CityView Magazine - Fayetteville, NC
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/5463
Richards, CityViewNC.com | 49 and hockey lessons at the ice rink. She says that many of the people who show up to skate at Cleland have lived in colder climates where ice skating is more common. "Many southern cities are developing skating programs. The south has started building up cold weather sports, but they're still not as popular as in the north," Egetoe said. The recent successful seasons for the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team has prompted exponential growth for that sport in this region and Egetoe expects the popularity of figure and other types of skating to grow here in the coming years with the televised 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada and the U.S. Figure Skating National Championships to be held in Greensboro in 2011. "A lot of kids will have an opportunity to see high level skating firsthand," she said of the planned event in Greensboro. Jamie Alexander is one of those skating students looking forward to seeing top- level figure skating in North Carolina. The 13-year-old girl has been taking figure skating lessons at Cleland for four years and regularly competes in artistic, interpretive and free skating. She says she became interested in skating after seeing the movie "Ice Princess" starring Michelle Trachtenberg. "I've made a lot of great friends because of skating," Alexander said. "It's been a really nice experience. Cleland is great because they give us lots of hours to skate and it's really near where I live." Alexander said she plans to keep skating for a long time but doesn't think she would be able to skate as seriously as she does if there weren't an ice rink in the area. For now, kids and adults can experience skating and hockey at the Cleland ice rink inexpensively and on most days of the week. There are public skate sessions, pick up hockey games and lessons for all ages and experience levels in all types of skating throughout each week. "The coaches I have on staff are not just for figure skating," Egetoe said. "We have coaching just for recreational skating, for stick handling – we offer so much, much more than just figure skating," she said. CV