An Okotoks Skating pair has proven to be up for the challenge.
And Okotoks’ Chelsea Kuharski and High River’s Caleb Hoveland will be stepping up to national heights this week as pre-novice competitors at the Skate Canada Challenge, featuring the top men’s, women’s, ice dance and pair competitors in the country, Dec. 1-5 at Evraz Place in Regina.
“It’s really exciting,” said Kuharski, a seven-year member of the Okotoks Skating Club. “I’ve just been competing in STAR-skates in singles all by myself and to go out on the ice with someone else it makes me feel a whole lot less nervous.
“It’s so cool to go to nationals, I’ve never been before.”
Kuharski and Hoveland are one of three pre-novice pair teams from the Alberta/Northwest Territories region competing at the Challenge, reserved for the top-four qualifiers in each division.
Impressively, the pair was formed in the spring of this year and the two have made the most of the little time afforded to them to reach new heights.
“It’s sort of like a friendship, so you’ve just got to put your trust into each other,” said Hoveland. “And trust that you’ll both put in the hard work and paid off for us. It just takes time.
“We’ve definitely advanced the most in our synchronicity, being together and being able to trust each other more for when your elements go up and everything like that.”
Hoveland, 17, had an opening for a new pair partner and Kuharski’s coaches suggested to her she would make a great fit.
The enthusiastic Kuharski jumped at the opportunity.
“I said sure ‘why not?’, and it just took off from there, we just kept building and building our skills every time until we got to nationals,” Kuharski added.
For Kuharski, the biggest strides have been made in stroking – the process in which skaters push off the blade to move forward or backward – after learning exercises and sharpening up those skills which then forms the foundation for lifts or spins.
“Every session we do improve and it’s just amazing to see,” said Kuharski, a Grade 7 student at Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School. “We went from the ground learning our choreography and program and lifts to putting them on the ice not even a month until our first competition.”
At the Challenge, the Okotoks pair will be performing to Stray Cat Strut in the short program and for the free program Michael Buble’s Feeling Good will be the soundtrack to their performance.
For Hoveland, it’s about getting a feel for the different type of competition they’ll see at nationals as both first time competitors at that level and enjoying the experience.
“I really just want everything to be perfect, but I know that's not possible,” Kuharski said. “I just want it so that we can do the best of our abilities, I know we can do that.
“We do it every day when we skate, so I think we’ve got it, really.”
Kuharski and Hoveland will kick things off with the short program for the pre-novice pairs event getting underway at 2:15 p.m. on Dec. 2. The pre-novice pairs free program is an 11:35 a.m. start on Dec. 3.
Skate Canada is live-streaming all five days of the competition, which can be viewed at the following link: https://skatecanada.ca/2022-skate-canada-challenge/
