Kathy Addley, left, with her sister at an adult figure skating competition in Calgary in late September. (submitted/Kathy Addley)

By Susan McNeil

Adult figure skating

From books to blades, Meath Park librarian figures skates for fun

Nov 23, 2024 | 8:01 AM

From her day job as a school librarian at the Meath Park school, Kathy Addley spends a good amount of her spare time being part of an adult figure skating club in Prince Albert.

While mostly she does it for fun and to keep active, the 58-year-old was part of an international competition hosted near Calgary recently.

“It’s just a lot of fun. You know the adult figure skaters are just a wonderful group of people. You get out there, you learn new skills, you have fun,” Addley said.

It was so much fun, Addley decided to take it a step further and competed in an international figure skating competition on the Tsuut’ina Nation reserve near Calgary this fall.

“I didn’t come home with a medal. I was, you know, finished near the bottom of my event,” she said.

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But, just like practice here in Prince Albert, the competition was more about skating for enjoyment than it was about winning. It was also about community.

“It was actually the first international figure skating event held on First Nations land in Canada so that was pretty cool,” said Addley.

The International Skating Union is the governing body and offers two international competitions annually. This year, the first one was held in Albertdorf, Germany and the second was in Alberta.

About 275 skaters attended, ranging in age from their 20s to the eldest at 76 years old.

Six people attended from Saskatchewan, one from Regina, three from Saskatoon, another from Spiritwood, and Addley from Prince Albert.

A synchronized skating team from Lloydminster also competed.

“It was just really, really fun and a great thing to be a part of,” Addley explained.

Part of what makes it even more fun is that she sometimes competes with her sister, who is in her late 40s and her 29-year-old daughter.

They have travelled and competed across the province at a number of competitions over the last few years.

Addley with her daughter at a regional competition in Shellbrook in 2023. (submitted/Kathy Addley)

It was becoming a mother with daughters who wanted to be figure skaters themselves that renewed an old spark from her own childhood and taking figure skating. She started, then stopped around age 10, having learned some basics.

“I was in my late 30s and my kids were involved in skating and I saw they had an adult class,” Addley said.

That was in Regina, so she signed up and began taking lessons and learning some skills. Then, the family moved to the RM of Buckland area in 2012 so she stopped again.

In 2021, the ice beckoned again so she joined the Prince Albert Skating Club, which also offers an adult class. The daughter that competes with her is an instructor for the club.

The club said interest has grown lately and they now have 17 adults in the class. Those skaters have a wide range of ability. Some have never been on skates before, others want to improve, and some are former figure skaters.

“They offer programs for people who want to improve skating skills for hockey or lacrosse and then those programs for people who are former figure skaters, or maybe skaters when they were kids,” Addley explained.

As a self-described ‘lower-level’ skater, she wants people to know that a lack of experience or ideas about cost shouldn’t deter them.

“Even if you’ve never skated before, even if you just did a little bit of figure skating when you were younger or if, you know, you just want to learn to figure skate as an adult, everyone is welcome and it can be as physically challenging as you want to make it.”

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com