It’s the 2019 Stony on Ice Competition weekend!
This year, I’m guaranteed to win two medals. When you’re an individual entry in one category, and one of three skaters in another category, you can say this without sounding overly confident.
A member of the Stony on Ice committee emailed to let me know I was the lone competitor in Adult Bronze Interpretive. Did I still want to compete? For a snazzy individual medal and marks?
I said of course. My interpretive is “Who Wants to Live Forever” by Queen. Interpretive is changing next year, and this might be the last time I can skate to this type of piece. I’ve wanted to skate to “Who Wants to Live Forever” since 2005 when Jamie Sale and David Pelletier performed to the haunting song.
I joked with the Stony on Ice committee member though, asking if I could be awarded a bronze medal rather than the individual medal. Then I’d have the complete set.
I’ve never left Stony on Ice without a medal – except once. Which calls for a 25-year throwback.
It was April 2, 1994.
The Stony on Ice Competition. Five competitors – including me.
I was 15 weeks and four days post-op from brain surgery. Just 16 weeks earlier, I won a silver medal in the Interlake Interpretive and Artistic Competition. At Stony on Ice, I wore the same borrowed blue dress, this time it was stretched to the max.
After my surgery, I’d gained 10 lbs. Sure, I was skating on my rink at home four weeks after surgery. And I returned part-time to the Arborg Skating Club in six weeks.
But have you ever had a seashell chocolate squished between Icy Squares?
My surgery was ten days before Christmas Eve. Nothing says “get well soon” like sugared jelly fruit and boxes of Pot of Gold, Black Magic, and Queen Anne Milk Chocolate Cherries. I’m sure I was pumped full of steroids at the hospital too because the weight was gone by grad. But I also ran out of chocolate at the end of April.
That February, I decided to compete at Stony on Ice. I had two months to prepare a program, and I chose the Phantom of the Opera. I planned an Axel, double toe, and double Salchow.
At Stony Mountain during warm-up, I tried my double toe – catapulting myself forward. Jumping off the ice using my arms, not my toe pick. I fell into my old habit. It was exhausting too because I’d lost the majority of my upper body strength. My muscles were Jello-O and Hersey’s Chocolate.
My coach Joanne said, “Pull back. Turn, reach, and pull back.” I tried the jump again, and I landed a perfect double toe. By this time, my dad shut off the camera. So, the “Holy s**t” look on my face wasn’t captured. Then Joanne said, “Land it like that, and you’ll medal.” We waited for my name to be called, and Joanne asked what the plan was in case I didn’t land the toe. I said, “I’ll take out the double Salchow.” She agreed.
Don’t forget, this was before the time of “the more you turn, the more you earn.” It was, “winners don’t fall.”
With my camera-flash family in the stands, I struck my opening pose: head down with one leg and both arms behind – fingers spread apart for extra drama.
In the first seven seconds, I landed my Axel then headed into a camel-sit with my arms artistically flailing. After a Lutz + flip sequence – which isn’t a sequence and the flip was unplanned, my next jump was the double toe.
But rather than reaching backward, I hacked beside my other skate and leaped off the ice. Airborne, I tried to crank out two revolutions – but I shorted the rotation, slipping off the blade and landing on my hip. Then came the sliding. When I came to a stop, I was slow getting up. With snow on my left thigh, I flung into a camel spin.
I tried to compute what happened. I fell. Gold is gone. Silver’s probably gone. If anything, I’m fighting for bronze. I did what any logical skater would do: I busted through the Zayak Rule like a Sunday shopper with one minute left until closing time.
The gist of the Zayak rule: A jump can be repeated twice only if it’s in combination or sequence with another jump. The rule is named after figure skater Elaine Zayak, who won the World Figure Skating Championships in 1982 with a triple packed program, including four triple toe loops.
In a two minute and 10-second program, I landed four single flips. Where the double Salchow should’ve been, I did an arm movement into a single salchow + flip + flip, which is neither a combination or sequence. Just a desperate attempt to gain judges approval.
ut on the bright side, I landed a loop. The full results of the competition were posted later, and I saw the sheet of medallists without my name, and my parents and I went home. Actually, we went to my aunt and uncle’s house, where my uncle tried to cheer me up, but I felt like a failure.
That night I reluctantly went to a social. My friends from skating ran to me and said they saw the full results. “You placed fourth! Congratulations!”
Fourth is like that Rascal Flatts song, “What Hurts the Most is Being So Close.” I loathed fourth place. Post-op or not, that last competition as a teenager hurt for years.
Why skate to Phantom again? Isn’t it bad luck? Bad memories? I didn’t fall because of the music. With Phantom, my elements don’t feel rushed and the music carries you through the program.
Plus, it’s a tribute to my former coach, Joanne. Once a skater’s coach, always a skater’s coach.
While in Arborg, Joanne encouraged lifelong skating, which I appreciate in hindsight as an adult skater. She ran power skating and encouraged classes for adults. Joanne believed everyone should skate, no matter what age or level – and this was in a small town in the late-80s.
Years later, I still make jokes about that bronze medal slipping through my hands in 1994, stopping the video to show exactly where I lost the medal. “Right … there.” This weekend, if I win the bronze in free skate, I’m fine with that.
It just means the medal from 1994 was awarded 25 years later.
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Humorous update:
I won the bronze with a personal best. I fell at the end of the program on my hip. Just for extra drama.
A modified version of this post will be included in a skating memoir about my skating career, published in 2026.
Skating Scene 