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Skating Club of Greater Youngstown prepares to compete
By christine keeling
youngstown
A skating club makes hitting the ice a nice way for a family to spend time together.
Maggie Pfeffer and her daughter, Lizzie, 5, were all smiles and rosy-cheeked recently as they glided hand-in-hand at Hess Rink in New Castle, Pa. They were joined occasionally by Pfeffer’s other children, John, 9, and Michelle, 15, who took breaks from practicing turns and fancy footwork to chat with the pair.
The Canfield family are members of the Skating Club of Greater Youngstown and will compete from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 21-22 during the club’s ISI District 7 championship series at Covelli Centre in Youngstown. The club’s competition will feature 240 skaters from Ohio and Pennsylvania and is free and open to the public.
“I think [ice skating] is a great activity or sport that everybody can participate in as a family,” said Pfeffer, the club’s president.
She said she decided to give skating a try after her son, Joey, 13, started to play hockey and Michelle decided to take up the activity eight years ago.
“I don’t just have to be a spectator like at baseball,” said Pfeffer. “And I did some skiing and thought I could probably skate.”
She was 37 when she started taking beginner lessons and now competes with the adult synchronized team, she said.
Lizzie and John started skating when they were 3 years old.
John said he likes the cold and jumping on skates. Spinning is the hardest move, said the Frank Ohl student.
“Try your best and keep on trying,” John offered to people who wanted to learn how to ice skate.
Michelle, who was named skater of the year in 2010 by the club, had simpler advice: “‘Can’t’ is a bad word on the ice,” said the Fitch High School student.
Club members skate at Hess, the Ice Zone in Boardman and at the Covelli Centre.
“We’re like vagabonds,” said Maria Koman, the club’s skating director.
The group has 150 members with ages ranging from 4 to 80-plus and offers varying levels of membership and programs for recreation as well as competitive skating in United States Figure Skating and Ice Skating Institute programs.
The club “is very inclusive and not exclusive,” said Pfeffer.
It’s also on a roll.
The group has finished in first-place in the first two series of the ISI district championship series in Columbus and Findlay, and plans to finish at the top at the Covelli Centre.
“We are vying for that [District 7] award,” said Koman.