Boise State Skaters Rebuild Club, Eye California Meets

The Boise State Figure Skating Club is back on the ice, holding practices at Idaho Ice World after going inactive during the pandemic. The group started this summer under President Sasha Pinkos and Vice President Rhona Wylie, who revived the organization that former member Andi Rados originally founded.

Chaney Kirkmeyer, a Boise State alumna, said the club stopped because members could not travel to events during Covid and the roster thinned out. Pinkos said the club cannot rent Ice World outright because it lacks the member count to cover it, pointing to the men's and women's hockey programs, which each carry around 30 skaters. Ice World sells punch passes at $135 for 10 punches, with each punch covering one hour of skate time.

Pinkos and Wylie looked at those rates to get practice time for the group. "We were trying to see if we could get a bunch of (punch) passes for everybody to skate, so that they don't have to necessarily pay," Pinkos said. Club members also coach classes through the City of Boise's Learn to Skate program, working with students from age three into their 70s. "It's kind of weird teaching people that are older than you," Pinkos said. "But it's fun, you meet a lot of good people through skating, and the skating world is so small."

The club plans to travel to California for competitions in January and February. Members are raising money at events including Club Sports Week to cover travel and entry fees. "Most of the time (former members) parents paid for travel and competition dues," Pinkos said. "But we're trying to make it so that we can get as much covered, through fundraising and through our dues, so that nobody has to pay out of pocket."

Wylie competes in solo ice dancing, which sets music to movement without jumps. She said she moved away from the jumping and spinning required in free skating after losing interest in that format. "It's definitely interesting because I did more of your typical figure skating my whole life, but I started to really not enjoy it so I was like, 'I need to change something,'" Wylie said. "I decided to try ice dance, and I really love it, it's been super fun."

Wylie said the club gives her a reason to keep skating. "It's given me something to work towards," she said. Pinkos said the group's structure changed how members approach competition: "Typically in skating, it's just, 'Oh, I'm by myself, I'm competing against this person.' But now that it's kind of an intercollegiate team, it's like we're all working in it together."