What would make more people join ?

...even though this sport has grown incredibly over the last 10 years, it is still very small. (we can thank Tanya and Nancy for that one! )

Any ideas on how to lower the cost of doing this sport? (Would that help ?)

Exposure...maybe if more people saw what it was about...would that help?

So give me some of your thoughts here....

Thanks!

Actually, it is growing. We get more and more sign ups at the rinks I skate at, and we had fairly large adult classes this time at both sites which is great. Perhaps more press attention to the joys of skating?

One possible way would be to get more boys to join in.

At my rink there are maybe 4 or 5 boys who I have seen on skates and there are two boys I see consistently on club ice.

I know a lot of it is due to the stigma of boys and figure skating.

It's too bad since a lot of the girls would love to do pairs as well as dance.

I must say, figure skating is a very expensive sports to take on. Not every family have the time and resources to do this. One must have a coach (or taking group lesson) to learn figure skating. I don't see the costs of taking up figure skating going down any time soon.

Furthermore, there are not that many rinks available for most cities in the US. Sure, the big cities have lots of rinks. But smaller cities have maybe 1 or 2 rinks. People will have to drive a long way to go to the rink to practice. This is not like staying after school and practice football/basketball/softball...