by Mickey Brown
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| Denver Synchronicity Photo by Paul Harvath |
2007 U.S. Synchronized Championships Results, Photos, Video and News
(2/24/2007) - There's a changing of the guard in U.S. synchronized skating's adult ranks.
Long dominated by Team Elan and Esprit de Corps, who combined to win 15 of the 16 national titles from 1991-2006, there are some new names at the top of the adult standings at the U.S. Synchronized Team Skating Championships…and they all have some pretty interesting stories to go along with their newfound success.
Denver Synchronicity (Denver FSC), whose masters team captured the silver yesterday, won its first-ever U.S. championship Saturday at the World Arena, continuing an ascent that has seen it capture the silver in 2005 and the bronze last year.
Denver's free skate score of 53.62 was well ahead of that of the second-place Crystallettes (50.29) and third-place Western Michigan University Alumni (49.63). Esprit de Corps (Hayden Recreation Centre FSC) finished fourth, a little more than point behind the Broncos.
Denver head coach Alicia Carr had a sense that her team was going to do something special before it stepped on the ice to perform its Latin-themed program.
“I felt like this team was more ready this year than they ever have been in the past,” Carr said. “I knew what was going to happen this year. I could feel it. We could feel the energy before we got on.
The energy was also palpable once they started skating, and it was buoyed by the hand-clapping and high-pitched cheers emanating from the personal cheering section they had in the arena. The fans that drove the hour or so from Denver yelled and applauded with every element their team completed.
Carr, a two-time U.S. champion and World competitor with the Haydenettes, couldn't have been prouder of her team's accomplishment.
“This team has come so far. They've come from last place to getting medals the last couple years,” she said. “It means a lot of those girls who have been on the team for a long time.”
Last year's champion, Team Elan, was not in this year's competition…sort of. Prior to the start of the season, many of the members of that squad joined the Crystalletes (Dearborn FSC), who suffered heavy losses of their own.
“At first, it was a little hard, the transitioning,” coach Stacy Holland said. “A lot of our Crystallettes left and a lot of Team Elan came over, but now they're one big, happy family.”
The Crystallettes, silver medalists for the second year in a row, put out a unique “Sex in the City” program, containing songs that appeared in an episode of the popular show as well as its well-known theme music.
The feel-good story of the competition was the Western Michigan Alumni, the first such team of its kind. The team is comprised of skaters who graduated from the university from 1996 to 2006. Having gathered at typical post-college events such as weddings, several women came up with the idea to reunite on the ice, an effort spearheaded by team members Megan Farrell and Heather Baran.
“At our first practice, we were standing there looking at each other, thinking, ‘Gosh, I can't believe we're actually doing this,'” said team member Annette Sucher, Class of 2002.
With team members spread out all over the country, one even living as far as Colorado, it was difficult to find times when they could all meet. Starting in October, the Broncos held a grand total of seven practices to prepare for the U.S. Championships, but you wouldn't have known it from watching them skate.
Sucher said, “Today seemed very surreal, like, ‘Wow, this actually happened. We did this with seven practices. Way to go, girls.'” Like its (brief) history, WMU's program – a medley of Motley Crue and Poison songs – was rather unique. It's the kind of music the skaters grew up on and, likely, what they danced to at those weddings where they conjured up the idea to form an adult team.
“We went out here to have a good time because that's we do when we get together,” Sucher said. “These girls are my best friends; they're my sisters.”
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