Growing Figure Skating

[FigureSpins]

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?

[jumpingbeansmom]

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

[FigureSpins]

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. 

[jumpingbeansmom]

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. 

[Purple Sparkly]

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.

[FigureSpins]

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?

[Purple Sparkly]

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.

[Sk8tmum]

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. 

[retired]

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.

[drskater]

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.

[AgnesNitt]

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.

[jjane45]

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 from Xanboni on drawing crowds. Skating freebies could work nicely for rinks in a competitive area, and good PR never hurts.

[FigureSpins]

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.

[drskater]

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? 

[PinkLaces]

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   

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.

[blue111moon]

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. 

[falen]

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.

[Isk8NYC]

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. 

[Purple Sparkly]

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...

[Query]

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.

[Isk8NYC]

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.

[Query]

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.

[ONskater74]

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  , 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 

[4711]

(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 

[PinkLaces]

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.