Celebrating their fifth season, the Niverville Skating Club (NSC) hosted their annual Ice Show on Tuesday, February 26.

The club, which offers four different skating programs—CanSkate, StarSkate, Synchronized Skate, and CanPower—came together to celebrate the hard work of their athletes in a Winnipeg-Jets-themed showcase.

The evening featured the three CanSkate groups as well as the routines of members of StarSkate, a program for skaters who want to pursue figure skating and have already completed the CanSkate program. The program focuses on three disciplines: dance, skating skills, freestyle, and it gives its skaters the opportunity to perform in competitions and showcases throughout the year.

The four kids in StarSkate—Elizabeth, Willa, Zoe, and Erik—range from nine to 12 years old and are all Star 2 figure skaters, with the exception of Elizabeth, who is a Star 4.

During the season, CanSkaters are recognized with badges and report cards. However, additional awards were also given out at the Ice Show to recognize exceptional improvement and abilities. One skater from each CanSkate group (Red, Yellow, and Green) was honoured for demonstrating dedication and commitment to improving their skills and showing a positive attitude.

Sloane Collet was recognized from the Red group for her hard work and great progress this season. In October, she started as a hesitant new skater and now displays great confidence. She recently passed her Stage One balance skills and agility tests.

Ruoxi Zhang, who was selected from the Yellow group, has been skating for two years and impressed her coaches with her hard work.

Katelyn Haiko has been skating with the Niverville Skating Club for two years. This year, she started skating with the Beginner 2 synchro team, where she worked hard to keep up with the older skaters on the team. Showing her dedication to improving her skills, Katelyn has also started training in the off-season with Coach Meghan.

Aurora Ice, the synchronized skating team, took to the ice to close out the evening, performing an ABBA medley. The routine was performed by skaters Katelyn, Zoe, Willa, Erik, Elizabeth, Jordyn, and Stewart.

The program is led by Coach Meghan Rafferty, who has been coaching skating for 15 years. Rafferty has been teaching in Niverville for the past five years and sits on the National Program Development committee for Skate Canada. In addition to her coaching, she was recently selected by Skate Canada to be a StarSkate clinician for Skate Manitoba. She has also been chosen to train other coaches across the country in their quest to become CanPower coaches.