It can be hard for young athletes to balance life, school, and sports while achieving the goals they set out for themselves. It becomes that much harder when there’s no certainty if they’ll ever compete again.
That’s the position many of the young members of the Bradford and District Skating Club (BDSC) found themselves in, as the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted sports across the country.
After navigating the restrictions and lockdowns and finally getting back on the ice, five members of the club, Alex Wry, Heidi Ma, Sarah Bi, Katherine MacPhee, and William Hilts, are headed to the Skate Ontario Championships this weekend in Mississauga.
The skaters spent the last few years navigating through lockdowns through Zoom training and make-shift skates over shovelled ponds. When they were able to get back inside to practice at the BWG Leisure Centre, BDSC board members and parents Amy Blundell-Wry and Jen MacPhee implemented every precaution possible to ensure a safe return for the athletes.
At a practice leading up to the provincial competition, the athletes told BradfordToday how excited they were to be back competing after the long hiatus.
“I’m really nervous, but I’m excited,” said Wry. “It’s nice to be able to actually do it this year.’’
“I’m definitely nervous, but excited,” said Ma. “I’m really grateful for the opportunity.”
Having dealt with the ups and downs of the pandemic and its impact—both on and off the ice—they’re not taking the moment for granted.
“It’s kind of surreal,” said Wry. “I didn’t think after all that time off, that it would actually be possible. I was mainly scared that I’d lose things (skills) and so it was surprising that I was able to do more jumps in that time off—it benefited me. It’s a crazy thought that after two years I’m still able to do this.”
“I’m just glad that we’re able to compete again,” said Bi. “It was really inconsistent, and it harmed our training—it really messed up a lot. I’m so glad that now we get to be consistently at the rink and get to compete again.”
The BDSC team of coaches, Alicia Keenan, Markus Leminen, and Rob Tebby, couldn’t be prouder of the skaters qualifying for the top competition for their age group.
“It’s awesome,” said Tebby, a five-time Olympic team coach. “It’s a nice feather in their cap to get to that level and it’s a stepping stone to get them into more competitive competitions in the future.”
Given his experience as a coach, Tebby explained that the pandemic's impact on skaters has been more mental than physical.
“A lot of skaters are used to competing on an ongoing basis and then to suddenly not compete for a long time, the mental prospect of putting yourself back out there with that kind of energy, nervousness, and anxiousness leads to a lot of skaters fading away. The fact that these kids have been resilient and persevered and got themselves going and are actually achieving goals is awesome," he said.
Blundell-Wry and MacPhee both have their children competing in this weekend's competition and have had a front-row seat to everything that has gone into the preparation for it.
"To them, it’s their Olympics,” said MacPhee. "It’s neat to see it all come together...It feels like they’ve gone through a circus to get here but now it’s finally happening.”
“They’ve had two seasons that have just been a total upheaval," said Blundell-Wry, noting even this season has been anything but regular. "Our club is quite small and to have that many kids qualify given the total scope of the number of kids trying is incredible. It’s amazing to be able to celebrate their achievement and the success of our club.”
Although skating naturally allows for spacing, it’s been difficult for the board to navigate protocols to ensure all skaters and coaches could be safe and comfortable while training for competition.
“It’s definitely been a challenge the last couple of years,” said Blundell-Wry. “Even when we’ve been allowed to operate, there’s been a lot of limitations in terms of the number of people we can actually have on the ice. A lot of the focus of our board has been ensuring we have really stringent safety protocols in place so that people who wanted to come back could and would feel safe and comfortable.
"From a management perspective it’s been a challenge and getting our numbers back up to where they were pre-COVID hasn’t been easy. But things are now on a nice trajectory, and we’ve had a lot of great response to our programming over the winter.”
After dealing with uncertainty and inconsistency while training, many of the skaters returned to the ice and had to learn an entirely new routine. Despite the adversity, they’ve been able to beat hundreds of skaters to qualify for provincials.
“It’s such an amazing testament of just how resilient they are,” said Blundell-Wry. “So many skaters are here day after day. They’re skating five or six days a week, and some of them skate multiple times a day. They’re putting in the work and the effort and it’s lovely to see them be rewarded. Some of them are feeling pressure to perform well at provincials but we just keep telling them that getting there is such an amazing accomplishment.”
As parents, Blundell-Wry and MacPhee value this experience for their children.
“It speaks to the level of commitment that these skaters and coaches have,” said Blundell-Wry. “Given the last two years, they could have just packed it in. They’ve all remained committed and committed to each other in an effort to find a way to make it all work. It’s really cool to see it.”
“The life perspective and life lessons that come out of this and what they’ve gone through to get here is more than you could have ever hoped for out of a sport,” said MacPhee. “It’s great that they can do double jumps and cool stuff for sure, but the fact that they can rely on each other and be resilient in overcoming challenges is so important. After everything they’ve gone through to now see their smiling faces, it almost makes you tear up.”
