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Arctic Edge cleans up at Vancouver Island meet

Arctic Edge skaters produced 10 top-10 results at last year's Vancouver Island Skate International. This year skaters from the Whitehorse-based figure skating club had 10 medals at the season-ending competition in Parksville, B.

Arctic Edge skaters produced 10 top-10 results at last year’s Vancouver Island Skate International.

This year skaters from the Whitehorse-based figure skating club had 10 medals at the season-ending competition in Parksville, B.C., two weeks ago.

“We have some excellent skaters in our club, some quality coaching that has been very dedicated to our skaters over numerous years, and we have very talented skaters coming up,” said Arctic Edge coach Charlene Donald.

The Vancouver Island Skate International (VISI) meet was a chance for some up-and-comers to shine in their first competition outside of the territory.

In the Star 2 division, Arctic Edge’s Bronwyn Hays and Jamie Nickel both took silver, while teammates Alissa Russell and Meghan Birmingham took gold and bronze, respectively.

It was the very first competition for the club’s Anika Kramer, who was given a merit award in Star 1.

“It’s the first competition they’ve ever gone to and they just moved into the junior category this year,” said Donald. “They did phenomenal.

“They’re hard, little workers and they’ve done phenomenal this year.”

Whitehorse’s Bryn Hoffman, who placed fourth in novice ladies last year at VISI, won both the short and long to win overall in junior ladies. Hoffman won gold at last year’s Arctic Winter Games.

Arctic Edge’s Rachel Pettitt improved on silver from last year with gold last month. Pettitt placed third in the short and first in the long to win novice ladies.

Other medal winners include Landyn Blisner with gold in pre-intro interpretive, Rasheeda Slater with gold in bronze interpretive and Janelle Clethero with silver in Star 4 13-and-over girls.

Slater also snagged sixth in Star 4 13-and-over girls and Clethero seventh in bronze interpretive.

Mikayla Kramer just missed the podium with fourth in pre-juvenile ladies under-11.

The Armstrong sisters also came close to podium visits. Kelcy Armstrong was fourth in silver interpretive and 12th in senior bronze ladies. Kayla Armstrong was fifth in introductory interpretive and ninth in Star 4 13-and-over girls.

Morgan Madden placed ninth in Star 4 13-and-over girls and was 10th in bronze interpretive.

Pettitt had a sparkling skating season. She placed fourth in pre-novice against 55 skaters at the Skate Canada Challenge in December. It was the highest placement by a Yukon skater at the national championships.

Pettitt qualified for the Challenge after becoming the first Yukoner to win gold at the Skate Canada’s BC/YT Sectional Championships last November, also in Parksville.

The gold at sectionals also provided Pettitt with the first-place spot in Skate B.C.‘s Pond to Podium Super Series. She was the first Yukoner to win that as well.

Contact Tom Patrick at

tomp@yukon-news.com