High School and Collegiate Team Skating Competitions

[FTnoona]

Hi, I'm a longtime lurker of the GS forums, but I thought I'd jump in on this one! I live in the metro Detroit area and actually stopped skating just before high school because of cost, though my high school did have a figure skating team. I picked up skating again when I got to college and found the open collegiate synchronized skating team. Since then, the team has evolved into an intercollegiate freestyle team. Though Oakland University is not super competitive yet due to the program being so new, I am excited to see where this will go. We receive a lot of support from the school, which gives about $6,000 a year to the team. That pretty much covers ice bills, along with some other things. OU is located just 20 minutes away from the Detroit Skating Club.

You are soooo lucky that Oakland U gives money to you ice program. I am so jealous. I am trying to start up a program at my school, but it is so difficult for me to obtain any type of school funding at all which makes people not want to join because college is so expensive these days. The only positive point is that the ice rink 10 mins away from us are very enthusiastic about having a collegiate synchro program that they are willing to give us good ice pricing and their synchro coach is enthusiastic about helping us too. At least the good thing about creating a collegiate program is that you can be 1 person and still register for intercollegiate and compete.

[Spun Silver]

This seems like such a great way to build up interest in skating! I'm amazed to find how extensive the HS and college skating programs are.

Recently I heard a wonderful high school jazz orchestra on Garrison Keillor. I wonder if he'd be interested in getting a slab of ice for one of his live shows and featuring a synchro team. Why not?

[dorispulaski]

Apparently, U of Minnesota has a team--maybe he'd do it!

[iskaterkay]

iskaterkay, Welcome to posting at Golden Skate! We hope you will keep posting!

We'd like to hear more about the college programs. A lot of our members are younger skaters, and there isn't a lot of discussion about college programs-I'm glad you're telling them about them!

Thanks! Collegiate skating allows you to continue skating while dealing with full-time college schedules. Everyone on your team is on the same page, as well as fellow competitors. There's a range of skill levels and practice time commitments. I'm a preliminary level skater who skates about 2 hours a week, but you'll also see girls who are still competing at the regional/sectional level as juniors and seniors. Skating as a team is fun, whether it's synchro or freestyle.

A lot of girls on my collegiate team stopped skating because of either the cost or because they felt there were no other opportunities for them to enjoy skating (it's difficult to see why you should commit financially to skating 3-5 days a week when you're not 'at a certain level.') We've found solutions to both of these problems at the collegiate level. What I've found is that collegiate skating offers a great segue into the world of adult skating, whether it be freestyle or synchro. I've also been able to begin dabbling in dance thanks to the solo dance option at intercollegiate competitions.

[dorispulaski]

Thanks for the extra information.

Solo dance is another interesting topic.

People have been discussing it here:
http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/sho...-in-solo-dance

[Sylvia]

April 21-22, 2012 U.S. Intercollegiate Championships Colorado College Colorado Springs, Colo.

Final team results for top 3 - Dartmouth College (130 points), University of Delaware (97), Boston University (80): http://www.usfsa.org/Story.asp?id=48019&type=media

Event page (final full results should be posted here eventually): http://www.usfsa.org/event_details.asp?id=47531

The 9 college teams that qualified are (in order of Sectional finish):
EAST - University of Delaware, Dartmouth College, Boston University
MIDWEST - University of Michigan, Miami University, University of Wisconsin
PACIFIC - University of Denver, Univ. of California at Berkeley, Colorado State Univ.

Event preview notes: http://www.usfsa.org/content/Interco...ps%20notes.pdf

Twitter hashtag: #USIC12 - tweets about and from the competition, including photos: http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23USIC12