Why Can't We Be Friends?

I always try to stay out of the pointless skating drama I see all over Facebook, but I think it's time I throw my opinions in on this current situation going on.

I attended and skated in the Eastern Regional Championships this past weekend and I was pretty impressed with the lack of drama I saw while there. I thought everyone competed fairly, the coaches got along, and I saw so many kids out there having an absolute blast.

Apparently what you see isn't always what's true. After I got home from what I considered to be a successful regionals, I took a nap, woke up, and picked up my phone to see yet another fight on a Facebook status.

I'm not going to get into detail about what was fought about since I really don't have an opinion, but I do want to say that fighting over these types of things on social media is not the answer to the problems everyone clearly has with each other. 

Technology is a great thing until it is used the wrong way. When these arguments are posted online, everyone and anyone can see them whether they know what our small sport is or not. Those people could be future speed skaters, but maybe when they see these things they see how crazy we all are and think, "Hmm, this looks like an extremely disorganized sport. Maybe I'll just sign my kid up for football instead." I guarantee that has happened whether anyone realizes it or not. Unless you pull kids out of session, chances are you're not going to get new interest by saying "Check out our team page and the keystone league page (that's full of Facebook fights!)" 

Everyone is talking about how the sport getting smaller every year and the reason behind it. It's not because of there being novice at nationals, and it's not for any other random reason I've seen online the past few days. It's the fact that there are huge egos in a very small sport that doesn't have room for all of them. Everyone seems to have a "my way or no way" attitude and that isn't going to grow the sport. 

As far as the novice at nationals discussion goes, it needs to be there. Period. Not sure how one can say it's putting down the numbers since it's been around since way before I even started skating 15 years ago. My first nationals was in 2004 as a novice juvenile and I didn't get out of novice until 2009. 6 years of novice at nationals. You don't become a champion over night- it takes time and patience. To be brutally honest, I sucked for a long time, and there is nothing wrong with that. 

I worked my way up in the sport just like everyone else did. Almost every current pro skater skated novice at one point because everyone starts as a beginner. I know this statement is getting cliche, but if you just throw a brand new skater against someone who's already winning standard or has been skating for 10+ years, they will get discouraged and they will quit. Even for the young kids who haven't been skating long but have a natural gift.. those kids can fly. Put a new kid who wants to have fun with what they're doing against them and they'll be gone in a few months. Kids don't have the same amount of dedication and discipline as the older ones.. that comes with time and development which is exactly what the novice division is for. 

This picture is the 2009 regional championships for novice freshman- I won and Chrysta Rands placed third. 6 years later, both of us are now considered pros. 2009 was my 6th year of novice, but it was Chrysta's first. I went on to win nationals that year in both novice and standard, which I'm sure will bring up another argument about how long you should be allowed to be in novice.. and yes I believe there should be a limit again. It wasn't fair for Chrysta and the other girls to race a girl who also won standard at the same time, which is exactly the point I'm trying to make with new skaters racing experienced ones. It's even harder for the ones who start at an older age, so shoutout to Chrysta for sticking with it, winning novice 2 years later, and training even harder to place in standard. The development process works, you just have to trust in it and in your athletes. 

Look at pro hockey for example.. Parents sign their kids up at a young age to start playing. They play for fun at first, then if they want to get serious, they do. You move up through the different levels as a kid, then you play junior or college hockey if you want to. Then you get drafted or somehow get signed to a pro organization which have 3 levels of "pro hockey"- first the lowest level (ECHL), then the next (AHL), then finally the big leagues (NHL). That's about 15 years of development on average. Yet we're trying to make people who just put skates on a year ago race the pros.. great plan. Level wise, that's just like having a 10 year old hockey player play against an NHL player. 

As world class skaters, we know we are biggest influence on the younger kids and novice skaters. They want to be where we are, and they need the time to get there, which they will. 

Numbers at nationals will be low this year but everyone has their own reasons. Myself and a few other pro skaters will not be there, but we have other reasons than the fact that they got rid of the pro division. Some of us need to secure a future for ourselves, whether that be going to school, training on the ice, or testing our luck in another sport. I personally will not be there because: 1. All these meets get expensive after a while, 2. I'm going to college full time in the fall- college is expensive, 3. I'm riding in my first nationals for track cycling 2 1/2 weeks later, and 4. This sport just isn't as fun as it used to be for me.

Novice isn't the problem. Novice is the future, and I'm not sure why so many are blind to that. At the end of the day, skating should be about having FUN. If you aren't having fun, why do it? 

Do what you love, have fun with your life. It's too short to worry about other people's opinions. Do you.
Our coaches might not get along, but that doesn't mean we the athletes can't. Speed skaters are a special breed, and if we aren't careful, we might go extinct.