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| Club
History |
SkateSaskatoon
/ Saskatoon Figure Skating Club (SFSC) is a
non-profit volunteer organization and a member
of SkateCanada - Saskatchewan and SkateCanada
committed to promoting skating within the community.
Our Mission: to offer a broad selection of affordable,
effective skating programs designed to provide
for the social, emotional and physical benefit
of all skaters.
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Taken from
Spinning Into The Spotlight,
Figure Skating in Saskatchewan, 1883-1996.
Author: S. Bingaman.
The first club of
this type in the province began operation in Saskatoon
in January, 1929. One of its founding members
was Edna Catherine Valens, a Saskatoon resident
who saw dancing on ice for the first time in her
life when on holiday in California during the
winter of 1927-28. She was so impressed that she
immediately purchased white skates and several
of the short skirts worn by these skaters, and
also proceeded to take lessons from them. When
she returned to Saskatoon, she found other people
from eastern Canada and Winnipeg, such as Mrs.
Seymour Hadwen, Mrs. B. S. McNeice, Mrs. Muriel
Cooper, Mrs. J. O. McCallum, Mrs. Reg Brehaut,
Dr. J.N. MacLeod, Dr. Grant Countryman, Dr. D.K.
Langford, Professor Eaton, and Mr. Simmons who
were also interested in learning to dance on ice.
Together, this group founded the Saskatoon Figure
Skating Club which skated at the Cresent Rink
on 4th Avenue and Spadina Cresent and had Gordon
Thompson as their instructor.
According to an unnamed club historian, this group
was very active in its first season: The first
public appearance by members of the new Club was
an Ice Show sponsored by the local Kinsmen Club
at the Cresent Rink on Feb. 1, 1929, in which
members performed a dance routing between periods
at a hockey game. On Feb. 22, 1929, the Saskatoon
Skating Club held a guest night for their members
and friends. Special entertainers were Mae Fielding
and Gordon Thompson, fancy, trick and comedy skaters
from Vancouver. Thompson was to eventually become
the professional coach of the figure skating club.
The next appearance of "The Saskatoon Fancy
Skating Club" was Friday, Feb. 21, 1930,
at the Cresent Rink on Spadina Ceresent, sponsored
by the Kinsmen Club and the Fancy Skating Club.
THE WINTER FROLIC was liberally sprinkled with
children's races, hockey games, and costume judging.
Prominent guest artists at the Carnival were Margaret
and Mary Simpson and their instructor, who else
but Gordon Thompson.
The officers of the club for its second season
were some of its founding members. The club was
very active during the next few years, attracting
both adults and children as members. Its activities
included presenting carnivals "which included
crowning of the Queen, speed skating, and hockey
games." By 1931, the season ended with a
club competition in several events: men's and
ladies' singles, mixed and ladies pairs, waltzing
and ten-stepping. There was also junior competition
for A and B groups. When their rink was torn down
to make room for the Broadway Bridge in 1932,
the club simply moved their activities to the
Exhibition Stadium.
However, the economic problems and drought of
the 1930's cut the club's membership and activities.
In some years, the club does not seem to have
any sort of elected executive. In 1933, the membership
was only 75, 25 less than two years earlier and
"there was no professional as the small membership
did not warrant the engagement of such. There
was no carnival and it was feared the club would
sustain a loss it would be unable to carry."
Also, there seems to have been some friction between
two of the club's instructors, Gordon Thompson
and Muriel Cooper, in the middle of the decade.
Thompson was able to stage Carnival of Joy, "a
full-fledged ice show, with all the colour and
decorations to back up the live music of the Saskatoon
Boys Band with singles, pairs, dance and comedy
to fill out an evening of skating enjoyment"
in 1936. On of the carnival's members included
elaborate special effects: Weird lighting and
sound effects, together with effective costuming
made the "Dance of Death" one of the
most spectacular items on the program. The scene
opens with the queen's waltzers disporting themselves
gaily before the royal throne. Then comes the
storm, heralded by flashes of lightning and peals
of thunder and the fairies flee. In the middle
of it all Death and the Ghost (Gordon Thompson
and Kathryn Shirk) appear and dance a grisly dance,
but gradually the storm passes, the sun comes
out again and the fairies return to their revels.
This number was especially effective and the two
soloists were expert in their roles.
But by the end of the decade, although some skaters
had passes preliminary tests, only a few members
were taking lessons in school figures and free
skating and putting on small exhibitions under
the sponsorship of local service clubs. The club
was reorganized in 1938 when it membership rebounded
to 163, but was then faced with the loss of their
facility in 1939 when the military took over the
Stadium at the outbreak of the war; it responded
by moving to the new arena on 19th Street.
The club survived and began to prosper by the
1950's. Elaborate ice shows were an important
part of its activities, both to publicize the
sport and to raise needed funds for the club.
As Saskatoon skaters became more proficient, the
club began to organize summer schools with high
calibre visiting instructors.
A milestone for the Saskatoon Figure Skating Club
was its move to the A.C.T. Skating Centre in Sutherland
in 1979, when it amalgamated with the Hub City
Figure Skating Club. This move meant that skaters
no longer had to compete with hockey players and
others for ice time. By the mid 1980's the club
had over 1300 members, mainly in the CanSkate
program, but also about 200 who skated competitively,
including some from other centres who travelled
weekly to Saskatoon for high level coaching. Many
skaters achieved success at the National and International
levels. The club has hosted a variety of provincial
and western Canadian competitions. The club is
also proud of many of its former skaters who have
gone on to become professional coaches both in
Saskatchewan and beyond.
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