By Abby Farrell
If Danielle Ostrower isn’t spending time with her husband and kids, she can be found at the Northbrook Sports Center in Northbrook, Illinois, coaching one of four synchronized skating teams as part of the Teams Elite program.
And she wouldn’t have it any other way.
A skater most of her life, Ostrower’s first experience on the ice most likely would have deterred anyone else from trying the sport all together, but not her.
Ostrower’s earliest memory of skating was being on the ice with her dad when he slipped and cut her above the eye with his skate.
Surprisingly, she instantly fell in love with the sport, and after being introduced to synchronized skating at 8 years old, Ostrower never looked back.
Ostrower skated for the Chicago Jazz until her senior year of high school and was a member of the team that won bronze at the 2006 World Junior Challenge Cup in Finland.
Going off to college with her competitive career in the rear-view mirror, Ostrower finished her undergrad studies and then attended law school at the University of Illinois Chicago. It was after graduation that a good friend approached her, asking if she would be interested in helping to coach Teams Elite.
After attending one tryout, Ostrower began contemplating the next steps in her career: take the bar exam and become a lawyer or pursue coaching. Her mom ended up convincing her to take the bar exam (which she passed), but her heart was pulling her back to the ice instead of a courtroom.
“Throughout my skating career, I always wanted to be coaching, and in college I went and did the sorority life, but I'd be streaming nationals on my laptop on to my TV and keeping up with everything and reading the rules and things like that.” Ostrower said. “I never felt super disconnected from the sport. Then when I had the ability to jump back in officially on the coaching side of things, I just fell in love again in a different way.”
Flash forward to today and Ostrower is entering her 15th season as head coach of the Teams Elite junior, novice, intermediate and juvenile teams. Since their inaugural season in 2017, the team has earned six Challenger Series medals and clinched a bronze medal at the 2022 World Junior Synchronized Skating Championships.
This past season built on that success. Teams Elite junior earned gold at their two Challenger Series assignments — Budapest Cup and Hevelius Cup — and earned a spot at the 2024 World Junior Synchronized Skating Championships, where they placed fourth. Teams Elite also swept the junior, novice, intermediate and juvenile divisions at the 2024 U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships.
Looking back, what stands out to Ostrower about the season is not the scores or the medals, but the growth she saw from her athletes through the life lessons they learned from sport such as communication, teamwork and resilience.
“Results that high are so short lived that. Yes, it feels really good, but then you're constantly like, ‘OK, now I have to top that, right?’’ Ostrower said. “It comes and goes so quickly that when I reflect on the season, I'm more proud of the growth that we made as people and as athletes and what it means to be an athlete. That's been my huge culture push in our program.”
Ostrower’s motto is “work hard, play harder,” which she instills in her teams by finding the right balance of serious and silly. She also makes an effort to connect on a deeper level with all of her athletes.
“I really like to keep things light but focused,” Ostrower said. “I like personal connection with the athletes. I'm driven. I'm competitive, and I like to bring that out in a fun way. We start practice a lot of times laughing and making jokes. A lot of times I'm sharing stories about my kids and the ridiculous things that they're doing, so that it opens up the floor for them to tell me a little bit about their day and not go straight into skating because we know how serious it is already.”
Many of her athletes appreciate this approach, including 2024-25 junior team co-captain Evie Stuckey.
“One of my favorite memories was at my first international competition in Switzerland in 2023, Danielle always likes to be really early to everything, so we were really early and weren't able to go into the warmup area yet, so with our extra time, we all stood outside and we were all dancing and singing together with Danielle,” Stuckey said. “It was just a special moment before we competed — loosening up and really knowing that she was there for us and was proud of like everything we've done to get to where we had,”
Former Teams Elite team member Ellie Lim now coaches Teams Elite’s Aspire 1 and Aspire 2 teams and has adopted that same mentality with her athletes, because of the positive experience she had as a skater.
“What I learned the most from her is trying to balance having fun, but also working hard,” Lim said. “When you're focused on just working hard and just the program, it can get super draining and I think she did a good job trying to lighten the mood, to keep us engaged, to keep us loving the sport. We stayed focused when we had to but also she was trying to keep us having fun and loving what we did, and that's what I do with my kids.”
Ostrower’s love for her athlete and her relentless drive and dedication to the success of the team shines through in everything she does, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by those around her.
“Last year at 2024 Junior Worlds, we were competing our free program,” 2024-25 season junior co-captain Zsophia Katona said. “As we were going to hit our ending pose, I looked over the boards and I saw Danielle shedding tears of joy because I just knew that she was so unbelievably proud of us and what we have accomplished that whole weekend.”
Although October is recognized as Coach Appreciation Month, Ostrower’s skaters are grateful for her year-round.
“Teams Elite and myself would not be anywhere without Danielle,” Lim said. “She's done so much for us, and I just think that one month does not show an ounce of my gratitude for all the hard work that she has put into shaping and molding me and the person I am today. Even though I don't skate anymore, I can truly go to her for anything. I look up to her in more ways than one, and I'm very blessed and very grateful to have gotten to skate for her and to be loved by her. She just loved all of us and that's a relationship that I hope I carry for the rest of my life.”
