By Mallory Cawthra

On Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022, the Leader Skating Club will be presenting their annual Achievement Day at the G3 Iceplex in the Town of Leader. The rink kitchen will be open at 6:00 p.m., with the main event beginning at 6:30 p.m. This will be an excellent opportunity for more than 40 local skaters, ranging in age from three to seventeen, to showcase their hard work and skating abilities in front of their family, friends, peers and community members.

The head coach for the Leader Skating Club is Bobbi Sitter, and she is assisted at CanSkate by some of the older STAR Skaters. CanSkate is targeted towards beginner skaters of all ages. The Skate Canada website states that “Millions of Canadians, including World and Olympic figure skating champions and National Hockey League stars, have taken their first steps on the ice with the CanSkate program.”

STARSkate (Skills, Tests, Achievement, Recognition) is more advanced, and skaters further develop their fundamental figure skating skills in ice dance, skating skills, free skate and interpretive skating. As well, the skaters are divided into Junior and Senior levels. The Skate Canada Saskatchewan website explains that after mastery of skills in STARSkate, skaters may choose to progress further into synchronized skating or pairs skating.

Cassy Bredeson, President of the Executive Board for the Leader Skating Club, explained that “Our CanSkaters will be performing group routines, and our STAR Skaters will be performing either solos or duets, as well as one of two group routines.” The evening will be 80’s themed, complete with matching music playlists and decorations.

The Leader Skating Club is excited to host guest skater Rylee Finlay at the Swift Current Skating Club event. She is one of Saskatchewan’s top novice skaters and a great role model for women’s figure skating and the sport in general. She will be skating twice during the evening.

Everyone is welcome to attend Achievement Day. There will be carnations available for purchase to gift the skaters, a 50/50 draw, a bucket raffle with prizes for both children and adults, as well as raffle tickets for a liquor and/or meat basket from the Leader Liquor Mart/The Pantry.

Leader head coach Bobbi Sitter with the Jr. STAR Skate group.