Triple lutz
times 20

It's action-packed, dangerous and the NHL is on hiatus: prime time for synchronized skating's rise to glory

by ERIN MACLEOD

Ahh, figure skating, Canada's other national sport - the sequinned, glitzy, graceful, short-skirted one. What happens when you take one spinning, jumping, fancy footworking athlete and multiply by 20? You get synchronized figure skating, the fastest growing but least known form of patinage artistique and, I might argue, a hell of a lot more exciting than any Browning, Orser or Stojko you can shake a stick at.

Sure, I might be biased, having been involved in "synchro" for many of my formative years, but I'm still amazed that the sport has gained little visibility since its first appearance as between-period entertainment in a 1956 university hockey game in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Maybe it's this initial similarity to Ice Capade-like entertainment (and the fact that so many teams have silly names, like the Hockettes, Crystals, Emerald Blades and, I'm so sorry to say, the Ice'kateers) that makes it tough for the triple-lutz-loving fanatics to take it seriously. It's something you need to see to get an idea of what the heck it is.

"Every time I have a friend who doesn't know it, they come to see it and say, ‘Oh my god, that's so hot! How come we don't see it? It looks so athletic and so hard!'" says Marilyn Langlois, captain of Les Suprêmes, our city's Canadian champs, whose bronze medal showing at the 2003 World Championships garnered no more than a blurb in the Journal de Montréal. "We go to Europe and we sign autographs, but here, well...," sighs assistant captain Angela Malorni.

Skating fans are missing out. "It's scary, it's exciting," explains Malorni. "I see it as athletics and artistry." Sure, last year's world champs, Sweden's Team Surprise, may not have reached the heights of aesthetic brilliance with a routine choreographed to the soundtrack of Matrix: Reloaded, but as with straight-up figure skating, not all teams take the cornball route. Benoît Venne, one of Les Suprêmes' coaches, told me that the team has been working not only with dance instructors, but with folks from Cirque de Soleil. Tricky, innovative, and thrilling are key words for Les Suprêmes: we're talking throws, lifts, spins and jumps. "It's very dangerous. I had two concussions last year," reports Langlois. Malorni chimes in: "I had a big black welt on my head. And yes, I'm a figure skater."

Icy rivalries

There is also the Bring It On factor of super secrecy - no team wants a signature move ganked by another team. A quick look at the Web site of one top Canadian team reveals that their practices are, ahem, "closed sessions." Malorni provides the details: "The theme and the music are only unveiled at the competition and not before. Other teams don't know what we're doing, we don't know what they're doing." But don't think there's any cloak-and-dagger spying going on. "There's curiosity, there's rivalry, obviously. We are competing at a very high level, but it's all healthy," she insists.

There aren't any knock-down drag-'em-out episodes of infighting either. "We don't have chick fights," claims Langlois. "If you don't like somebody, you don't say it. You think of what's best for the team." After all, they're all doing this for the love of the sport - because there simply isn't any cash. "We are lacking sponsors and money," says Lyne Forget, head coach alongside Venne, "It would be easier if it were an Olympic sport."

Olympic officials have indeed come to the synchro worlds; they want to see the interest, the level of competition, and, of course, the moneymaking potential. Unlike the richly funded teams from countries like Sweden, Finland and the U.S., Canadian teams "even have to pay for Team Canada track suits," sighs Langlois. This is a big problem when you're trying to maintain a competitive team: "We lose skaters every year," complains Venne. "If you have a dance couple that trains for five years together, they will have a chance to be very good. But if you have a team that is changing every year because of money, I don't know."

All synchro skaters want (aside from a big infusion of cash, of course) is a little respect and a little attention. "It's a sport that just needs to be known more," insists Langlois. And, given the conspicuous absence of Canada's other favourite cold-weather pastime, Forget is hopeful. "This winter there's no hockey. Maybe they could give us a little space."

Les Suprêmes Premiere this year's program Dec. 4 at Gaetan Boucher Arena (3850 Edgar, St-Hubert)