TISDALE — Two big skating competitions are coming to Tisdale next season.
The singles and pair Provincials takes place in November, while the Prairie Regional Synchronized Skating Championships, which features teams from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, takes place in February.
“It’s an event like you would see on television,” said Kim Markwart, an executive member of Skate Tisdale. “We have about 200 skaters coming for the November competition and then for the February competition we’ll have about 350, minimum, skaters.”
The singles and pair skating is a qualifying event for Skate Canada, which will bring the top skaters in the province.
“Now, the singles and pairs is amazing, but the synchro, is so – I’m over using the word amazing, you’ll have to look something up in the thesaurus for me,” said Markwart, who’s an active synchronized skater, to The Recorder. “But when you see eight to 20 people skating on the ice as one entire unit, the speed and the things that they do together, it’s crazy.”
For the skaters in Tisdale, the training season has already begun.
“We go usually late into the spring, I know myself [that coach] Shauna Klettburg, she’s taking some girls to Melville to start at the beginning, the first week, in August, so some people are already on the ice,” Markwart said. “And we do host a summer school, which our coach-director Shauna, she runs and organizes.”
This is the first time this event has been held in Tisdale in recent history.
“The province is planning on doing it on rotation, so Tisdale is on rotation. Last year it was held, for instance, in Wavern. Wavern, Regina, Saskatoon, Tisdale. So we’re pretty thrilled that they’ve chosen Tisdale but we need to have a volunteer base to support the event because it requires many volunteers, and we’re going to need the facility, right?”
Pair teams must consist of one female and one male to qualify. Currently singles in Skate Canada only has male and female divisions.
