They returned from Port Alberni, BC, not with heavy hearts, but with heavy suitcases.
The weekend before last 16 Arctic Edge Skating Club members competed in the Vancouver Island Skate International Competition. They returned home, a total of 13 medals in tow, including six golds.
“The club as a whole did very well—coming home with that many golds,” said Arctic Edge coach Trish Pettitt. “It shows how good the club is ... it’s really neat to see.”
Half of the gold medals were harvested by Arctic Edge skater Bryn Hoffman, who achieved the golden hat trick with top performances in interpretive, elements and skills events.
“She was definitely above the others in some of those categories,” said Pettitt. “She skated great.”
Teammate Kelcy Armstrong had similar results with three silver medals in the same events.
“She’s definitely an up and coming athlete and I think she skated to the best of her ability,” said Pettitt. “I’m sure you’ll see her name in the future,”
In fact, Arctic Edge members monopolized the podium in the senior bronze skills event with Hoffman, Armstrong and Nikita White snatching gold, silver and bronze.
However, unlike the other two, Hoffman also competed in “competitive” events, opposed to “star skating” events, which are less—for a lack of a better term—competitive.
“They’re broken down into two streams: star skate and competitive,” said Pettitt. “Bryn is the highest competitive skater out of the girls—- at least right now.”
Millie Austin, was another of the competitive skaters taking second in the short program and second in the long in the junior ladies category.
“Junior ladies is a very competitive, so second in a competitive event is very good,” said Pettitt.
Others to bring home hardware were Maya Austin and Rachel Pettitt with golds in interpretive events and Maddison Jarvis with gold in an elements event. Rasheeda Slater secured a bronze in the pre-preliminary elements event, finishing just ahead of teammate Brittany Au.
With the season drawing to a close, the skating club hosted one final test event last weekend at the Canada Games Centre. The purpose of the event was to allow club members to be judged by an official to advance to higher skill levels.
By the end of the weekend, 26 tests were passed, including two gold-level dances by Ellen Bohmer and gold-level skills by Carrie McLelland.
“That’s our final testing of the year; we always have a judge from Vancouver come up to test our skaters,” said Pettitt.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com