Nikki Kistanov has performed in front of people a lot over her figure skating career, but a performance with the Skate Canada Saskatchewan Division high performance team at Affinity Place will certainly go down as one of the highlights.
Kistanov, a 16-year-old student at Estevan Comprehensive School, performed with 20 of her Team Saskatchewan colleagues as part of the Stars on Ice Road Show Tuesday evening
“It came back four years ago in Estevan and it basically inspired me to grow up to be on the team and to be on the show,” said Kistanov., who joined Emily Hanson as the Estevan skaters on the tour. “It’s like a good, inspiring moment to be a better figure skater and to push myself to be on the team.”
The team starts on the Saturday before the show to learn routines, and then starting Sunday they’re on the road taking it to different communities of Shaunavon, Spiritwood, Leroy and Estevan. Many of the members of the team, from ages 12-18, are quite familiar with each other as teammates and former competitors.
“We’ve grown up through the years of skating. We’ve known each other through six or eight years already,” Kistanov said.
The team takes a bus through the communities for the week and sometimes gets a chance to catch up with younger kids as part of the inspirational journey.
“It’s win-win for our athletes in our section,” said Skate Canada Saskatchewan high performance director David Schultz. “We bring our top skaters from across the province together… teach them an opening number, a boys number and a girls number.”
The top performers on the tour come together to train for the several days and push each other and motivate, as well as promoting figure skating for some kids who might not have been exposed to it. The road show has been going on for over 25 years, he said.
“Our sport is an individual sport but you go through the journey as a team,” he said. “We start to create that culture earlier.”
At Sacred Heart School/Ecole Sacre Coeur, the team entertained the students with a demonstration in the gym with concepts like axels, lifts and even got a couple of the brave souls to be lifted – with the help of spotters – by 18-year-old pairs skater Raine Eberl.
“Being in the school and being in the community exposes our kids on our team to those in the community,” said Schultz. “It was eight or nine years ago the road show was touring in the Melville area and Rudi (Swiegers) and Paige (Lawrence) went to the Olympics for Saskatchewan and Canada, and they were there in the road show.
"They tapped a little boy on the shoulder and said something about, ‘What do you want to do? That little boy idolized Rudi and he’s in our show now. He came fifth in Canada this year at his level.”
The road show event took place just a few weeks after Canada won gold in team figure skating and the adorable ice dancing pair of Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue sparked the nation’s imagination.
“Every four years, it seems we go on the road show right after the Olympics,” said Schultz. “We have four kids in the show that competed at Canadian Tire National Skating Championships in January in Vancouver, so we have national-level athletes. We have a former Canadian champion at the pre-novice level… our province is capable of producing international-level people.
The future will see Kistanov competing at sectionals and other events with Skate Canada Saskatchewan through the next couple of years. Not just a winter sport, the high performance skaters will train throughout the summer.
Still, coming to Estevan was a highlight for Kistanov.
“Yeah, this is the best week ever with the team,” said Kistanov.
