St. Louis Park Rec Center Skating Director Amber Karcher-Ramos, on ISI’s weSKATE program: “It serves as a great feeder program to our freestyle and specialty classes. We see skating, whether it be for recreation or competitive, as a lifelong sport and work hard to instill the passion for skating in all of our students.”

“We see skating, whether it be for recreation or competitive, as a lifelong sport and work to instill the passion for skating in all of our students. Our adult skating classes have been growing steadily and we have some adult skaters that are now interested in beginning to test and compete.” In addition to learn-to-skate classes,

Ice Arena Staff

Te Rec Center’s ice arena staff includes a manager, skating director, 14 skating instructors, three skating assistants, two administrative assistants and 11 maintenance workers. Many attend the annual ISI District 10 seminar as well as other local trainings, and the skating instructors participate in the ISI Judge Certification Program. “We have participated in the ISI Judge

Certification Program for several years now and I can see the positive impact it has on our skating program,” says skating director Amber Karcher-Ramos. “Our staff is skilled, knowledgeable, and eager to learn more to improve their expertise …We share ideas, successes and challenges and ask one another for advice or feedback regularly. “Our veteran staff act as mentors to the

new staff. Any time there is a challenge or obstacle, we work as a team to overcome it. Our main focus is the well-being of our skaters and we work diligently to ensure they meet their goals. Our amazing coaching team is one of the biggest components of the skating program’s growing success.”

ISI Programming

Te Rec Center uses ISI’s weSKATE learn- to-skate program (Tots through Delta), Figure Skating (Freestyle, Figures, Adult, Open Freestyle), and Hockey. “It serves as a great feeder program to our freestyle and specialty classes,” says Karcher-Ramos.

14 ISI EDGE SPRING 2016

The Rec Center offers three hockey programs: hockey tots (age 4 to 6), hockey skills (age 7 to 14) and adult hockey skills (age 15 and up). Te adult hockey skills class is a pilot program. Several adult hockey league players started showing up for adult classes, and as it turned out, some of the skating instructors on staff had experience in power and skating skills clinics with youth hockey teams. Seeing an opportunity to meet the skaters’ unique needs and grow the program, they added the adult hockey skills class. Due to their central location within the

Twin Cities, Te Rec Center draws skaters from surrounding communities. User groups include St. Louis Park High School hockey teams, the Benilde-St. Margaret’s hockey teams, the St. Louis Park Hockey Association (325 participants) and the St. Louis Park Learn-to-Skate Program.

Public Skating

Open skating is offered on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays during the day and on Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons. During the busiest season of the year, there are as many as 100 skaters per session on the ice. Tese public sessions are monitored by skate guards

who double as skating assistants for Te Rec Center’s learn-to-skate program. Tey create interest in the program by talking to open skate participants about the program’s rewards. Several instructors give private lessons

during open skate, which also encourages participation in the program. Karcher- Ramos found that scheduling the weekend open skating sessions right before or after the learn-to-skate program has its benefits – an increase in attendance at open skate and an easy way for learn-to- skate participants to get extra ice time. Recently, the learn-to-skate program

was adjusted to include Sunday evenings so as to accommodate the city’s large Jewish population and other members of the community for whom Saturdays are not available for recreational activities.

“Tis adjustment has been extremely successful and Sunday evening classes are a big hit!” says Eisold.

ISI Competitions

The Rec Center has become more involved in ISI competitions. “We recently just dipped our toes into family spotlight, rhythmic, ensemble and interpretive,” says Karcher-Ramos. “ISI events provide so many options to have fun in a team atmosphere. They have brought our competitive skaters, their families and coaches closer. We are all so supportive of one another and extremely proud to represent our rink and our growing skate school. Te annual spring ice show starts to peak interest for a lot of our skaters to

The facility offers open skating five days a week, where skate guards create interest in the ISI weSKATE learn-to-skate program. Instructors also give private lessons during open skating, which also encourages participation in weSKATE.