Lucas Punkari
The Border Skating Club’s 39th-annual ice show on the weekend marked the final time two senior members took to the ice to dazzle the audience.
Michael Nelson and Sarah DeGagne took part in their last ice show before departing the club at month’s end.
“We have to say goodbye to graduates every year, and it’s always hard to say goodbye,” noted coach Penny McComb.
“It’s difficult and sad to watch them move on, but they’re both heading off to a next interesting stage in their lives and we wish them well in that,” she added.
It also was a mix of emotions for both Nelson and DeGagne, who have been skating with the local club for more than a decade.
“It’s a little sad knowing that I’m not going to spending the next couple of years with the rest of the girls,” said DeGagne, who is headed for the University of Manitoba’s business program this fall.
“But it is nice knowing that I won’t be waking up at five in the morning any more to come to the arena for practice,” she joked.
In Nelson’s case, who got his first pair of figure skates when he was six years old, the ice show not only marked his final solo performance but also his last pairs skate with partner Sophie Potvin-Begin.
“Winning the gold at the Ontario Winter Games last year with Sophie was something I was really happy to accomplish,” remarked Nelson, who hopes to enroll in the engineering program at the University of Western Ontario this fall.
“I knew this weekend was going to be my last time performing in front of everybody, so I really wanted to make sure that I gave it my all and had a really good performance,” he added.
McComb said the local pairing of Nelson and Potvin-Begin is a rarity for a club such as Border—and one that might not be seen again for quite some time in this area.
“Usually a skater will have to find someone from another club that they’re compatible with to form a pairing, and it’s very seldom that you find a pair that are from the same club,” she explained.
“They’ve been a great pair since day one,” McComb noted. “They’ve skated out of town during the summer for the last several years and they’ve performed at a very high level.
“It’ll be some time, and perhaps possibly never again, that we’ll see a pair like that here locally,” she stressed.
As for the present, McComb felt this year’s ice show, entitled “Legends,” went very well given the short time everyone has to work on their routines beforehand.
“Believe it or not, we start working on the performances right after the March Break, so our little skaters only have four practices and a dress rehearsal to get their routines down and they did a great job,” McComb lauded.
“As for our senior skaters and the soloists, much of what they put into their routines are done throughout the winter, so they’ll just polish things up leading up to the show so that they can showcase their abilities to the crowd here,” she added.
Despite another ice show now in the books, on-ice activities for the club aren’t quite done yet as a test day is slated for Saturday, April 16 at the Ice For Kids Arena.
Following that, the season officially will end with the annual banquet on Tuesday, April 26 at the Kitchen Creek Golf Club.
