The Yorkton Skating Club (YSC) wrapped up its winter season with A Variety Extrava-ganza, the annual YSC skating Carnival at the Gallagher Centre Farrell Agencies Arena. The annual event featured over 100 young local skaters as well as guest skaters, Canadian international bronze medalists Paige Lawrence and Rudy Swiegers. Lawrence and Swiegers were 2011 Canadian National Pairs bronze medalists, Skate 2011 Canada Inter-national bronze medalists and won a bronze medal at the 2011 Four Continents Competition in Taipei City, China.
Joining Lawrence and Swiegers as a guest skater was Garrett Gosselin who currently skates with Skate Regina. Gosselin, 2009 Canadian novice men's silver medalist, placed fourth at the 2011 Canadian Junior Men's Competition.
Club president Marlene Hauser says the YSC has had an excellent season with outstanding skating and outstanding parents and kids.
Increased numbers of participants has led to an increase in coaching staff which enabled the club to offer more programs.
The club has grown to about 120 youngsters in all areas of skating right from the little CanSkate stars up to the 17 and 18 year-old skaters.
Susan Nagy of Melville returned as head coach. Maggie Hancock joins Nagy as coach, as does Sarah McIvor who works with the CanSkate youngsters and coaches the dance portion of skating with the older students.
The club has had a busy season with skaters competing at sectionals. Early in January YSC skaters competed at Minot. The YSC hosted a regional competition at Bredenbury which attracted over 100 youngsters. Yorkton skaters competed at Weyburn as well as some youngsters skating at the Jean Norman event in Moose Jaw. "They've been very busy," reports Hauser.
Hauser who announced her retirement from the YSC presidency is looking ahead to another great season nest year. In addition to large numbers of returning participants, the club anticipates a large number of test skaters which necessitates another coach who could provide some individual attention. "We could really use some help. If there's any body out there who has a coaching certificate, we'd sure like to talk to them," Hauser says.
While the carnival ends the season for the little skaters, older skaters will attend spring school during April and May, Hauser reports. Some will also attend the summer school in Melville after completing the spring school, she notes.
The program in Yorkton will shut down for June, July and August to start up again with the CanSkate program in September.
Hauser appreciates all the skating fans who came to the carnival to support the young skaters because they worked very hard all season long to prepare for the show. "This last week alone some of the older ones put in 25 hours on the ice so they worked very hard for this," Hauser closes.
