Limited access to summer ice is a problem for this 8-year-old aspiring Olympic figure skater

From the first moment she put on a pair of skates and hit the ice, Charlotte Ross instantly knew figure skating was her calling. 

The eight-year-old from St. Thomas, Ont., trains daily, waking up in the early morning hours and leaving school early on some afternoons to inch closer to her dreams of representing Canada at the Olympics some day.

But securing ice becomes becomes a challenge during summer months when municipal arenas reduce or close their ice pads, leaving athletes like Charlotte having to travel to other cities and compete with different sports groups for access to ice. 

"They call summer the 'off-season' but it's primarily the training season for higher levels, and it's hard to get skating for ticket ice because it's either far away or not in St. Thomas," said Charlotte, who commutes to rinks in her hometown and nearby Aylmer multiple times per week. 

On Monday, she'll ask St. Thomas city council to add more ice skating slots to its summer schedule and expand the availability for public figure skating ice to at least five days a week so competitive skaters can train in their own communities.  

"We're very lucky we've got two arenas with three ice pads, but we're proving right now that it's simply not enough," said Charlotte's mom, Kat Ross.

"There's a lot of parties trying to share the ice like hockey, figure skating, ringette and recreational skating, and we simply don't have the infrastructure to support it currently."

Currently, drop-in figure skating ice is available twice a week on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons at Joe Thornton Community Centre for a $5 fee. 

"We are so grateful for those sessions, but the demand and need are growing," said Ross. 

"Families are now scrambling to find ice in other communities like London, Ingersoll, Tillsonburg, or even as far as Kitchener and Mississauga. This adds significant cost, travel stress and logistical difficulty for parents and coaches."

'Very high demand' for year-round ice access, says city

St. Thomas has two ice pads at Joe Thornton and another at Memorial Arena, but in the summer it only keeps one pad at Joe Thornton for maintenance purposes and to make room for summer programming, said Jeff Bray, the city's director of parks, recreation and facilities.  

"It gives us an opportunity to do repairs on the pads that you obviously can't do when the ice is in and we also have a variety of events that it's better for us to run without ice. We have summer kids programs there too for dryland activities so we utilize it for those purposes," Bray said.

Demand for year-round ice has been on the rise in recent years and it's proving to be a challenge to meet the growing needs, he said. Groups can request ice times through an allocation policy, and the city tries to accommodate as many new requests as possible and is working with groups to split ice times.

"There's only a finite number of hours in a week people can book," he said. "It's very high demand, we're almost at a point where if there weren't the needs and complications with dryland activities, we could run two pads of ice and have it booked."

Consistent ice access 'crucial' for competitive skaters

However, competitive skaters at higher levels need to train at least six days per week and consistent access to ice is imperative to their professional development, according to Cheryl Ewart, program coordinator and head coach at Aylmer Skating Club.

"For the kids looking to get into that competitive stream, there's competitions in July, August and September so if they don't have summer ice, it's pretty hard to be competitive," she said. 

Ewart said skaters from smaller municipalities travelling to bigger cities for increased access is nothing new but it does come with additional time and financial costs.  

This will be the first summer that Aylmer Skating Club will offer a summer schedule twice a week, with the hope that skaters can supplement those days training at other ice rinks, Ewart added. 

The Ross family, meanwhile hopes their delegation can help city officials recognize additional skating slots can help develop local athletes which in turn will be a boon to the region.