New club sport looks to get students on ice

Are you looking for an activity to fill up those early mornings before classes? Three days a week from 7:30-9 a.m., you could fill that time with ice, music, and skating! Despite the dreadfully early practice time, the Yale Collegiate Figure Skating Club has gone from one member, founder Joanna Liberman, TD '03, to a team of 15 members, including both undergaduates and graduate students. And Liberman will assure you that in order to be a member, "All you need are skates."

Liberman spent the past weekend competing under the Yale Collegiate Figure Skating Club name for the first time at MIT's sixth annual intercollegiate competition. Teams from all over the Northeast were present, including Ivy League rivals Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton. What struck her the most was the friendly atmosphere of the competition. "Everyone was so friendly—they were serious, but not really cutthroat," she said. The collegiate division of the United State Figure Skating Association (USFSA) ran the competition, with the goal of "encouraging and promoting figure skating competition." This year alone, four competitions were held at different universities up and down the East Coast, and the USFSA eventually hopes to have figure skating become an intercollegiate varsity sport.

Yale's team is further supported through its connection to the Yale Skate Club in New Haven, which gives the team members a chance to teach children in the New Haven their skills and earn a little money on the side. The Yale Skate Club will host its annual show on Sun., Apr. 1, and Liberman hopes the club team will have the opportunity to participate in the show as well.

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