Figure Skating is For Boys too!!!

A good board.
Fearless speed.
Set your feet.
Compress for some pop.

Fly

Put your feet in the catch position.
Extend your legs.

Center yourself.

Roll away.

Aaaahhhhhh....

Now do it again. Except this time the concrete under your board is ice -
and the board is melted onto your feet.
Ice? If this sounds like a deal, think two words: figure skating. Yeah, we know - say "figure skating" and most people think of happy twirly gurlz - but the truth is, guys have always had a totally equal place in skating history:

o Kurt Browning, from Alberta, used western music and goofy cowboy comedy to make everybody laugh - and won a raft of World titles doing it

o Canadian Elvis Stojko took martial-arts-on-ice all the way to the Olympic Games

o 3-time world champion Alexi Yagudin is right now skating a wild Russian exhibition thing with a dagger in each hand!

Even if you're not a dagger kind of guy, there's room in figure skating for you. Current World Pairs Champion David Pelletier and Canadian Ice Dance Champion Victor Kraatz are two Canadian guys who've found their thing expressing themselves on the ice with a partner. (Gotta love those gurlz.)

There's one catch, though - figure skating isn't an easy sport these days. The difficulty level at competitions is awesome. A guy's got to be fearless. (Not that the gurlz aren't fearless too, but you get our point.) And when the "board" is strapped to your feet, you can't bail when things go wrong.

But if you really want to tear apart the course, there's no thrill like figure skating. And if you stick with it, you can pull tricks that will make your boarder friends drool with envy....The "other" kind of skating.

Reprinted Courtsey of the Milton Skating Club - another Skate Canada Club