My Arctic Winter Games 2014 Experience: A Week in Pictures

Eight days. Eight girls. Eight medals. A lifetime of memories.

I had a wonderful opportunity to be one of two coaches for the Alaska Figure Skating Team during the 2014 Arctic Winter Games, held March 15-22 in our lovely city of Fairbanks. I never expected to have an international coaching experience, and although this wasn't the Olympics or anything, it sure was fun competing against Russia, Alberta North, Northwest Territories, and Yukon. The other contingents at the Games were Sapmi, Greenland, Quebec, and Nunavut.

It would take a book to write all of my experiences and such, so I will post pictures and let them do the talking. I would have loved to get more pictures, but as one of only two coaches responsible for our skaters, I didn't have all the time to do so. On top of these I have posted here, if you go over to SmugMug, there are lots of professional pictures from AWG that really show the fun we had. I can't post them directly here due to copyright laws, but you can sure head over there to see them.

Pictures of interest:

Day 1: We stayed in a kindergarten classroom on cots. It was more comfortable than I was expecting. But I love how this picture shows all of our skaters' dresses and their credentials.

On the first night we all got together with the other teams in our dorm and had a fun activity learning about the other contingents. I think our girls were so awesome and adorable.

The kindergarteners left us lovely notes and pictures!

After dinner on Day 1 with some of Team Greenland.

Pre-Opening ceremonies fun!

I love this picture! With Adam Powell, our rink manager and hockey coach,
Grace Lee, Level 4 gold medalist (!) and a darling gymnast

Before our first morning practice at the Carlson Center. The Lt. Governor of Alaska, Mead Treadwell, came to watch us!

A couple of our Fairbanks Figure Skating Club members
as flower girls for the competition.

The Carlson Center ice was just so pretty

Two proud coaches after our level 4
skater, Maya, won bronze

Team Alaska gold. Level 4 Short program.

Team Alaska Gold and Bronze. Level 4 Long & overall

team huddle before the team event

Waiting for our turn to skate during the team event

I couldn't help but high-five Zoey after she did her beautiful layback spin during the team competition.
(Courtesy of the Daily News Miner)

Just taking our time on the ice after the figure skating closing ceremonies...

Loving our moment as silver medalists in the Team Competition.

Proud moment with Grace after being crowned champion.

One thing that was lots of fun was having the opportunity to talk with reporters. One of our skaters, Zoey, was on the front page of the Fairbanks's newspaper, The Daily News Miner. It was a gorgeous picture of her doing her signature layback spin. I wish I had a copy of it to share. As a team we were highlighted on the front page of the Sports Section (click link to view). What a neat experience!

The figure skating competition was over on Thursday night, so we had Friday and Saturday to enjoy the rest of the Games and relax. All of us took advantage of that!

On Friday night the girls all went to a big AWG dance, so I took the opportunity to go see the World Ice Arts Show, which was free to all AWG team members. Sweet.

I even had a hot date.

Monday night was the AWG Got Talent. Sign ups were on Saturday night and I signed up with Bernadette , thinking that I could talk our skaters into doing it with us. Then I learned that you could not participate if you didn't sign up...so we danced on stage in lovely St. Patty's day attire with our embarrassed skaters watching from the audience. The video is included for your enjoyment. Needless to say, we both had SO much fun on stage!

On Saturday we went to watch the Bantam Hockey team battle Northwest Territories for the gold. It was a boring first two periods but we tied up during the third period and won in overtime. It was awesome!