MONTREAL—It was originally called precision skating and one can see why: 16 skaters moving together in near perfect unison while maintaining remarkable speed and fancy footwork.
“I think unison is the hardest thing, with them all doing the same thing, on the same musical note, the same way,” said coach and choreographer Angela Malorni.
“They're all different. They all have different styles.”
According to team captain Alessia Arsenault, the girls practice on and off the ice all the time. The hard work will pay off next week when the St-Leonard Supremes head to Calgary to compete in the synchronized skating national championships.
“Throughout every competition, we always add a little more spice to our program. Always more and more so we can surprise the judges and obviously the crowd. No matter what happens, we always have to entertain them,” said assistant captain Marina Dentico.
“I think this year we have way more confidence. We have attack. We're excited to go there. We can't wait. We've been working all year for this moment. We just wanna give it our all,” chimed in Nadia Lemay, another assistant captain.
After watching the girls go through their routine a few times, CTV’s Andre Corbeil called them “amazing.” But like any good team, the Supremes say there's always room for improvement, and in their case that means execution.
“The feedback from last competition was that our program is a crowd pleaser. It's creative. Now we have to make everything super, super precise,” said Malorni.
A great deal of work goes into their three and a half minute routine, and that is one of the thrills of this sport: high energy and high hopes for Calgary.
