Do you ever dream about gliding and twirling over a sheet of glimmering ice? For the Laurier Brantford Figure Skating Club, this dream will soon be their reality on the competitive level.

The club formed just last year, and has a total of 14 members. Currently, the team skates recreationally, but they hope to one day become a competitive team and play against other schools once they hire a coach to lead the team.

Laurier already has a figure skating team on the main campus in Waterloo that competes at the university level. Brantford’s team would be able to compete at the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA) level once a coach is hired.  Through fundraising, the team hopes to afford the expense of hiring a proper coach by next year.

For competitive figure skating, the minimum requirement of coaching is the STARSkate qualification, certified by Skate Canada.  There are a variety of levels for the coaching and teaching qualifications but they are not only time consuming, but are also very expensive to obtain.  Club member, Athena Zorzi, just became a qualified CanSkate coach, which took her a year a half to accomplish.

The club held a paint your own pottery event last Thursday which began this year’s efforts of raising awareness of their new club. The event had bowls, mugs, ornaments, and plates to paint through Crock A Doodle supplies and pricing.

Last year the team preformed at Harmony Square’s Chilly Willy Chili Cook Off, but do not have any performances planned for this year.  Instead, the club hopes to focus on fundraising towards obtaining enough to hire a coach full-time.

More funding raised through donations and events like these will allow the club to achieve their goals of finding a coach to skate them towards the competitive level for next year.