Above: Crystal Ice House ASPIRE skaters proudly display patches they have earned. Photo credit Tricia Carzoli, TLC Photography and Portraits
By Joanne Vassallo Jamrosz
The Aspire program at Crystal Ice House in Crystal Lake, Illinois, is a great example of how a partnership between rink and club can be mutually beneficial.
“Our skaters who are looking for more than group lessons are encouraged to explore what it means to be a competitive skater with Aspire,” Crystal Ice House Skating Director Kim Johnson said.
However, when they launched their Aspire program last fall and received the Aspire patches with materials from U.S. Figure Skating, the patches didn’t come with any specific recognition.
So Crystal Ice House Director of Development and Wagon Wheel Figure Skating Club board member Gina Montano stepped up.
“I’m a creative person at heart, “Montano said. “The patches offered a blank canvas to create an innovative tool to guide skaters through our program. My kids enjoyed earning Learn to Skate patches as young skaters and proudly wore them down their sleeves. I knew developing something similar for Aspire would add an element of fun and offer an incentive to explore all Crystal Ice’s Aspire Ice program has to offer.”
“We knew we needed to assign actions corresponding to the word [Aspire] while guiding skaters through our programming, from their first step on our Aspire Ice to graduating to full club membership with Wagon Wheel Figure Skating Club and their preliminary tests,” Johnson said.
Specific examples of patch program requirements included:
• Wearing an Aspire T-shirt to show a confident Attitude;
• Giving another skater a compliment card to display Sportsmanship;
• Learning and performing a solo program for Perseverance;
• Reciting rules of rink freestyle etiquette to represent Integrity;
• Arriving prepared for a first test session to illustrate Respect;
• Trying out for the spring ice show to exemplify Effort.
“The final requirement of passing preliminary skating skills represents a graduation day for our Aspire Ice skaters,” Montano said. “For this final effort, skaters must have become introductory full members of the club to test and graduate from Aspire Ice to Crystal Ice House’s unlimited ice for competitive skaters.”
All new Aspire skaters receive welcome swag bags when they join, filled with a packet of skater and parent information, assorted goodies from headquarters and all patch program materials.
“Excitement is growing as skaters have embraced the program and begun to earn their patches,” Johnson said.
The compliment cards play a significant role in building the skating community.
“Skating can be a solitary sport, and we have seen great camaraderie growing specifically from our Aspire skaters,” Johnson said. “We believe offering skaters a way to make connections will help continue to build relationships. Skaters are encouraged to give the card to anyone, for example, an older skater they admire, a friend from group lessons, or even a coach. The point is to make positive connections, put faces with names and build a strong skating community.”
Overall, Johnson has seen their Aspire program grow 60 percent from its inception, with more than half of its Aspire skaters passing their first U.S. Figure Skating tests since Aspire was launched at Crystal Ice House.
“Implementing U.S. Figure Skating’s Aspire program has increased our numbers on our freestyle ice sessions and our number of competitive skaters,” Johnson said. “Our Aspire patch program is an easily understood progression for parents and skaters to becoming figure skaters.”
