Thursday 26 February 2015

Woodstock Skating Club celebrates 80 years

Happiness Is: theme for 2015 ice show on March 28
Olympic silver medallist Kirsten Moore-Towers is a guest skater

By Mark Schadenberg
The Woodstock Skating Club (WSC) is planning quite a party for Saturday, March 28.
The Woodstock District Community Complex is the venue for the club's 80th carnival ice show called: 'Happiness Is'.
The birthday party at Southwood Arena will include an alumni performance as the local figure skating club has invited its past competitors to attend, and to bring their skates.
There will be two shows – 2 and 7 p.m., and admission is $10 each for general admission (children under 5 are free).
For more details, call the skating club at (519) 421-1661. The WSC office at the complex is also open Monday – Friday, 2:30 – 6 p.m. Tickets also available at Merrifield's Book Shop on Dundas Street.
Kirsten Moore-Towers (Olympic silver) and Michael Marinaro are the guest skaters.
Woodstock Skating Club poster from FACEBOOK (Above)

(At the 2014 Woodstock Sports Wall of Fame ceremony, I did a 20-minute presentation about the history of the Perry Street Arena and two of my pages appear here.)

HISTORY
The Woodstock club is believed to be among the first three in Ontario, following the Minto in Ottawa and the London club. The WSC began in 1934 at the old Perry Street Arena – in an era before artificial ice, so the training season was much shorter, and most of the original skaters were adults and not children learning in such programs as CanSkate in an effort to be the next local stars, such as Martin Smith, Julie Bowerman, Scott Grover, Lana Sherman, Ross Garner, Lynne Moyer, Tyler Morris, Kerrie Leitch, Grayson Lochhead or . . .

For the 'Happiness Is' performances the local stars will range in age from 4 to 20, plus the numerous synchronized teams.
The local main performers are Grayson Lochhead and Olivia Han (Canadian Pre-Novice Dance Silver Medallists; won Dec. 3 – 7 in Montreal.) A link to their success can be seen in story form below.

STARS ON ICE
Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro have been announced as featured guest skaters at the carnival. The WSC should be ecstatic in securing these top-ranked pairs performers to Woodstock.
Moore-Towers, 22, might seem young to compile such an impressive competitive career, including winning Olympic silver with Dylan Moscovitch at the Sochi Games in the unique team competition. That couple were also Canadian champions in 2011, but won silver in both 2013 and 2014 (as they were second on the podium to current national champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford). This team won five silver medals on the Grand Prix circuit, including one at Skate Canada and two at Skate America.
As teams do change, Moore-Towers, who is from St Catharines, is now competing with Michael Marinano, who is just 23 years old. Marinaro, who lists Sarnia as home, is a former Canadian champ at the junior pairs level with Margaret Purdy in 2010 and would later be eighth at the world junior Grand Prix championships that season, but climbed to second overall by 2013 in Milan, Italy.
Moore-Towers and Marinaro are competing in senior pairs on the Grand Prix circuit, finishing sixth at Skate Canada, ninth at the ISU Four Contionets in Seoul, South Korea, and fourth at the 2015 Canadian championships in Kingston.
Not that I can possibly give away musical choices for their Woodstock appearance, but the pair is currently skating to Cell Block Tango from the musical Chicago, along with a tune from the musical Chess.

LINKS:


Written By:
Mark Schadenberg, Sales Representative
Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal LePage Triland Realty
757 Dundas St, Woodstock
www.wesellwoodstock.com
(519) 537-1553, cell or text
Email: mschadenberg@rogers.com
Twitter: markroyallepage
Facebook: Mark Schadenberg, Royal LePage Triland

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