The Dartmouth Crossing Speed Skating Club isn’t planning on slowing down any time soon.
Since its inception in 2016, the club has grown from twice a week sessions at different arenas to a home base at the RBC Centre which could comfortably grow to 200 members, with more than 100 being beginners each year.
The club’s latest venture involves creating a sledge-friendly ice surface for racing. The retrofit is almost complete, which included replacing a section of the boards with Plexiglass so athletes can view the action on the ice when they are off it, installing artificial ice and level ice access, automatic door openers for dressing rooms and the arena, and storage space for sledges.
Funding for the retrofit was provided by the provincial Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage Department, the Halifax Regional Municipality and several HRM councillors.
“We see enormous possibility in that program,” said club president Sheila McGinn. “The population estimates of athletes with disabilities suggest that we haven’t begun to reach that population in HRM yet. And sledge racing, like sledge hockey, would be open to athletes both with and without disabilities.”
The club plans to include sledge racing in competitions it hosts at the RBC Centre. Miki Matsui Matheson, who represents Canada on the International Paralympic Committee and competed in Nagano in 1998, has also shared her experience in the sport with the club.
The club has members of all ages, with some as young as three years old. Sometimes entire families are on the ice learning to skate together. Its highest total registration for all programs was 162, which dropped during the pandemic because of space restrictions but is starting to return to pre-COVID levels.
The club continues to work to make its programs affordable, maintaining a rental inventory and offering safety equipment and maximizing use of available ice space. A partnership is in place with Special Olympics Nova Scotia to offer an integrated program that averages 10 to 15 athletes per season, with some participating in the Special Olympics Nova Scotia Winter Games. The club has also done outreach to the newcomer community through the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia and the YMCA Centre for Immigrant Programs, and direct mail outreach to Dartmouth North.
A number of families, usually five to 10 per cent of the membership, receive KidSport funding. The club assists families with completing the application and accepts participants into the program while their KidSport applications are still pending.
In September 2022, the club hosted a Special Olympics Unified Sport event that included visits from national team members Valerie Maltais and Jordan Belchos for a public skate. Truefaux Films has also supported the club by donating videos for its introductory, Special Olympics and Unified Sport programs, and is in the process of finalizing a video for sledge racing.
It’s been a whirlwind seven years, but one essential part of the program has remained constant.
“It’s always the joy and pride of a new participant when they realize they can skate,” said McGinn. “And maybe when parents tell us that their children want to know, ‘How many sleeps before we can go skating again?’”
