seemed very mysterious when I first started competing, and I feel the CPC judging system really fosters dialogue between officials and competitors. It’s very rewarding to see your words have a positive impact on a team’s development.

Being an official is a bigger time commitment and involves more hard work than most people probably realize, but it’s also much more rewarding than I ever anticipated. Having the best seat in the house at competitions is an obvious perk, but I also get to learn and teach, travel, meet people from all over the world who love to talk about synchro as much as I do, and stay involved in an amazing sport. The experiences I had as a synchro skater have had a positive impact on so many areas of my life, and I know that by volunteering my time, I am giving other skaters the chance to have those experiences too.

Benoît Lavoie – QC Section, Judge/ Technical Controller (Officiating since 1982)
As a beginner I was dreaming about Olympics. I was a huge fan of the Olympic movement since I was a young boy. I was quite realistic as an athlete even when I competed at the senior national level. I wanted to stay involved after my skating career and when an accelerated program was created to train new officials I became involved that way in 1982. Being an official has allowed me to stay active and accurate with the technical rules, and also stay involved somehow with athletes and the skating family who have given me so much for so many years.

I would recommend becoming an official because it’s the best seat in the house at events, best second family to contribute as a volunteer and best sport organization in the world.

Many people have contributed to my desire to become a better official; Sally Rehorick inspired me at first at a skating conference. Eva Finlay was my mentor through all my levels up to senior. Debbie Islam was a role model for me to become an international official.

I have several favourite officiating moments but I guess one of the best would be having the privilege to judge at the Olympic Winter Games in 2002 when Salé and Pelletier won Gold through adversity. I felt I contributed in a special way and for the credibility of our sport and the respect of the Olympic values, I had so much pride.

Nancy Bray – NS Section, STAR 1-4 Judge (Officiating since 2014)
I decided to become an official for a number of reasons, one of them was to give back to a sport that gave me so much. Figure skating taught me the value of never giving up and instilled in me a solid fitness foundation, which I carry with me today. I also became an official to stay actively involved in the sport. As a new mother, I don’t have the time that coaching would demand. Being an official offers me more flexibility, allows me to enjoy watching the skaters develop and at the same time builds my own knowledge about the sport. It’s a win-win situation; I can give back to the sport I love and do something positive for myself that fits easily into my busy schedule.

Do you have a love for the sport of figure skating? Do you want to learn more about the sport and join a team of passionate and dedicated individuals?

Whether you have experience as a skater yourself, or have put in extensive time at the rink as a skating fan or parent, there is an officiating opportunity available for you! To learn more about developmental officiating opportunities, please contact your section office: http://www.skatecanada.ca/skating-programs/section-offices-skate/

Canadore College Students Skate for the First Time

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Many skating clubs across Canada are incredibly successful and boast of ever increasing enrollment. Others are facing huge operational challenges. Costs are rising dramatically while membership in some areas is dropping due to competition from other activities and a changing demographic. Even the limited pool of dedicated volunteers is shrinking.

Some clubs like the North Bay Figure Skating Club in Northern Ontario have resorted to developing fundraising initiatives to help defray some of their costs. While the old tried and true fund-raising events have proven to be moderately successful in the past, with dwindling resources and opportunities, this season the club realized it had to get creative and find a fresh new approach to ease the bottom line.

But how?

The club already had history with Canadore College, North Bay’s College of Applied Arts and Technology, when students from the Marketing and Advertising Program helped develop the club’s marketing plans to recruit new members and promote the club to the community. One day during a chance conversation at the rink between a CanSkate parent and the club’s CanSkate Coordinator, the discussion focused on involving the college once again, this time by attracting its international students through some kind of learn-to-skate program.

Bingo!

With the College’s significant international student body, many of whom have never seen ice and snow, the idea of collaborating with the club to create a pilot learn-to-skate program could offer students a brand new Canadian experience.

Fraser Mowat, the College’s International Officer, was quick to see the benefits. “Skating is a slippery experience for all of us and if you have never skated before, the whole experience can be frightening. By using the expertise of the local skating club, the students would gain the ability to challenge the ice and learn from the best.”

North Bay Figure Skating Club President David Villeneuve, also a professor at the college, knew the idea was a perfect fit. “I pursued this partnership and although it took a lot of discussion, we managed to work out some shared ice time with our Preschool program. We knew it would be challenging for the Club and certainly for the coaches that had to deliver the program, but the concept was new, innovative and exciting.”

Once the College was on board, the club moved fast. The idea took root in October with a goal to have the program operating by December. With only two months to figure out the details, planning went into overdrive.

Number one consideration was to create a reasonable environment for these adult skaters. “We decided to split a portion of our Preschool ice,” said David, “so the college-age skaters wouldn’t feel too self-conscious.”

Skating student gets help tying skates.

Photo: PJ Wilson

Another challenge faced was encouraging participants to recognize the need for good equipment. Although Canadore College and the International Department provided skates and helmets, some skaters came with their own skates that had been bought online or from friends … very poor quality, no ankle support and blades so dull, they couldn’t cut through butter.

Designing the actual on-ice program was another exercise in creativity. With coaches and the club working together, it was decided that each student group would have three 45-minute sessions.

Coach Cara Song realized there might be other special circumstances in designing the program. “Considering possible language barriers and differing skating capabilities, running a laid back program that centered on the skaters’ needs and concentrated on the basics seemed to be the best approach.”

The coaches looked forward to every new group of students. “The very first day was so exciting”, admitted Cara. “Initially there were 23 students registered for the first session, and because for most of them it was their first time taking public transit to the rink, they all came staggering in late. We had set up signs all around the arena and were anxiously waiting to meet everyone.”

Standing rink side, David will never forget watching students take those first tentative steps on the ice. “Everyone was clinging to the boards! But with the help and encouragement of our coaches and PA’s the new skaters had an incredible first day. They enjoyed themselves to the point that they were taking selfies and group pictures in their equipment to post on Facebook for family and friends back home.”

Cara agreed. “Everyone was so excited and eager to be there. We had students from all around the world … Asia, Europe, South America. With the exception of a couple of people, most had never ice skated before. There were a few that really picked it up naturally; a handful that relied on skills they had from other sports, like rollerblading; and about half the group that started the session clinging to the boards.”

Language never seemed to be a problem for CanSkate Senior Program Assistant Callie O’Connor. “A couple of times I found myself having to demonstrate and visually show them what to do instead of simply saying it, but obviously over time, they understood clearly.”

One of the first students was Breno da Nobrega Bezerra from Natal, Brazil. “I was excited wondering how it would be and I was a little scared of skating. I had tried do it one time before in Ottawa but I didn’t have the right equipment and I didn’t know how to do it, so I was very happy when some friends talked to me about the skating class.”

“Each class I could improve a little and learn some new things. The instructors helped me to gain confidence, so in the end of skating lessons I had enough confidence to play on ice. It was a great moment for me. I will never forget that!” – Breno da Nobrega Bezerra

For Coach Cara, it was an incredible program in which to be involved. “When you’re working with teens or adults in CanSkate or learn to skate programs, I find there’s a unique passion among the skaters. They all genuinely want to be there. With these international students, their excitement was contagious, and I found myself appreciating the sport more after experiencing it through their fresh eyes.”

Canadore College student learns to skate.

Photo: PJ Wilson

The end results have been inspiring for everyone.

From Canadore’s perspective, Fraser Mowat acknowledged how much all of the students loved the experience and considered it a highlight of their time living in North Bay. “Most of them wanted to go back for more lessons. A few of the students have borrowed skates and gone on their own after finishing their classes.”

Breno is one of them. “Each class I could improve a little and learn some new things. The instructors helped me to gain confidence, so in the end of skating lessons I had enough confidence to play on ice. It was a great moment for me. I will never forget that!”

Cheryl Maltby, another member of the coaching team, was thrilled by the students’ reactions, “On the last day some of the skaters were saying to me that they were going to continue with their skating as much as possible in their home country.”

From the club’s perspective, it’s been a huge win for the community and for the club’s budget. “This has given us the opportunity to build a new community connection with Canadore College” said David. “Since I bridge both of these organizations, I can see how this project could allow us to create connections with other educational and cultural institutions that will allow us to give these programs some additional ice time and coaching. We have tapped into a new population and clientele that we had not thought of before. Canada itself is a nation of immigrants looking for new opportunities, perhaps this could be one of them.”

For other clubs inspired by the North Bay club’s story, David has some sage advice. “Start early. Talk to International Student departments in post-secondary institutions, to local high schools with foreign exchange students and to community multicultural agencies. They’re always looking for unique experiences. Someone is always willing to try if the opportunity is provided.”

If you’re interested in learning to skate, joining a Skate Canada club is easy. There are 1400 clubs across the country for you to choose from … all of them with certified coaching and nationally recognized programming.

To find the club nearest you, check out our clubfinder and embrace the joy of skating.

And finally … congratulations to North Bay Figure Skating Club for developing more skaters for life!

Synchro’s 2018 Olympic Dream

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Although it’s generally recognized that Synchronized Skating got its start in the United States, it wasn’t long before Canada hopped on board too. Now the sport is promoted around the world with 20 countries represented at this year’s ISU World Championships hosted by Canada this month in Hamilton, Ontario.

Making history has always been a significant part of the sport’s motivation. And now, after more than 20 years of work by the ISU Synchronized Skating Technical Committees (SySTC) and participants in the sport, there’s a glow around Synchro (SyS) that is definitely of Olympic proportion.

Canada’s Cathy Dalton, an internationally acclaimed Synchro coach and expert, has been involved in the sport from its beginning.

“Being in the Olympic Games was a dream at first,” admits Cathy, “but with all the chairmen of the SyS Technical Committee working tirelessly towards this Olympic goal, Marie Lundmark (Finland), Leon Lurje (Sweden), Uli Linder (Switzerland) and Chris Buchanan (Great Britain), we all became huge believers that Synchro had a place in the Olympic Games.”

Finland’s Marie Lundmark is the current Chair of the SySTC. “I was on the SySTC from the beginning in 1994 when our first goal was to build the sport to hold the Synchronized Skating World Championships which we did in 2000 in Minneapolis. Of course, with that success, it opened the door to talk about the possibility of Synchro becoming an Olympic discipline.”

In the Committee’s initial 4-year plan, a strategy was developed that would prepare the sport for its ultimate event. One step along that path to the Olympics was to have SyS included in the FISU Winter Universiade, a milestone accomplished in 2007. As the sport‘s popularity surged around the world, work continued in collaboration with the ISU to establish standards, requirements, ages of skaters, composition for SyS teams, event structure … all the details that would help the sport align with other Olympic events.

There was much work to do on and off the ice. Behind the scenes and deep into the synchro community, the prime directive was to build credibility for the discipline by promoting quality skating skills.

As a coach, Cathy was front-line. “Decisions were made that would improve the athleticism of the skaters, improve their skating quality, increase the difficulty of the elements and also further coaching development.”

Then in April 2011, another major step was taken.

“There was a Synchronized Skating Working Group meeting,” reflects Marie, “where together with the Council figure skating members, the SySTC, Peter Krick, Chair Sports Directorate and Krisztina Regöczy, Figure Skating Sports Director, we discussed making a formal application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by creating a proposal outlining the logistics of having SyS teams in the Games.“

It took three years of painstaking work when finally at the 2014 ISU Congress in Dublin, Ireland, the proposal was presented to the ISU and accepted by Congress. The next step undertaken by the ISU was to send an application to the IOC to have SyS recognized as an Olympic discipline with the goal to have it included in the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

In July of 2014, in response, the ISU received an official acknowledgement from the IOC … with an accompanying application requesting detailed information about SyS, including questions about things like participant and event information, team composition, number of athletes, ticket sales, TV ratings and social media statistics.

Cathy was part of the application team. “It was hard work to find accurate statistics … but we did it! A brochure was developed for the IOC that summarized SyS and included wonderful photos, facts and videos.”

But the IOC’s investigation into SyS didn’t stop there.

In the summer of 2014, the IOC sent a team of observers to a top-notch SyS event, the French Cup, to report and make recommendations on the sport’s activities, the noisy and enthusiastic environment and the public’s response.

“The French Cup was a wonderful event for them to witness,” says Cathy. “The three people from the IOC were very astute and observant. They seemed to enjoy the event and liked many of the different teams and their routines. They took photos and video of the competition that would hopefully accompany their report to the IOC … and they certainly saw how the team sport of figure skating could bring a fresh new dynamic and new fans to the Olympic movement.”

Marie is optimistic that SyS fits beautifully into the Olympic model.

“The growth in popularity of this discipline among younger age groups with fans following their favorite teams has fuelled the rapid rise in popularity and participation among young people in the ISU Member federations spread over all five Continents. This sport showcases fast and dynamic, physically and technically demanding programs that have a very different appearance from the difficult performances shown in skating’s traditional disciplines.”

From the business side of the equation, Marie is quick to add, “Given the strong youth appeal of this sport and the strong social media following, we can see a tremendous upside in the development of branded content that has a strong base for sponsorship and for generating increased fan support.”

“The sport is ready!” boasts Cathy. “Many of the organizational details have been worked out for an Olympic event: schedule, location, doping, mix zone, accommodation and transportation. The teams are ready to go!”

For Marie Lundmark and many other SyS leaders and supporters, to receive IOC approval would be the final dramatic step in the sport’s evolution. “I think that from the beginning all who have been involved in Synchronized Skating (skaters, coaches, officials, and parents) have contributed to the development of this beautiful sport. We hope that our work and dreams will be appreciated.”

The IOC’s decision is pending.

52-year-old skater to pursue gold at Nationals

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For most Canadian children, learning to skate is considered a rite of passage.

That wasn’t the case for Jeffrey Morden from Fergus, Ontario. His passion for skating came much later.

“When I was in grade four my family moved out of Fergus to a farm just up Highway 6. When my parents went to work, we used to go into town to babysitters where school was within walking distance. Once in a while after school my sitter would put my skates on for me and I’d walk down the sidewalk, a block and a half, to the arena. I didn’t know you were supposed to wear guards!”

Although Jeffrey never took skating lessons as a child, other sporting experiences were becoming a part of his daily routine.

“My Dad trained and raced Standardbred horses and I helped him with that when I was growing up. When my cousin started riding, something I wanted to do too, I got riding lessons for my tenth birthday. I loved it so much that by the time I was in my teens I was competing in Junior, then in three day Eventing and finally twice at Canadian Pony Club Nationals.”

During high school and throughout his years as a competitive rider, Jeffrey was also heavily involved in music, concert Band, choir, school musicals and his favorite, as a member of a contemporary pop group called Surge. “Surge was a big deal at my school … Surge was like ABBA!”

Then in his grade twelve year, his school took on its first big production, Guy and Dolls. For Jeffrey it was a turning point.

“At that time I was still riding and taking an exam through Pony Club so I had no time to audition for the show.”

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested, in fact, he was feeling so left out that his voice teacher talked the director into giving him a last-minute audition. The director was hooked and immediately cast Jeffrey in the show that year, following up the next year with the role of Lawyer Louie Loser in Jacob Two-Two and the Hooded Fang.

During his final year, as Jeffrey’s love for music and theatre continued to grow, he knew he was at a cross roads and had to make a big decision after graduation. Would he continue with riding or would he pursue his education?

“University won out,” admitted Jeffrey. “I ended up in the School of Dramatic Art at the University of Windsor starting out as a Costume and Set Design major.” But after one year, sensing that he had hidden talents that hadn’t yet been explored, he switched to Performance.

“I studied voice at the School of Music, acting at the School of Dramatic Art and dance at any studio in the city.”

Little did he know that another discipline, skating, was waiting in the wings.

jeffrey-morden-costume-design“When I was at university I was watching skating on television. There was something about it that struck a chord. Since there was a rink a couple of blocks from my apartment, I decided I’d give it a try. So I went to Goodwill and bought these antique skates, died them black and then got out the phone book to see where I could get them sharpened. When I took them to the figure skating shop, the people there just looked at them stunned … there was no way anyone could actually skate in them!”

And in true “Jeffrey” style, he started talking to the owner. “In exchange for a pair of used men’s skates, I offered to bead dresses and make design templates. That year I even beaded a dress for international pair skater Denise Benning!”

When Jeffrey finished school, Toronto was in his sights. “The first thing after getting settled was to find a skating club and a coach beginning at the West Toronto Figure Skating Club and then at Moss Park Skating Club. I studied dancing and figures, started testing and took my preliminary free skate about four months later … and I’m proud to say my program had two Axels in it.”

It was a great start for a 24-year old adult skater but then when Jeffrey began getting more work as a singer/dancer/actor, skating had to take a back seat to life. On the road and performing for years on stage and on cruise ships, he never forgot the joy of skating, often taking advantage of rehearsal time to keep up his skating muscle memory.

jeffrey-morden-stage-performance“You could always see me doing jumps off ice while in rehearsals, at the gym or warming up for a show. Occasionally I would sneak one into a number here or there. There was a lovely double loop in the Summertime adage during Birth of the Blues on one Holland America Cruise but for the most part that was it. I didn’t go public skating or guest skate anywhere during those years except on one occasion in Singapore when I tried to get to the rink but they were closed that day.”

Fast forward a few decades to 2011 and to the moment skating came back into Jeffrey’s life. “One day when I was teaching at a private school in Guelph, my friend Lisa said to me, ‘You know, they have adult competitions now.’ So I guess I can blame her for my passion to compete and test while in my fifties.”

And come back, he did, with a fierce determination to learn, become a judge, compete and share his performance expertise.

On the ice, Jeffrey continues to train for tests and competitions. He’s accomplished his goals of passing his Junior Bronze Dances, his Senior Bronze Freeskate and his Gold Artistic test. Competitively he’s been successful at Adult Nationals, last year finishing second in both the Men’s Gold Free Skate and the Men’s Bronze Interpretive. This year in Calgary, he’ll be back at Adult Nationals representing the Elora and District Skating Club and looking for the top spot on the podium.

As for sharing his performance knowledge, that part of his skating career is growing too. “I have always said that skaters are being judged on something they have no training in. I believe the fact that I am a skater and now a judge, combined with my years of performance training and experience, I believe I can bring many things to the table.”

jeffrey-morden-nutcraker-performanceCoaching skaters on theatrical understanding and impact has already given him some wonderful opportunities. “This summer will be my third year working in Toronto at Ice Dance Elite with Carol Lane. During the summer skaters come to Carol from all over the world so I’ve had the pleasure to work with teams from Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic as well as amazing junior and senior Canadian teams.”

Working off ice with competitors, teaching performance classes and helping to develop new appreciation for character and storylines convey Jeffrey’s admiration of a sport he calls a combination of athletics and artistry. He also feels in many ways the sport is a mirror of life.

“There is so much cross over here. Whether it’s time management, healthy living or obtaining a new skill, you really do use skills that you bring from the ice to your daily life.”

Jeffrey also emphasizes you don’t have to be young to skate.

“As you get older, it’s a great non-impact sport, develops greater balance and core strength, coordination, muscle toning, cardio… and that’s just from basic stroking. Add musicality by using your whole body to create shapes and suddenly you’re at a whole new level of activity.”

His attitude is infectious. “At the end of 12 or 13 hours of judging everyone is always saying ‘I need a drink’ and I’m always saying, ‘I just watched people skate all day, I want to go skate!’

“The problem though is that I sit there and watch and think, I’m only 52, I can still learn that.”

Calgary … Adult Nationals …get ready!

There will only ever be one Toller

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There is only one Toller.

You don’t need to say Cranston to flesh out the spirit of the man: Creative. Flamboyant. Outspoken. Voraciously well read. Colourful. Generous. Prickly.

Toller was a diva. A master of outrageous one-liners. A big spender. A clever self-marketer. A larger-than-life guy who always cut to the chase.

And perhaps, a lonely artist, gone too soon at age 65. There’s a ghostly photo of him walking out of his San Miguel de Allende studio into the Mexican light, a lone figure, reluctantly leaving his work behind.

In his book, “Zero Tollerance,” Cranston noted: “I spent 20 years looking for love (any kind of love) without finding it. The subset of that, ironically, is that at the end of 20 years, I’m not sure that I would have recognized it if I had found it. It might have been right under my nose, but I didn’t have the sensibilities to discern it.”

He always walked his own path. He was an island, even in his own family, he once said. His mother left him nothing in her will. She didn’t support his skating. At the 1974 world championship in Munich, Toller had her kicked out of the rink. His father, an ex-football quarterback, was by Toller’s admission, a kindly man with whom he had no bond. His father once said he was immensely proud of his son, but Toller would never let him become close. “He has always been that way,” Monty Cranston once said. “Out there on his own.”

One of Cranston’s toughest crosses to bear, so he said, was his failure to win an Olympic gold medal in 1976. He took home bronze instead. He later said that loose end largely dictated his “lust for acceptance and recognition.” And that it led to “exaggerated personal behaviours and ruinous conspicuous consumption,” he said.

His novel skating style was not always accepted by the establishment. (When he won his Canadian junior title at age 14, his placements ranged from 1st to 22nd, he said.) Nor was his art accepted. Canadian art has been described by some as the “frozen art of a frozen people.” But Cranston’s work burst with warm colour, arabesque forms and exotic Silk-Road characters. He was completely an outsider. Perhaps his fantasy art wasn’t taken seriously. To Cranston, it was very serious, an expression of his inner vision.

“Do you have any paintings by Toller Cranston in your gallery?” Maia-Mari Sutnik, a curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario was asked after Cranston’s death. “No,” she replied quickly. “His work doesn’t fit into any of our collections. His work is decorative art. And then he left the country. He wasn’t part of the community. If you have a Toller Cranston piece, just keep it and enjoy it.”

In June of 2011, Cranston was awarded an honorary doctor of law degree at Carleton University, where he addressed a convocation of students. “This is important to me,” he told the begowned ones. “This is the first time I’ve received a pat on the head.”

Ron Shaver, a contemporary of Toller, who pushed him to the max at Canadian championships, knew the artist-skater since he was six years old. “I don’t think he was ever anyone that people got close to,” Shaver said. “He just didn’t let people in. “

Shaver burst into tears when he heard that Toller had died.

Cranston was well known for his conspicuous consumption, so rampant that at age 40, he sold the entire contents of his Toronto home at an auction at Waddington’s in Toronto, hoping to stem the over-the-top collecting and pay for a new abode in Mexico. But in Mexico, it eventually continued apace. “Usually it means that something is missing in your life,” said one of his best friends, Thom Hayim. “When he goes on a spending spree, I know he’s feeling inadequate.”

Other close friends acknowledge that he was a lonely man. “He lived a very independent, alone life,” said Clive Caldwell, who has known Cranston for almost 44 years. “But he was never alone. He was always the life of a party. He wasn’t the guy sitting in a corner, feeling sorry and sad because he was alone. He was hell bent and determined to take over the world, and he was trying to do it every day.”

Caldwell never felt that Cranston missed anything or that he wanted more. He was a driven painter, and hated distraction. Solitude was necessary to create.

“He always used to ask me things like: ‘What’s it like to have a partner?’” said John Rait, an ice dancer who has known Cranston since he was 16. “He didn’t understand how normal people lived and how those relationships worked. He was always quick to ask: “Well, what happens then, and how does that work? Or how do you feel when that happens?’ He was interested in how other people existed, but I think his existence was so rarified.’

Everywhere Cranston went, people followed. He was always surrounded by people. Some of his friends called it “the circus.”

“And everybody wanted something from him,” Rait said. “Everybody was there to take and very few people were there to give. Those are the people that have stayed with Toller over the decades: the givers. The takers have come and gone several times. And there’s always somebody new.”

Toward the end of his life, however, Cranston was getting the “circus” under control and many of the people in his life were the givers, generally concerned about his welfare. Some helped him sort out financial issues. He was in a good place, at peace, calmer than he’d ever been. He began to paint in pastel hues, rather than the fulgent reds and blues. The future looked bright.

His death stunned his long-time coach Ellen Burka. “I think now he’s in peace,” she said. “I think now at least he can smile. He lived his last years in a most beautiful environment.”

Coaching legends prepare to share their wisdom in Winnipeg

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The National Coaches’ Conference in Winnipeg May 27 to 30 for both coaches and officials will offer a hint of just how Canadians are taking the lead in all pressing questions relating to skating.

Held as part of Skate Canada’s Annual Convention General Meeting (ACGM), this year’s theme “Partners in Progress” promises to offer an excellent range of workshops and social networking opportunities to the participants – Skate Canada coaches, officials, and international coaches as well.  As a result of Skate Canada changing their bylaws, NCCP certified Skate Canada coaches will become full voting members of the association for the very first time, which marks the importance of the voice of coaches.

“Skate Canada is really working on the coaching and I think that is so key,” says Tracy Wilson, slated to give two skating skills workshops at the conference. “It’s such a resource and we share information because we all have our fields of expertise and when we come together and share, we all benefit.”

Skate Canada has identified partnerships as the glue that binds together all of their strategic imperatives to 2018. One of those partnerships is with Hockey Canada to bring the joy of skating to all Canadians. Guest speaker at the NCC opening dinner is Melody (call her Mel) Davidson, coach of the women’s hockey team that won gold at the 2006 and 2010 Olympics. She’s a builder of her sport, which now emphasizes speed and skill so much.

Speaking of partnerships, the 2015 ACGM/NCC will also feature Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje and Olympic women’s hockey team gold medalist Meaghan Mikkelson, who also teamed up with hockey colleague Natalie Spooner to win seven legs of The Amazing Race Canada during the show’s second season.

Yes, a big field is opening up to skating, with its well organized skills system, especially with the new CanSkate program, which teaches  learn-to-skate skills   to youngsters who may become speed skaters or hockey players, or ringette players or adults who skate for the love of it.

At the conference, Wilson will go through many of the exercises she has used and developed over the years, starting with her work as an Olympic medalist in ice dancing with Rob McCall, her work with hockey players, and finally with international skaters such as Olympic champions Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao, Yu Na Kim, and Yuzuru Hanyu and European champ Javier Fernandez. She and coach Brian Orser have both “honed in on what works to help different skaters,” she said. Her first workshop will show basic skills and exercises (“It’s everything that everybody knows but with a different slant,” she says) and the next class is about how to develop them.

The conference is packed with other gems: renowned Winnipeg sports psychologist Dr. Cal Botterill will speak about how to prevent burnout and “under-recovery” in athletes and coaches; sport headliners Sally Rehorick, Dr. Jane Moran and Monica Lockie will probe the burning problem of troublesome boots and blades; and judge Karen Howard will expound on what the referee says to the panel before an event (information coaches don’t want to miss!). Dr. William Bridel offers up chats about currently hot topics of bullying in sport and pain and injury from a socio-cultural perspective; Donna King and Lockie will preview the next chapter of the CanSkate juggernaut with new materials, resources and activities; and choreographer Mark Pillay will present on-and-off-ice workshops on musicality (and as an extra treat, his pupil Liam Firus will show off his new programs for 2015-2016.).

Rehorick and friends have already been busy behind the scenes conducting an informal six-month investigation into the effects of boot and blade selection on the performance of skaters at all levels and will try to propose the next steps toward research and education.

Rehorick has spoken with coaches, doctors, parents, researchers, skate technicians, distributors, team leaders and administrators about the problem. Sadly, she’s seen skaters at the Learn-to-Train and Learn-to-Compete levels struggling with boots that “seemed to control the skater, rather than the other way around.” The problem is a world-wide one. The ISU has been studying it through medical commission chair Dr. Moran, a Canadian.

Dr. Bridel, a former Skate Canada employee and now a professor at the University of Calgary’s department of kinesiology, will discuss preventive measures with bullying issues, rather than reactive strategies and how kids are exposed to bullying in the larger sociocultural context. He sees bullying becoming more of a problem because of social media. He’s also involved with a bystander intervention group at the university.

He also describes a culture that prevents skaters from revealing an injury, so that they don’t get help when they need it. Again, prevention is the key.

Dr. Botterill’s chat will be vital. “Under-recovery is kind of like an epidemic,” he says. “In high performance fields, people are pushing the envelope so hard, life in this era has so many distractions, and people aren’t recovering in the way they need to.”

Over the past 15 years of his 40-year career, most of Dr. Botterill’s work has been focused on helping people get rest and regain their health – and performance levels. Technology is addictive, he warns. He believes a high percentage of people are burned out and don’t even know it.

Last year, the National Coaches’ Conference reached a height of 275 registrants. And oh yes, names like Olympic cyclist Tanya Dubnicoff, now an executive coach, synchronized skating coach Shelley Barnett, and others such as Manon Perron, Lee Barkell, and Skate Canada’s Coaching Development Committee members such as Laurene Collin-Knoblauch, Raoul Leblanc, Paul MacIntosh, Pascal Denis, Keegan Murphy, Mary-Liz Wiley, Megan Svistovski, and Chris Stokes  will unleash their wisdom in workshops, too.

Have you booked your trip yet?