THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR

WPCNR RINKSIDE. February 20, 2008:  Team Image of Yonkers Intermediate Team, the  2-time Intermediate Champions in Syncronized Skating this year, and The Skyliners, last year’s Eastern Regional Junior Team Champions and 2nd Place in the Easterns last week will be competing with teams from coast to coast and border to border at the United States Figure Skating Synchronized Skating Championship in Providence Rhode Island beginning today. No matter how they skate, the two teams have pioneered syncrhonized skating in the Tri-State area to be competitive with New England and the “Valley of Synchro — The Middle West.”

Team Image Intermediate — the Darlings of Murray’s Rink — Winners of Two Golds in a Row! Going for a National Title this Weekend! Coach Sylvia Muccio’s team is showing their flawless block at the Dr. Porter Classic in Ann Arbor Michigan December 1 where they finished first of 12 teams in their first skate of the 07-08 season. They showed that was no fluke, finishing 1st again in the Eastern Regional Synchro Regionals in Richmond Virginia last week.

Skyliners Juniors. Skating Their Long Program at Fraser Michigan in January at the Synchro World Qualifier Competition.The Junior performance of this Long program won the Free Skate last week in Richmond, but the Lexettes held on for the Junior First Place Medal.

Synchronized skating is growing as fast as fast-pitch softball for young women across the country, despite little or no coverage by national and local media (except for the CitizeNetReporter and the Nashville Tennessean). The Ann Arbor Figure Skating Club Dr. Porter Competition in December showed this when it attracted an astounding record 163 teams (of 16 to 20 Girls each) to its traditional first synchro competition of the year in December.

Skyliners Juniors in their extremely cool Spread Eagle Wheel Finish of Proud Mary at the MidAmericas in Michigan.

Locally, Team Image of Yonkers E. J. Murray Rink, and The Skyliners sponsored by the Figure Skating Club of New York and the Windy Hill Skating Club, who skate out of Westchester Skating Academy, the Dorothy Hamill Rink in Greenwich, Playland and The Ice Hutch are providing the most team experience you can get and building the East’s reputation  in synchro as accomplished skaters who can skate together baby. Each club program has divisions by age from Preliminary up through Intermediate (Junior for Skyliners) and is always looking for a few great skaters from 6 to 19 — male or female.

Team Image Perfect Circle at Ann Arbor Porter December 2007

Team Image’s Intermediate Team coached by Sylvia Muccio, a Yonkers resident has had a dream skate this season. They have finished first twice – against 12 teams in the Dr. Porter Classic in Ann Arbor Michigan December 2, and again at the Eastern Regionals last week – two Golds in one season. Ms. Muccio’s girls many of whom have skated with her for years through many heartbreaks – are flying this season with a precise style showing their Mohawks, twizzlers and rockers and edges with enough speed and elan to achieve two first place finishes in synchro’s most competitive division. No matter what happens at the Nationals – they are to be admired and saluted!

Team Image — a Perfect Block at Porter.

The Skyliners – the tri-state Synchronized Skating team made up of skaters from Westchester, New York City, Connecticut and New Jersey will be sending three teams to compete in Junior, Novice and Juvenile Divisions. Team Image with its distinguished performances in the Intermediate Division – two First Places against the best Intermediate Synchro has to offer have set the standard for the Intermediate Division.

 

Josh Babb, Skyliner Coach warming up the Junior Team Warming Up Prior to Skating at MidAmericas in Fraser in January. You have to love the Skyliners haberdashery. And performing the same sequence on ice below in their Proud Mary Skate.

 

Skyliner Juniors in their spectacular Spread Eagle Fan in their Long Program at Frasier Michigan.

The Skyliners Junior Silver Medalists, Richmond Virginia, Eastern Regional Synchronized Skating Championship. Photo, Courtesy, The Skyliners by Lawrence H. Cooke II.

Larry Rosen, Owner of The Athlete’s Foot at The Galleria in White Plains, who is also President of the Skyliners, said the Skyliners have had a strong year in all divisions. The Junior Team, skating to Proud Mary at the Eastern Regionals last week won Second Place with their highest point total in a Short Program to date, then finished First in the Long Program, finishing second overall to the Hadyenette team, The Lexettes.  They’ve stayed in elegant hotels, performed in Bryant Park in New York City, and on the Rachel Ray television show at The Central Park rink. They’ve been through good times, not so good skates and great skates. They skate together and live for the next skate.

 

Skyliners Novice Team — Skating to Queen for a Silver at the Richmond Eastern Regional last week. Photo, Courtesy, The Skyliners By Lawrence H. Cooke II

The Skyliners Novice Team, skating to the music of Bon Jovi won Silver (second place), in the Eastern Regional scoring their highest point total of the year. Photo, Courtesey, The Skyliners, By Lawrence Cooke II

The Skyliners Juvenile Team, performing to Hanna Montana won Silver in a very close competition in what Rosen called their best performance of the year. Photo, Courtesy, The Skyliners, By Lawrence Cooke II.

Rosen said, “All three Skyliners’ qualifying lines will be looking forward to competing at Nationals. Overall the Eastern Regional Competition was a very successful competition for the Skyliners.”

The Skyliners will be having a reunion with former teammates  Nikki Wylan and  Juliana Bailey in Providence, and also when The Skyliners compete in Zagreb, Croatia in March at the Zagreb Snowflakes Competition. They have been chosen with the University of Michigan to represent USFS in that competition.

Synchronized Skating is the most team you can be on. The reason I say this is because in order to be scored at the highest levels in synchronized skating, all skaters have to be skating the same move simultaneously. Everybody has to perform perfectly, otherwise you lose credit for the entire element: circle, double line, spread eagle splice.

No team member  is less important than any other member.  Perhaps the most unsung skaters are the alternates who must be able to “skate in” and know any spot if a skater goes down. And they do. Hats are off to the cross-skaters who because they are age-eligible for two classes of teams, skate on two teams with different practices, different teammates and 4 sets of programs to know, not just 2.

Synchronized Skating teaches dedication and the elusive ability to perform the best you have ever performed under pressure before judges. You may skate your program or programs, Short or Long maybe 5 times during the synchronized skating circuit competitions. You invest hours of repetition and dedication. Synchro teaches its practioners how to live with unfairness, judging you may not agree with,  and how to accept it.

When you fall or fail to connect a line or mess a circle, you learn how to live with personal failure and overcome it.

The synchronized skater gets  satisfaction beyond understanding when you skate great and finish high and higher and higher and closer to the top each time you skate. You skate for yourself and for each other. There is no limit to where you can go in synchro, and it provides infinite preparation and confidence for the challenges to come in a young woman and young man’s life.

The Skyliner Preliminary Team — Where the love affair between you and the ice begins and will always be with you — just a lace up and a pair of blade away.

WPCNR RINKSIDE. February 18, 2008: The best “teams” in the country, the synchronized skating elite are coming together from all over the country in Providence, Rhode Island this week.  Five  college teams feature skaters from Westchester County, four from White Plains’ Good Ol’ Ebersole Rink. Juliana Bailey, Amy Reinthaler and  Aly Salonger of White Plains who all learned to skate at Ebersole, Mary  Halling of Yonkers  and Nikki Wylan of Valhalla  skated with The Skyliners and Team Image, two local synchronized skating club teams with national reputations  will be competing for their collegiate synchronized skating teams at the United States Figure Skating Synchronized Skating Championship at the big time vene, the Dunkin Donuts Arena. All girls have fitted in nicely with their college synchronized skating teams.

The University of Michigan Senior Synchronized Skating Team performing and winning the Gold Medal at the MidWestern Synchronized Skating Regionals in Nashville last week.  They’re performing a rotating lift on skates their folks at medium speed! (And No pads or helmets)

Juliana Bailey Graduate of White Plains High, left and Nikki Wylan, Graduate of Valhalla High School after Michigan eased past the spirited and talented Western Michigan Broncos for the Midwest Synchronized Skating Championship and a very close and tension taut finale Free Skate. The two freshman have fit right in with a group of young and talented freshman, sophomores and juniors and steadying senior leaders as synchronized skating grows at U of M.

Irish on Ice: Amy Reinthaler, a Senior at Notre Dame has pioneered synchronized skating at the Golden Dome for the last four years. She is the last skater on the left. She choreographs the team’s routines and this year the Irish skated the best we have seen them skate over the four years.

Two for the Ice: Juliana Bailey, left with White Plains’ Amy Reinthaler, right, pioneer of Synchronized Skating at the University of Notre Dame in Nashville last week. Ms. Reinthaler was a mentor whom Ms. Bailey looked up to for leadership and guidance at Ebersole Rink when they both skated there. Once you skate together, you’re friends for life — and you get all those great college skating warmup jackets, too! 

 

Monday Ms. Bailey and Ms. Wylan of the University of Michigan flew to Providence  to take part with the University of Michigan Synchronized Skating team Senior and Collegiate teams in skates Thursday and Saturday at the U.S. Synchronized Skating National Championship. The two have joined a group of talented veteran skaters and freshman and sophomore skaters to help elevate University of Michigan Synchro to the first Collegiate medal finish  and a first place in the Midwest Regional Senior Division in Nashville Tennessee last week.

Michigan Coach, Brooke Sloan, right, shown here coaching in one of the six practices held in Nashville prior to their three performances, said  had great admiration and respect for her skaters’ abilities to balance their fearsome academic schedules with their commitment and love for synchronized skating. 

 Sloan’s two teams improved significantly in each succeeding competition this season ( the Porter in Ann Arbor, the Fraser Qualifier Outside of Detroit, and the Midwestern Regional in Nashville). The team practices five times a week two hours at a time at The Ice Cube outside Ann Arbor and Yost Arena.)

Sloan adapts a very upbeat  “expect to be the leaders and best” coaching style in her practices consistently massaging the Wolverine programs, expecting her edgers to step up and execute the subtleties demanded by today’s exquisite balance of grace, technicality and showmanship rewarded by synchro’s  International Judging System to move on up.   The Woverines have responded to Sloane’s expectations of excellence.  Sloan has coached six National Championship Teams and two Junior World Qualifying Teams. She has 19 years experience in synchronized skating coaching, including coaching on Preliminary through Juvenile Levels for Team Elan.

The team’s belief in their coach and the coach’s approach to and their ability to execute the Sloan way and the heart of the team to skate strong with poise in a big spot,  has brought the skating Wolverines to their greatest achievements in synchronized skating to date.

The College Team Skates to a 4th Place Pewter Medal in the 9-team Collegiate Competition in Nashville.

 

The Michigan College Division Team Skating to their first medal  ever in December at the Ann Arbor Dr. Porter where they finished third.

The College Team earned their first Fourth Place medal in the Collegiate Midwestern skate this year and the Michigan Senior Team captured their First Place medal in the Senior Division, where their best skate of ‘Stairway to Heaven” to Led Zeppelin, skated in competition for only the second time, nosed out the strong, stylish and athletic Western Michigan Broncos for First Place.  

 

Champs! The University of Michigan Senior Midwest Regional Champions 2008 pose for their official portrait.

 

Michigan Senior Team Elegance performing Stairway to Heaven in Nashville

The Leaders: Seniors Hillary Dauffenbach-Tabb of Green Bay, Wiconsin left, President of Michigan’s Synchronized Skating Teams and  Jennifer Cleary, Treasurer, of Ogdenagen, Michigan, who cross-skates on both Collegeiate and Senior teams celebrate the team’s first Midwest Synchronized Skating Championship. Hillary has skated with the Wolverine Synchronized Skating team for her four years at U of M, and this year is the first time the team has medaled. This year has been very meaningful to her.  

The U of M team is a Club, meaning they are not a Varsity Sport. They are run entirely by the students, led by Hillary and Jennifer  who organize the plane flights to their farflung rinks; arrange the hotels; purchase the dresses, and pay the coaches, and the team practice dresses and coveted warmup jackets. The team’s communication, run entirely by the students is infinitely better than any other travel-team organization we have experienced.

The significance of the  Michigan Senior win is their skate was equal to that of the 4th place national finalist last year,  California Gold who skated just before them. The Wolverines summoning the will, skated Stairway to Heaven elegantly outskating the Gold by less than half a point.  It was a landmark skate for the team.

The Senior Team and Collegiate Team and their other competitors in the two Divisions are stronger, skating greater, and closing the gap on the perennial leaders, The Haydenettes, Miami University, Chicago Jazz, The Colonials, and the elegant Team Braemar and California Gold. In collegiate the U of M, Michigan State (which has an immaculate, sophisticated sensational program to the James Bond Theme), Western Michigan, Wisconsin, University of Ilinois, and Indiana have raised their skating levels superbly in just a year.

 

 

White Plains Ally Salonger (center, foreground), spinning for the University of Delaware Synchronized Skating Team at the Dr. Porter Classic in Ann Arbor in December. Ally,  like Juliana Bailey and Amy Reinthaler is a former member of the White Plains Figure Skating Club at Ebersole Rink. She tried out for the University of Delaware Synchro team and has been a stalwart anchor of the synchro program there. Her team will be competing with the University of Michigan Collegiate team this week. 

 

Mary Halling, of Yonkers, another Skyliner, and Mollie Barr of last year’s Skyliners and Team Image Synchro Teams Alumna who were teammates of Ms. Bailey and Ms. Wylan,  won a slot as  Freshmen on the magnificent University of Miami Synchronized Skating Team. (Mary Halling is the first skater on the first line on the right, in the foreground.) The local synchro teams in the Tri-State Area — including the New Jersey Superettes are producing skaters who are growing the sport. Mary and the RedHawks are shown skating in the Junior Qualifier at Fraser Michigan in January.