One More Skating Post

Brenda's skating season came to a close on Sunday with her club putting on a little show out in Esquimalt. I wasn't able to attend any of Brenda's competitons so it was nice to come out and see a live performance.

The opening number.

I am amazed that with so many people on the ice they can do these numbers without crashing into each other on a regular basis. I don't think I am alone in this opinion, the crowd's favourite part was when it looked like two lines of girls were on a collision course only to avert disaster at the last second (a planned manoeuvre).

Beginning their competition number.

Elegance and grace.

My cousin James came out to watch too, as well as a number of Brenda's co-workers. The show was short and they left the crowd wanting more.

Co-workers (the one in the pink is actually Brenda's boss).

The Yellow Dresses Return

Camrose, Alberta was the site of our final skating competition of the 2007/08 skating year. The weather had dipped down to -50 degrees in Camrose the week of the competition, but that didn't scare us away... no, brave island girls we are, we packed 2 coats each and left the +5 degree weather behind. The flight there placed me back row centre on the smallest plane I have ever been on.

I sure do look happy with my seating arrangement :).

We arrived in Edmonton and hitched a shuttle bus to our hotel - the Nisku Inn. The Nisku Inn reminded me a little of the Wheels Inn (minus the water slides, Gorilla golf, arcade, bowling alley, go-karts, etc). Ok, so maybe it wasn't all that much like the Wheels Inn - but that is ok, because no one on my team had ever heard of the Wheels.

Nisku Inn.

Friday morning we headed to Blackgold arena for a 45 minute practice. Then it was back to the hotel to get ready for the official practice ice. This practice ice went much better than the last competition, so we were ready to compete! Or so we thought... Saturday morning we took over a large area of the hotel and started the lengthy process of getting ready.

Pre-hair and make-up.

The finished product.

Our first skate didn't go quite as planned and we ended up a disappointing 9th out of 15. We didn't let the disappointment get us down, though, we celebrated the weddings of 2 girls on the team Saturday with bad hair and toilet paper. What could be better to bring a team back up after a disappointing skate?

Now that is a classy team.

There really are no words to describe this picture.

Sunday morning we got pumped up for a our skate by rocking out in the car to the likes of N'Sync and Backstreet Boys. It must have worked because we had a great skate! In the end we only moved up 1 position in the standings (and were still 4 points out of Canadians), but we were happy. And ready to return to the warmth of Vancouver Island.

My team at Encana Arena, Camrose, AB.