There are stories every week about how ice time for hockey is growing and other ice sports (like figure skating) are losing their ice time.
A recent one made me think that the USA Hockey program is run very much like the old USFSA Club system. There's an overall governing body, but the people on the front line rent the ice and run the show. Yet, figure skating clubs can't get families to commit to memberships and ice time. They have to give up their sessions, which sometimes become rink-run freestyle sessions, but more often are being taken by hockey programs.
What is hockey doing right to attract those big numbers of kids learning to play?
What can figure skating do to adapt and get back in the game?
Quote from: FigureSpins on March 10, 2011, 09:30:31 AM
There are stories every week about how ice time for hockey is growing and other ice sports (like figure skating) are losing their ice time.
A recent one made me think that the USA Hockey program is run very much like the old USFSA Club system. There's an overall governing body, but the people on the front line rent the ice and run the show. Yet, figure skating clubs can't get families to commit to memberships and ice time. They have to give up their sessions, which sometimes become rink-run freestyle sessions, but more often are being taken by hockey programs.
What is hockey doing right to attract those big numbers of kids learning to play?
What can figure skating do to adapt and get back in the game?
We have this problem...our club is weak...the rink keeps threatening to take the freestyle ice and actually sometimes does do so without notice and sells it to hockey...they are also threatening to take ALL the morning ice and just keep the rink closed saying just to have the lights on is too costly. SIGH
How do you attract new members to a Club or a freestyle session?
I have several students, but they're recreational skaters who come once or twice a week for a lesson or to practice.
They do synchro twice a week, but that doesn't fill the freestyle roster.
Quote from: FigureSpins on March 10, 2011, 11:45:10 AM
How do you attract new members to a Club or a freestyle session?
I have several students, but they're recreational skaters who come once or twice a week for a lesson or to practice.
They do synchro twice a week, but that doesn't fill the freestyle roster.
This is so true....we probably have 20 hard core figure skaters at our rink.
I think one of the main reasons hockey seems to be doing better is they have better fundraising that is more organized. I am affiliated with two clubs in my area and neither have any sort of real plan for fundraising, which means the skaters have to pay the entire cost of the ice or the club has to absorb that cost. I am trying to establish a better fundraising program at my club and it is very difficult to get people willing to help, especially when their child skates just once or twice a week. For some reason it seems to take so much longer for families to commit to skating the way they do to team sports like soccer and hockey.
I know our rink and synchro group do some fundraising around events, like bake sales and such, but there's nothing ongoing, although it seems someone has taken charge at the last two or three events, and she's really nice. I've read about some FS clubs that do grocery store scrip and similar things, but I've never been involved with any of those clubs.
What do the hockey associations do in particular for fundraising that offsets their out-of-pocket skater expenses?
Quote from: FigureSpins on March 10, 2011, 02:08:39 PM
I know our rink and synchro group do some fundraising around events, like bake sales and such, but there's nothing ongoing, although it seems someone has taken charge at the last two or three events, and she's really nice. I've read about some FS clubs that do grocery store scrip and similar things, but I've never been involved with any of those clubs.
What do the hockey associations do in particular for fundraising that offsets their out-of-pocket skater expenses?
I don't know specifically what fundraisers they do or how much they make from them, but I will ask and try to find out some more information. They may have some kind of team requirement that families have to participate in a certain amount of fundraising or raise a certain amount of money, but I'm not sure on that, either.
My club did a holiday gift wrapping at Barnes and Noble in December. It was fun but only brought in about $50, so I'm not sure that we'll do it again next year. We're planning a Chick-Fil-A "Spirit Day" for March 26. I would be surprised if we made over $100 on that. We have a program selling dasher boards and other sponsorships to area businesses, but nobody has really been doing anything with it for several years, so nothing has been sold.
I think by raising money clubs can purchase more ice time for skaters and charge a reasonable amount to use it. I feel like clubs are hesitant to buy ice for freestyle up front in case not enough skaters buy it to break even, but my club has a bunch of money in the bank and I can't think of a better use for it.
Our hockey is growing thru the inclusion of girls in the sport in increasing numbers. Figure skating, sadly, is not attracting the same number of boys into the sport.
A hockey team can have up to 20 players (that's the top limit, parents get cranky about playing time over 16 players). For the little kids two teams of 12-14 kids can share a practice ice. So right there is an hour of ice with almost 30 kids on it. Right there is all the incentive a rink needs to run hockey instead of freestyle ice.
There might be a paid coach, but usually at house league they're parent volunteers. That's incentive #2 for parents to choose hockey. No lesson fees.
Fundraising is done by either charging admission to the "big games" like a dollar, and there are almost always 50/50 draws at games, which I have never EVER won!
Even though your team might suck, you're all in it together. In skating, it sucks to be last all by yourself.
At the pre-draft level, coaches are paid, there is usually a long term organization in place, the team gets an ice deal which considers concession sales and the better the team is, the more can be charged for admission so the best scenario is a team that gets to the playoffs every year and has a war chest to buy and sell players.
Quote from: slusher on March 10, 2011, 03:34:03 PM
A hockey team can have up to 20 players (that's the top limit, parents get cranky about playing time over 16 players). For the little kids two teams of 12-14 kids can share a practice ice. So right there is an hour of ice with almost 30 kids on it. Right there is all the incentive a rink needs to run hockey instead of freestyle ice.
There might be a paid coach, but usually at house league they're parent volunteers. That's incentive #2 for parents to choose hockey. No lesson fees.
Fundraising is done by either charging admission to the "big games" like a dollar, and there are almost always 50/50 draws at games, which I have never EVER won!
Even though your team might suck, you're all in it together. In skating, it sucks to be last all by yourself.
At the pre-draft level, coaches are paid, there is usually a long term organization in place, the team gets an ice deal which considers concession sales and the better the team is, the more can be charged for admission so the best scenario is a team that gets to the playoffs every year and has a war chest to buy and sell players.
ITA!!!!
I hesitated to post on this very important thread because of a year and half of frustration as a Club Pres/Membership Chair trying to "grow" the figure skating program at my rink. I will try to restrain myself from venting too much.
Although ISI, geared towards recreational figure skaters, is often compared negatively USFS, this organization has the right idea about growing the sport. ISI invented the ladder system of group lessons; it keeps its fees reasonable and members participate through a rink. Our rink has tons and tons of interested and happy kids (and adults) in the ISI group lessons. Yet, despite herculean efforts, we cannot manage to keep them skating much beyond the initial Freestyle levels.
IMHO, the USFS club system is inadequate to this challenge. Sure there are the super-clubs, but a great many clubs are small, lacking in adequate funds, and extraordinarily poorly run and managed. I deal with parents and Board Members who have never acquainted themselves with the basics of the sport, let alone the figure skating system. They don't have common sense when it comes to recruitment and fundraising, and worse, there is no sense of esprit des corps—everything boils down to the benefit of the individual. USFS works hard to motivate and educate its clubs, but no amount of good advice is going to prompt certain segments of the population to get off their butts and do something –anything! – to help out the sport.
Hockey is team-oriented. If there is a team, you've got an instant community. If there's a B team and a travel team, then there's a shared sense of purpose. Something concrete and identifiable (eg. We need to go to this tournament) is at stake. Booster clubs and similar organizations can screw up but there is still maneuvering room to prevent complete melt-down and disaster.
FWIW: it's not about the money. Hockey can be hugely expensive. In fact, I know families where some of the kids play hockey all the time, but if a sister wants to figure skate, the parents cry to the heavens that the sport costs too much.
I'm an outsider here, but from 6 years of observation I think I can make a few comments about 'recreational' hockey vs figure skating.
1. Television. Hockey's a guy sport. There's hockey almost year round on TV, and let's be frank, guy sports get more promotion than girl sports. No matter what anyone says, girls are second class citizens in recreational sports. And the coverage of figure skating is abysmal. Television coverage of skating focuses on little girls. Remember Nationals a many years ago when NBC produced a saccharine series of adds involving a 5 year old girl and a ballerina jewelry box. What disgusting crap. The american networks are killing skating. They focus on women's singles (pretty girls in sexy outfits!) and pairs (scary jumps and lifts!). What's left of real skating is men's singles and ice dance. And even there ISU doesn't focus on the skating--it's about 'the quad' for men, and ice dancing is just an afterthought. I'm betting in a decade ice dancing won't even be an olympic sport. It's too much like pairs. Oh, and don't let me annoyed about the blandness of today's men's skaters. Johnny Wier was not only good, he was interesting.
2. Hockey moms. Hockey moms band together. My admittedly outsider view is that figure skating moms IN GENERAL, don't band together. Their kid is competing AGAINST the other kids. On hockey teams the kids are competing WITH the other kids. Hockey leagues go out and buy rinks when a rink closes. Figure skaters move rinks when a rink closes. If it's an individual sport it's rare to have a group of parents form up and organize. There's always a few, but not enough. Like it or not, you only have freestyles because hockey lets you.
3. HOckey brings the money in. Even if a rink is a municipal rink (not privately owned) even some municipalities kick figure skaters out because hockey makes more money. (Municipalities give precedence to boy's and men's sports, not for money, but well, see point #1)
4. How many skating clubs try to reach out to adult skaters? My rink has about 30 regular adult skaters, maybe 10 of these are men. Has anyone ever suggested to any of us that we could join the skating club? Is there even a brochure at the front desk about joining the club. I've never seen that anywhere. Is the figure skating club some mystical secret? Cause that sure it how it seems to those adults who skate regularly, but don't necessarily do freestyles. The adults can fill leadership roles in the club. Many have business and organizational experience out side the club. You'd think a club would want to tap into those adult skills, but it doesn't seem to happen.
5.Figure skating used to be the dominant sports at rinks. Why? Patch. Patch puts a lot of skaters on the ice, a lot more than Moves. AND PATCH IS PROFITABLE. I've read in the 50's that a patch session cost $2. What's that today? $15! 20 skater's per sheet, that's $300 . How many people can you put on the ice for senior Moves? And with freestyle and Moves don't you have to break down the skaters by level? You don't have to do that for Patch. Every level can be on patch. So instead of having 2 sparsely attended sessions you have one heavily attended session to work on edges, turns etc.
In a way the reason Figure skaters are snubbed by rinks today is because ISU made decision to drop patch in 89. No more profitable patch sessions. The rink has to make money. Hockey got the time. Also in the 70's hockey became a commercial sport in the US so by the time ISU killed figures, there enough people watching hockey to make it a popular recreational sport.
I skate at two ISI municipal rinks. Rink A is the only indoor rink that offers figure skating in a city of nearly 3 million people. What puzzles me is they constantly have a long waiting list for the youth beginner skating lessons, parents must come to the rink like 3 hours early to grab a number on the registration day. I don't know if this rink is profitable, but if there is so much demand there must be ways to combine poorly attended classes and make more ice time for the popular classes? Rink B is located in an area with remarkable high density of indoor rinks and hence very cruel competition. No waiting lists here for classes, still some smaller classes could be merged. But all groups seem to be competing for the desirable time slots, what can rinks do with late morning, midday, or early afternoon times?
I've repeatedly quoted this blog entry (http://xan-boni.blogspot.com/2010/12/mind-wandering.html) from Xanboni on drawing crowds. Skating freebies could work nicely for rinks in a competitive area, and good PR never hurts.
Quote from: drskater on March 10, 2011, 05:09:41 PM
Although ISI, geared towards recreational figure skaters, is often compared negatively USFS, this organization has the right idea about growing the sport. ISI invented the ladder system of group lessons; it keeps its fees reasonable and members participate through a rink. Our rink has tons and tons of interested and happy kids (and adults) in the ISI group lessons. Yet, despite herculean efforts, we cannot manage to keep them skating much beyond the initial Freestyle levels.
FWIW, I belonged to a dual ISI- and USFSA-club. Freestyle skaters are freestyle skaters, they all have different programs and there's no reason they can't combine resources.
Quote from: FigureSpins on March 10, 2011, 07:32:55 PM
FWIW, I belonged to a dual ISI- and USFSA-club. Freestyle skaters are freestyle skaters, they all have different programs and there's no reason they can't combine resources.
Thanks! More people should strive for inclusiveness between the two...
*annoying passive aggressive sigh* We do both ISI and USFS too. It doesn't matter--we can't even get adequate participation on freestyle sessions (open to anyone now), let alone skaters who actually can skate at or beyond ISI FS 1.
Agnes Nitt: You are soooooo right about adult skaters. My club is very adult-friendly. Our rink has several adults and they are the coaches' favorites by far. But my experience in recruiting adults has been awful. Many are happy to simply skate around the rink and actually get frightened when I suggest they pursue skating further (like learning to do crossovers) or join the club just for fun (we're so cheap and require no volunteering). Too many treat me like a snake-oil salesperson or cult-leader whenever I approach them about the club.
I'm sick of it. The town I currently live in used to have a strong figure skating community but that was decades ago. It is now anathema. People like to learn to do the basics to help them play around at public sessions, but act hateful towards the sport itself. You can't run a figure skating club without skaters--what is the point?
Out here Hockey (and football) can use pull tabs (gambling) to subsudize ice fees. They also require parents to work the concession stands whenever their is hockey practice or games going on. The Hockey club got in trouble for mismanaging it, lost their license, and had to pull 300 hours of ice.
In the past, the skating club was only able to survive because figure skating was primarily a "girls" sport and the rink was owned by the school district. Title 9 and all that. Hockey moms and dads were bullies and some of the things they did and said made me :o
Now the rink manager went to an ISI seminar and is realizing that learn to skate (offered by the skating club) is going to help them grow. Hockey players need to learn to skate too. The rink is putting pressure on the skating club to expand the days of the week they offer. This is probably the exception.
Hockey at my rink is struggling just like everything else. Since the downturn in the economy, hockey leagues are shrinking with fewer teams and consolidating ice time. Since the rink instituted cheap learn-to-skate programs, all the feeder programs run by hockey and figure skating groups have suffered and the rink programs do not feed skaters into the hockey programs. Girls hockey has grown a little but that's more because it's run by school systems and funded by towns. When the towns tighten their budgets, programs get cut. This year two hockey programs have left the rink - one to another rink (don't know why, unless the new rink cut them a really good deal), and one that stopped completely.
When parents are losing jobs and businesses are closing and families are struggling to pay bills, sports like skating get pushed aside in favor of cheaper alternatives like soccer and baseball.
A lot depends upon the the atrea that the facility is located in. All the promotion and avertising in the world can't bring bodies in when there is not enough money in the economy for much beyond the basics of living.
Isn't gymnastics also quite expensive. I mean these kids also have private coaches. And they compete individually. But They seem to be growing in my area. But I see a difference: althought they compete individually, all that the each individual does gets pooled together so the team can win too. I would like to see Figureskating do that. ISI supposedly has that, but in the few isi comps that dd has been in, it does not seem to be all too important. When the kids compete and get their results, they mostly go home unless they have a friend in another event. The team "trophy" is just a footnote on a results sheet.
Skating competitions are so long and often spread out over days with the individuals only competing once in most cases. Is that also true of gymnasts? (I don't know.)
We could never get the Total Points trophy because we had too few skaters in any given competition, but one of the ISI Clubs I belonged to won the Team Quality Points trophies regularly. We had a really small club, but skaters always placed well, so our overall average was high. It was nice to be able to put a figure skating trophy in the case next to the hockey trophies.
I think most of the smaller non-qualifying competitions have a team trophy, but it is not advertised well and most skaters probably don't even know it exists. In my quest to build our skating program, I am trying to speak of it as a team, rather than just a club. I tell my skaters to cheer for and congratulate any and all skater from our club, even if they don't know that skater, the skater has a different coach, or they don't like that skater, because when we are at competition, we are all on the same team. Right now I only have a couple skaters and there aren't many others from the club, so it'll be a while before I'll have a report on how it is working...
At my favorite rink, with one ice sheet, all forms of skating, including skating, shrunk during the recent economic downturn.
Another area facility, is growing, and is opening up its 5th ice sheet. A director there told me that they were very proud of the aggressive marketing they were doing for everything, such as their adult ice hockey program.
Another area facility has expanded from 2 to 3 ice sheets. The owner also manages a county-wide youth hockey program, which helps them fill their schedules.
Those two, by the way are private businesses. Most of the single sheet rinks are government run, and typically are subsidized to the tune of $1 million/year. (One of the government run facilities has two sheets, but it looses about that/sheet too.) There are two other local facilities with more than one ice sheet too, and are doing fairly well, AFAIK.
I.E., it appears that on top of the economic downturn, part of what is happening to the small facilities, with one ice sheet, is that they have trouble competing with the bigger facilities, with two or more.
Coaches love to teach at facilities where they can teach almost continuously. That's hard to manage in a single sheet facility, at least if the rink is to be commercially viable. Likewise, both high level figure skating coaches and high level figure skaters like to have a lot of freestyle sessions, because public sessions sometimes get too many people for skaters to practice fancy jumps. But most freestyle sessions are borderline economically. So they tend to leave the single sheet facilities.
Exception: One private facility in my area has just one sheet, but they have chosen to only do figure skating, no hockey. They charge more than most rinks. They can get away with it, because nothing else is within a close drive time, due to traffic jams. I don't no how they are doing economically.
Another local issue is a decline of many figure skating clubs. Because so many ice sheets have been or are being built, and we do have an economic downturn, club sessions are often more busy than rink-run sessions.
I know this is an old thread, but I think we all need to think about promoting the sport.
I include any upcoming television broadcasts of skating movies, competitions and shows on my monthly calendar that I send out to my skating families via email. I usually post a printed list of upcoming TV events on our rink's bulletin board from Heather W's Skating on TV Schedule or icenetwork's version.
(Although, I missed the boat last week; I just lucked into having Universal Sports available for the weekend and my DVR picking up my slack by auto-recording Worlds.)
I think every little effort helps and keeps people aware of skating; during the last Olympics, Skating magazine created a professional flyer showing all the broadcast/streaming opportunities. I hope they resurrect that effort; it a nice document to print out in color and post on the board for some much-needed attention.
Quote from: AgnesNitt on March 10, 2011, 05:22:09 PM
The american networks are killing skating.
I completely agree.
In the U.S., a country that has a fairly big fraction of the figure skating audiance, televised figure skating is mostly been ported to NBC Universal Sports, which is expensive and ONLY available from DISH and Direct TV Satellite TV providers. None of the major cable networks carry Universal Sports, not even the biggest, COMCAST, which owns NBC.
I was shocked when I discovered that ISU / IOC, despite this availability "crisis", chose to let NBC Universal control the televising of ISU Worlds and the Olympics.
Don't ISU, IOC and USFSA understand that televised program availability is one of the biggest factors that is killing skating? They should have required that it be carried on broadcast TV, instead of maximizing their income. They should also have allowed Internet broadcasts through a cheaper and less problematic provider than IceNetwork.
I think AgnesNitt made a very valid point up above re: the profitability of Patch sessions. Scott Hamilton made the comment in 1980's that the dropping of figures could have dire implications for the sport as a whole and hetied it to the loss of patch and the figures coaching would dissolve into nothingness. Call his remarks what you will "the sky is fallling" and "wolf", the net result is what?
Where I live adults...ahem...have, like, day jobs :o :o, so unless we can skate at night the game is over before it starts. I'm joining a club an hour and a quarter away because they are the only club offering adult evening ice time.
That, and you just walk by the storage area for the local FSC at the rink and it is like a little girls playroom, with pink cones, fluffy toys, glittery thisses and thats, sparkles glued onto everything. I mean like come on! What normal boy or man is going to skate around with a bunch of little girls frilly crap scattered over the rink?
I think an image revamp, combined with a re-emphasis on fundamentals and a greater flexibility in scheduling would do a lot to interest adults from the general pop. I don;t think arenas need to be stern Soviet era environments with a scowling Lenin/Stalin/etc leering down, but a little less pink glitter and fluff would help :-\
(I am feeling a little like an intruder, since I am sitting in the sunny South, no ice anywhere near me, not to mention I have skated once in my life)
I find this discussion very interesting on many levels.
I am involved with several youth activities and run into the same problems over and over: lack of money and marketing.
There are always a handful of people in the clubs that do. Most don't. When the doers go away, the club crumbles.
Now, with Hockey, I can see where that has more appeal to the crowds. More kids playing, a weaker kid can hide behind the stronger ones.
For the facility it is more interesting as 30 kids usually equal 30 adults in the stands. That usually translates to concessions and $$$.
Then of course, when you have bad luck, you have this one party pooper in the club who negates all fundraising efforts, shoots down any and all ideas right at the gate (got one of those....) or you are dealing with personal changes that disrupt flow (got that in the other club)
And of course, there is lack of publicity.
Imagine it's World Championships, and nobody gets to watch it!
I was really exited when a few weeks back I caught the Nationals (I am guessing, I only watch TV with half an eye these days) and remembered there was the big international even coming up...bummer to realize that college hockey was on TV.
Small local clubs tend to not advertise their presence in the community. Too many people do not know they exist, even clubs with a long tradition.
Small achievements need to be published on the community level, even if it is only the free community paper that gets tossed in your driveway every other month!
The difference between gymnastics and figure skating - I am guessing here - is that Gymnastics can get you a free ride through college. And obviously Hockey can as well.
To grow your club, your endeavor ir tough work. Fundraising sucks and I, personally, am rather shy and try not to get into people's faces, or on their nerves, although I am constantly promoting my causes.
But people shut down quickly: As soon as school starts, every parent is bombarded with fundraisers their kid is expected to excel at. There is the expectation to sell advertisement for the football program (even if you are not on the team) sell this, then that, then something else, and all before Christmas (yep, three fundraisers in the first 6 month of school), add a few extracurricular activities, and you look like that stereotypical fence, with a coat full of merchandise of various natures.
Ok, I took this off on a tangent, I shall sit back down in the stands and watch you guys skate. Since :blush:
My coach and I have been talking about this lately. Recently, we both went to different small town ice shows that had large numbers of skaters - 100+. Now granted that is about the number of skaters we have in our show, but our rink is located in a large suburb surrounded by large population suburbs (50,000+).
I think that these higher number reflect the fact that skating could be a hobby for these kids. The rinks were seasonal. Kids could do other sports during the spring and summer and skating in the fall and winter. In the burbs, every kid seems to have to specialize in a sport after elementary school. Some sports like soccer and volleyball go year round. In smaller towns, they don't have as many kids trying out for teams so can be more accomodating if kids are in other activities.
In the small town shows, there were quite a few kids skating into their senior year of HS even if they were low level free style. These kids had senior solos, too. At my rink, you have to have passed ISI FS5 or Juvenile FS test to have a solo as a HS senior. For a regular solo, it is ISI FS7 or Intermediate FS test. It just seemed to me that these clubs honored all their skaters whatever their level was. This is not something I see in the suburban year around clubs here.
here is something I found digging through old boyscout stuff that might be of interest to the various clubs:
http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Skating
QuoteShow that you know first aid for injuries or illnesses that may occur while skating, including hypothermia, frostbite, lacerations, abrasions, fractures, sprains and strains, blisters, heat reactions, shock, and cardiac arrest.
Complete ALL of the requirements for ONE of the following options,
ICE SKATING
a. Do the following:
1. Give general safety and courtesy rules for ice skating. Discuss preparations that must be taken when skating outdoors on natural ice. Explain how to make an ice rescue.
2. Discuss the parts and functions of the different types of ice skates.
3. Describe the proper way to carry ice skates.
4. Describe how to store skates for long periods of time, such as seasonal storage.
b. Do the following:
1. Skate forward at least 40 feet and come to a complete stop. Use either a two-footed snowplow stop or a one-footed snowplow stop.
2. After skating forward, glide forward on two feet, then on one foot, first right and then left.
3. Starting from a T position, stroke forward around the test area, avoiding the use of toe picks if wearing figure skates,
c. Do the following:
1. Glide backward on two feet for at least two times the skater's height.
2. Skate backward for at least 20 feet on two skates.
3. After gaining forward speed, glide forward on two feet, making a turn of 180 degrees around a cone, first to the right and then to the left.
d. Do the following:
1. Perform a forward shoot-the-duck until you're nearly stopped. Rise while still on one foot.
2. Perform forward crossovers in a figure eight pattern.
3. Take part in a relay race.
4. Perform a hockey stop.
To become a merit badge counselor is really easy: Submit a form for membership and for the badge you deem yourself qualified to teach.
You also need to be able to pass a background check and the BSA youth protection program (which is really easy)
I snickered a little when I found the old booklet in the drawer, since it has an ice skater on the cover, and we don't really see ice outside our beverages much down here, but the badge can be earned on roller skates as well, soo....(unlike the mile high stack of skiing books....)
I am aware that many do not like BSA because of their policy regarding homosexuality. Some people and groups are just harder to drag into the modern era (I don't agree with it, because it puts too much emphasis on stuff that is already too distracting, and the scouts are not the people to address it IMHO...) but all in all the program is solid and beneficial to the kids.
Quote from: drskater on March 10, 2011, 05:09:41 PM
I hesitated to post on this very important thread because of a year and half of frustration as a Club Pres/Membership Chair trying to "grow" the figure skating program at my rink. I will try to restrain myself from venting too much.
:worthy: It appears I'm right down the road from you. We should get coffee sometime and vent together.
My rink is seasonal, so any efforts to grow figure skating are halted when the rink closes for the summer and families have to drive an hour to skate. An amazing number do make the drive at least once a week, but some don't, and they get involved with other things, and skating becomes less important and less worth the money and effort when the rink does open again.
I asked a couple of hockey players if the rink being closed in the summer was disruptive to them, and they said, not really, because it's actually good in the development of a hockey player to take a break from the ice and do other sports or training in the summer.
So, when the rink opens, we have hardly anyone at freestyle, and hockey has a packed roomful of people at their interest sessions. Not a great incentive to give us freestyle time.
Hockey is redneck, and this is Virginia. People, especially boys and men, are naturally drawn to sports where it's OK to make noise, hit each other and drink beer and belch afterwards. Compare the popularity of watching football to ballet. The big college teams here can draw 63,000 people to a game at $40-$50 a person. The ballet company in the city where I grew up can't sell out a 5,000-seat auditorium.
USFS isn't doing a great job of communicating the basics of the sport to parents and people interested in skating, and this miscommunication trickles down to the club level. Search the U.S. Figure Skating site for info and you're likely to get a bunch of 100-page PDFs in the results. It's discouraging to people who might be interested in starting lessons or otherwise don't have a coach to guide them.
I think our club and coaches do a great job of getting figure skaters to join. Pretty much everyone at our rink who takes private lessons is a member. We don't have group lessons beyond delta, so you have to go private if you want to go beyond that, but a lot of beginners end up in private lessons too.
But it's bringing in the skaters in the first place and then keeping them skating that's a problem. The bottom line is that even if your kid only takes one half-hour private lesson a week and practices for another hour a week, that's still a minimum of about $150 a month, not to mention the cost of skates and club membership and the Chloe Noel pants your kid is going to beg for. A lot of people just can't do it. If we want to grow figure skating, we have to figure out how to make it cheaper and then convince rink owners they can make money off options like more advanced group lessons.
"...convince rink owners they can make money ..." - vask8r
What do you mean rink owners? I do not know of any private rinks within hundreds of miles. There are hundreds of rinks, all owned by municipalities and run as "community centres", rented out for hockey wintertimes, and trade shows in summer. Figure skating hardly even registers on their radar. Most rinks offer 3-5 hours public skating a week at inconvenient times, and are happy to cancel without notice if hockey requires it. I showed up at the rink today, a new schedule just came out in the paper Thursday, and found that they had moved the time up an hour and shortened it a half an hour - in other words I arrived as people were leaving and a group of rednecks were lugging massive hockey bags out of their trucks for practice.
There are no private rinks here. The municipalities don;t care. in the minds of 99% of people Skating=Hockey. Figure skating does not exist in the real world just on TV. At best it is a girls after-school activity...end of story. Until figure skating revamps its public image I really doubt there will be a large influx of skaters other than the current supply of junior ice princess wannabe's. Adults? forget it.
Quote from: ONskater74 on April 01, 2013, 02:58:51 PM
"...convince rink owners they can make money ..." - vask8r
What do you mean rink owners? I do not know of any private rinks within hundreds of miles. There are hundreds of rinks, all owned by municipalities and run as "community centres", rented out for hockey wintertimes, and trade shows in summer.
In the US, most of the newer rinks are owned privately, usually by a family or through a partnership. Many municipal rinks are operated by a concessionaire or management company, who basically have free reign in decision-making. Plus, there are rinks operated inside commercial shopping malls where they lease the facility, as well as "chain" skating consortiums such as FMC Sports, USA Skates, Ice Ventures and Polar Ice.
Canlan Ice Sports in Canada is similar, but they make no bones about being hockey-oriented.
http://www.icesports.com/
FWIW, I've noticed that several of the afterschool skating academies include homework help, which lets qualifies for childcare on the parents' taxes. They also have a dress code or actual skating uniform, which cuts down on the designer clothing battles.
I'm going to rant about USFSA and ISI.
The problem w/ USFSA is that it (the mgt and employees) see it as the national figure skating association. Recreational skating is left to ISI. ISI is dying, but at least it is designed to make the rinks money. I've never skated at an ISI rink that didn't have large chunks of figure skating time, because ISI figured out how to make the rinks profitable.
At some point USFSA figured out they could make money w/ LTS (I was told this by a long time USFSA coach) although originally it had been satisfied with ISI running LTS, and the kids switching over when they had an axel.
Then at some point USFSA added, Learn to Play. Have you seen the LTP curriculum? It's awful. But it makes money. http://www.usfsa.org/Content/HockeyCurriculum.pdf
If USFSA wants to 'grow' skating, it's got to take the route that ISI takes which is to make it profitable for the rinks to have figure skating or some kind of program that builds skaters, and makes them want to learn figure skating.
First, there's lots, lots, lots of guys that don't have the money to join a hockey team, but they'll only skate in hockey skates. I think most of these guys teach themselves to skate. They've created this sub-culture called Xtreme Ice Skating.
There's an audience for rinks and USFSA to cultivate. These are male (usually) skaters that want to do 'tricks' in hockey skates that look a lot like half jumps, some spins, and basic skills. But cultivating this audience requires a skating director/rink manager that's willing to look at what's going on in public skate and taking a chance to offer a group lesson in 'xtreme ice skating--learn tricks--bring your own hockey skates' and get some male coach to teach everything from 'xtreme' crossovers, to all the little 'tricks' I've seen guys doing on youtube. Cultivate a new audience. There's a chance that some of these guys once they're introduced to real skating skills will either switch to figure skating, or at least learn to skate well enough to populate freestyles, making them profitable.
Secondly, there's the predominantly adult skater who skates every week. Sometimes several times a week. There's a lot of adults like that who skate for fitness. What about developing a Skate for Fitness program, with log books, and fitness tips, and recognition on bulletin boards (FitSkate member John X skated 40 miles this month! Congratulations John on completing the FitSkate Distance Challenge!) Maybe some big patterns similar to hockey drills that will provide goals and breaks in the tedium, but don't have the committment required for moves ("Congratulations to FitSkate member Mary Y for doing FitSkate Drill Gold in under 2 minutes!" or "Congratulations to Fitskate Member Chuck Z for mastering the mohawk variation of Silver Cardiac Drill! Great work Chuk!')
But no, USFSA is all "OMG OLYMPIKS!"
Quote from: ONskater74 on April 01, 2013, 02:58:51 PM
"...convince rink owners they can make money ..." - vask8r
What do you mean rink owners? I do not know of any private rinks within hundreds of miles.
On the contrary, where I live, there's no such thing as a municipal rink. I never even knew such a thing existed until I joined this board. Every rink in my city is privately owned.
All those in favor of Agnes developing that curriculum, if only for her awesome track names, say AYE!
Quote from: davincisop on April 01, 2013, 05:59:39 PM
All those in favor of Agnes developing that curriculum, if only for her awesome track names, say AYE!
AYE. Also because I want my name and picture on the bulletin board next to completing one of them!
Hi alejeather,
I know that ALL municipal rinks here locally operate on a losing basis, the brand new Belleville recreation and "wellness centre" rinks are subsidised to the tune of over a million dollars annually. I don;t know why it costs so much to run a rink. Here are my guesses: hydro, insurance, property taxes (of course on municipal propery that is moot). ALL municipal rinks are heavily subsidised with tax revenues, and rental fees are a drop in the bucket, even though they run from 100 to 175 dollars/hour. When a municipality builds an arena they plan on operating it at a loss for its entire life, when the equipment finally gives out they shutter it and that is the end. Belleville lost their only downtown arena 3 years ago due to a leaky pipe, rather than fix it they shut it down. There is no political will to encourage figure skating or recreational skating. Hockey is everything, nothing else matters. Hockey rental times take top spot, everything else gets cancelled for Hockey. Ice time is very pricey even at non-peak times, and the public skating times are when people are working usually. I rented an hour last fall and it ran me, with HST, $125.00 for a mid morning weekday slot, that is the cheapest rate there is.
Municipalities get sold the idea that a rink needs a huge auditorium, a full fledged kitchen, a huge canteen, 10 heated change rooms, a walking track, a fitness room, a dozen offices, an elevator, an escalator, all kinds of towering glass atrium areas, and everything gold plated and wheel chair accessible. Then they marvel that the damn thing costs 10 million dollars... :o
If I built a rink it would be an insulated barn with hard wooden benches beside the ice to change skates. I'd rather spend my time skating than sitting in a 5 star canteen sipping latte's. ice is what matters, everything else is just a money making scam for the contractors.
I've actually done some thinking about FitSkate as a program, I just have no way to implement it other than for myself since in the skating world I'm a nobody.
I thought there would be different parts to FitSkate
Basic Drills--5 or 6 simple patterns that cover the rink like a hockey drill, but can be made to cover various situations such as:
a. Cardiac drills-covering the ice in a pattern x number of times to see how you improve in time and heart rate
b. Flex drills--skating patterns with places where you can do arabesques, advancing to spirals around a circle. or other leg positions held not for looks but to build core strength (for example: a ronde d'jambe, or a held attitude position)
c. Skill drills--improve power or improve edges, for example, how far can you go on a single push from a stop? Building up to circle 8's then maybe waltz 8's
d. Circle patterns or 8 patterns that are very large (not figures) but repeat steps like mohawk to back edge to step forward to three turn repeat. More like the old circle dances than a moves pattern.
e. Off ice training-hand book w/ exercises done with a thera band. Cheap but effective. Balance Exercises. Flexibility exercises. Walking/running goals.
f. a log book to cover your heart rate, time on ice, laps/pattern skated. skills improvement
g. I don't know how to measure miles or laps skated, maybe some app in a smart phone can do that.
h. A FitSkate club run by the rink. Maybe pay $20 annual fee to join, get a log book, have a website where participants can log in and record their efforts, the fitness book, and some tchotchkes ( a pin or badge, maybe members could buy a jacket "Local Name FitSkate Club" if there were enough members.)
i. Monthly challenges: Laps, Distance, heartrate improvment,c alories burned
Benefits to the rink:
FitSkate members would be regulars. They're the ones who buy the annual passes. It's a game a whole family can play, even mom and dad.
Benefits to the coaches:
To advance to the higher levels (Platinum! Because, why stop at Gold?) FitSkate members would take lessons. Especially since I think Fit skate is a public ice kind of thing, Fitskate should emphasize turns rather than spins and jumps. Want to get your Diamond Level? Get your rockers.
Benefits to coaches and rinks: Once someome decides to advance in Fitskate, they'll start gravitating to freestyle and create a demand.
I LOVE Agnes' idea and could see it catching on in my town. Maybe I'll take it to the rink owner when it re-opens. I mean, they have curling, for heaven's sake.
Quote from: ONskater74 on April 01, 2013, 02:58:51 PM
"...convince rink owners they can make money ..." - vask8r
What do you mean rink owners? I do not know of any private rinks within hundreds of miles. There are hundreds of rinks, all owned by municipalities and run as "community centres", rented out for hockey wintertimes, and trade shows in summer.
It's totally the opposite here. I live in the mid-Atlantic/southeastern part of the U.S. I know of one municipal rink, but for the most part, people would completely freak out if you suggested using tax dollars to build an ice rink. Municipalities have a hard enough time convincing taxpayers that public pools, gyms and parks are worth the cost. Winter sports and especially figure skating just aren't ingrained in the culture like I assume they are where you are. Rinks are privately owned and the owners want and need to make a profit.
Where I am Hockey is the National State Religion, the Arena is the Cathedral, and every person has a right to a Cathedral in easy driving distance... That is why arenas get built with tax money. It is a religion. Figure skating does not even factor in to the decision to erect a new arena. The canteen is not open during figure skating sessions, the canteen is not even open during public sessions. But when Hockey time arrives, Boy Oh Boy! Full On! the Faithful gather in for their nightly devotions :P
If there were a private for-profit rink I would gladly patronise it. As it is the public rinks are happy to rent out 6 hours of ice a day at $110.00/hr rather than 18 hours a day at $40.00/hr...less bother. They'd rather see the place dark and locked than to allow taxpayers the pleasure of skating on the ice they financed... >:(
Quote from: ONskater74 on April 01, 2013, 09:18:19 PM
If there were a private for-profit rink I would gladly patronise it. As it is the public rinks are happy to rent out 6 hours of ice a day at $110.00/hr rather than 18 hours a day at $40.00/hr...less bother. They'd rather see the place dark and locked than to allow taxpayers the pleasure of skating on the ice they financed... >:(
At $110 an hour my club would happily rent ice and sell it back to skaters. For that, if we did dead times when the kids don't have school (most likely Sunday mornings) we could easily charge $6-$7 a skater and break even. Weekday mornings, a lot of kids wouldn't come because elementary school starts around 8, but we could still charge $10 a person and break even, still below the freestyle rate. Unfortunately, it's $250 per hour to rent ice at my rink, and we have never been able to find a time we could consistently rent it and sell it back to skaters and break even.
We have the chicken-and-egg issue...the high cost of figure skating and a seasonal rink mean it's hard to get figure skaters. But management won't prioritize figure skating if there aren't enough of us.
No kidding.. $110 an hour is a steal. My rink currently charges more than 4 times as much ($450/hr, and there is no daytime discount now that we only have one sheet), and hockey leagues have bought up every bit that they can. It has been cheaper for our club to buy ice time at the arena where the local hockey team plays/practices (which is a facility that doesn't offer any public skating) - because there is more of it available (the leagues want consistent time slots, which is something the arena can't offer week to week as the facility also hosts other events while the ice is unavailable), and the ice quality tends to be better overall as well. My club has not had a test session at their "home" rink in about a year because there just isn't enough ice time to go around... all of them have been at the arena , and our last few club ice (open skate) sessions have been there as well. IMO it's a bit of a sad state of affairs when that is the only ice our club can get and it really points out the problem of why our club isn't growing - our rink (and hockey) is basically forcing them out because hockey leagues buy up the ice 6 months in advance, and the rink is more than happy to accomodate them because it means they get paid up front. Even the evening freestyle sessions (unrelated to the club) are under threat of being sold to hockey if they aren't pre-sold to skaters on contracts 3 months at a time. It's a frustrating situation.
Quote from: ONskater74 on April 01, 2013, 07:24:00 PM
Municipalities get sold the idea that a rink needs a huge auditorium, a full fledged kitchen, a huge canteen, 10 heated change rooms, a walking track, a fitness room, a dozen offices, an elevator, an escalator, all kinds of towering glass atrium areas, and everything gold plated and wheel chair accessible. Then they marvel that the damn thing costs 10 million dollars... :o
If I built a rink it would be an insulated barn with hard wooden benches beside the ice to change skates. I'd rather spend my time skating than sitting in a 5 star canteen sipping latte's. ice is what matters, everything else is just a money making scam for the contractors.
Oh you Canadians! Every rink within 2 hours of me IS a barn (insulation debatable) with hard wooden benches. They charge $240 an hour for ice and STILL claim to lose money. What I wouldn't give for a bathroom with at least a space heater in it!!!!! No wonder it's almost exclusively hockey--they're wearing a ton of gear and NEVER get cold!!
I'm responding from a UK perspective here, but I think some of the issues and solutions may well be the same (though with much less hockey!). The best thing figure skaters can surely do for figure skating must be being visible and approachable. On most busy public sessions I suspect people don't see any "I want to do THAT" stuff at all.
One rink-led success I've seen is that group lessons include the public session afterwards in the price, so people stick around and the 'public' get to see people practicing skills and thus sign up for courses themselves. In a similar, but more organic fashion, the quiet late night public session at one local rink has quite a few regular adult or student-aged skaters, and barely a week goes by without someone asking one of us if they could learn to jump like that/how to get started etc.
We're like a human FAQ for the rink by now! It's rather pleasing when they turn up in future weeks in their new skates, working on turns and stuff.
I do like Agnes' idea for FitSkate. I find it frustrating that Runkeeper won't work in the rink, despite having a skating option, so I could measure my speed, distance, heartrate etc.
Agnes' FitSkate is a great idea. There is a rink fairly close to me that offers skatercise. Several of the "moms" doing it have gone on to take lessons and formed a synchro team. One of them is now a USFS judge. I just checked out the schedule for that rink. They hold at least 1 public skate, 1 open figure skating session, and 1 open adult hockey session during the day.
Quote from: lemongranita on April 02, 2013, 12:43:25 PM
I'm responding from a UK perspective here, but I think some of the issues and solutions may well be the same (though with much less hockey!). The best thing figure skaters can surely do for figure skating must be being visible and approachable. On most busy public sessions I suspect people don't see any "I want to do THAT" stuff at all.
Here, here. We're very fortunate that we're able to do freestyle on public sessions. We have a couple of kids who are novice level who work on double axels on public. They can't do them on super crowded sessions, but when it's not crowded, it's a more affordable way for them to practice and get in more ice time with limited freestyles. They get stares and autograph requests (which embarrass them).
During the more busy season, I was getting asked "Can you show me how to XYZ?" at almost every session. I will try to boil it down to a basic level, but I also give a spiel about foundations and how you have to learn to turn before you can spin, etc., and talk up the rink's Learn to Skate program. I've also had people approach me and just ask, "Does this place offer lessons?"
Obviously rinks have to set rules and limitations to prevent injuries, but letting figure skaters practice on a public can be great free advertising for a figure skating program. It also provides an economical way for beginning figure skaters to practice.
I recently found out that in spite of the seemingly massive intake of funds, the park-operated rink I go to is indeed losing money. But because it's part of the public park system, it gets funds from the profits of things like mini trains and carousels. There are 3 sheets of ice and almost constant activity, and usually at least one sheet in use as early as 6am and as late as midnight. Group lessons go all the way through advanced freestyle and MIF, plus classes just for spins, classes just for axels, figures, and of course for hockey; the rink will set up a specialty class if enough people as a group say "hey, we want a class for this".
I spoke to the president of my club and she liked my Fitness Skate idea. Next step is to take it to the skating director as an idea for outreach to adults.
She also liked my Xtreme skating idea for males who will not wear figure skates but try to teach themselves half jumps, spread eagles, etch.
I just saw this idea on some gov council stuff, let me see if I can find more out.