Figure skater Hannah Janda had nailed almost all the advanced double jumps, both the Lutz and flip, leaving just the difficult double Axel as the last target on her list.
But the 13-year-old athlete will never pull off the jump. Three months ago, Janda hung up her toe picks for a pair of hockey blades and joined the forward line of the bantam 麻豆传媒映画Angels, the city鈥檚 only all-girls hockey association.
鈥淚 love having a team,鈥� said the Churchill secondary Grade 8 student. 鈥淵ou win together and you lose together. If you don鈥檛 do as well in figure skating, you鈥檙e just on your own.鈥�
Her first skate at the Killarney rink on the Angels home ice came in September when the hockey association hosted a free clinic for inexperienced skaters. Janda was no novice since she鈥檇 been figure skating for 10 years, but otherwise she was a rookie in a new sport.
Her centre of gravity was thrown off and keeping perfect posture didn鈥檛 help her balance. The serrated edge of a figure skate blade was wiped smooth, a round toe in the place of a poise-preserving pick.
鈥淚 kept falling forward,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat was really weird. It was like learning to skate all over again.鈥�
But years of technical precision, on- and off-ice drills, fine motor skill development and major muscle group strength training meant, on skates of any kind, Janda had a high level of physical intelligence. Between hockey players and figure skaters, the latter are considered stronger 鈥� and better 鈥� on the ice because of their technical training.
In a column written during the Sochi Olympic Games suitably called 鈥淔igure skating offers more physical challenges than ice hockey,鈥� Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins before she easily reached a conclusion.
鈥淪ome guys get all pursy around the mouth when you suggest this, but figure skating is infinitely harder than ice hockey,鈥� wrote Jenkins in the Feb. 13 column.
To illustrate her point, she imagined the impossible: 鈥淚n a contest between Alex Ovechkin and gold medal pairs skater Maxim Trankov, I鈥檒l take Trankov every time, even though he wears more hair tonic than a silent film star. It鈥檚 a hypothetical argument, of course, but just for fun, let鈥檚 make a comparison: Who would look sillier if they changed disciplines, Trankov with a hockey stick in his hand or Ovechkin if he had to lift a woman over his head and carry her around like a spinning dinner plate while sliding across the ice on a pair of kitchen knives?鈥�
Hoisting a sequinned-spangled partner aside, hockey players have a lot to learn and a rising number of amateur and elite athletes are signing up to learn from figure skaters.
Power skating programs 鈥� once the realm of figure skaters who, in a few strides, must have enough velocity to leap, spin and land safely 鈥� are filling up with hockey players. Susy Bando, the arena programmer at the Britannia Rink, estimated 50 to 60 per cent of students who take 麻豆传媒映画Park Board power skating are hockey players.
The trend is new and the numbers are increasing, said Bando.
鈥淚t鈥檚 called figure skating lessons but they are more engaged with power skating, which is an off-shoot of the figure skating program that is developed through Skate Canada. It is really working on the fundamental of skating. It has been for at least 10 years that there has been a push through figure skating clubs to have these power skating programs,鈥� she said, noting students taking these lessons through the park board are mostly recreational players.
鈥淎s hockey players, you go and you practise team drills but really don鈥檛 focus on skating, which does not have to be as technical as in figure skating. [The course] breaks down the skating skills and looks at turning, edging, stopping properly, all of the things that you take for granted when you鈥檙e going through a drill with your stick and a puck,鈥� she said.
Bando would know. She grew up in Port Coquitlam as a competitive figure skater but joined a co-ed hockey team in her early 20s.
鈥淚 have a bunch of colleagues in the same situation,鈥� said the left-winger. 鈥淵ou become an adult and there is really no recreational adult figure skating. If you want to continue skating, you play hockey.鈥�
Does learning strength and speed from a figure skating coach bring the sequined sport more respect from the helmeted body-checkers who are more likely to throw a punch than pirouette?
鈥淎ppreciation? I don鈥檛 so,鈥� said Bando. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very different. When I stated teaching a power skating course with the city, we made sure we put on our hockey skates as instructors. We focus on the skating, and we didn鈥檛 make mention of the figure skating part of it. We were cognisant that we weren鈥檛 going to change the minds of people. There鈥檚 no spinning.鈥�
Skate Canada, the national sport organization, trains and certifies coaches to teach skating and its CanSkate program goes back to basics for beginner lessons by drawing from Sport Canada鈥檚 long-term athlete development principles. This means all beginners, whether they want to speed skate, ice dance, goaltend or triple Salchow, learn the same fundamentals. But figure skaters develop their technique like no one else.
Numerous NHL teams hire specialists, many of them former competitive figure skaters, to work with pros. Laura Stamm pioneered the practice, at first somewhat secretly, in the 1970s and today, Cathy Andrade, is in demand around the league.
The Canucks are on board, too. Barb Aidelbaum, a three-time national figure skating gold medallist, has also coached elite professional players, including Canuck Dan Hamhuis and Canuck-now-Canadien Manny Malhotra. Respected around the NHL, Aidelbaum laces up hockey skates and uses many techniques drawn from figure skating to improve a hockey player鈥檚 stride, power and balance.
鈥淎fter two full years of training with Barb, my only regret is that I didn鈥檛 start working with her earlier,鈥� Malhotra about Aidelbaum, who grew up skating at the Arbutus Club. 鈥淪he has as an incredible ability to tweak certain aspects of my skating game, which I have found to make me a more powerful, balanced and efficient skater. Barb is flat-out the most knowledgeable and technically sound skating coach I鈥檝e ever worked with.鈥�
NHL rookie of the year, Jeff Skinner, started as a figure skater. He was a juvenile national champion before his 63 points in 2011 netted him the Calder Memorial Trophy. His former figure skating instructor called him artistic.
"I think you see little bits of figure skating in the way I skate in hockey,鈥� in 2011. 鈥淚 think it helped me a lot. Just being on the ice that much as a kid helps you be comfortable on your skates. It's obviously given me a unique skating style that is sort of different from other guys. From my experience, it definitely helps."
Janda was the same age as Skinner when she picked up a hockey stick. On the wing, she can鈥檛 quite get her timing down to avoid an offside call but she鈥檚 finally adjusted to the meat-packer feel of hockey skates.
鈥淚鈥檓 way more comfortable in figure skates because they鈥檙e moulded to my feet. They feel like slippers,鈥� said Janda, a comfortable hybrid of girly-girl and tomboy, whose feet cramped like she鈥檇 鈥渂een walking for miles鈥� during her early stints in hockey skates. Her father drives the Zamboni at the Agrodome, and the Janda family spends an incredible amount of time at ice rinks. Janda and her younger brother Josh both play hockey and in summer, they return to many of the same ice-less rinks to play box lacrosse.
Although not the fastest on her bantam team, Janda is one of the speediest and strongest skaters. She misses the make-up and hair styling of figure skating鈥檚 glitz 鈥� 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do your hair and the put on a helmet,鈥� she said 鈥� and she would opt for figure skates if she ever competed on CBC鈥檚 former smash hit, Battle of the Blades, but Janda is now more hockey player than anything else.
鈥淢y teammates are really welcoming. If I did something differently, they say, 鈥極k Hannah, you鈥檝e got to do it like this, not like that.鈥� Skating is one less thing off my shoulders, now I just have to work on my puck handing.鈥�
