Before the puck dropped at every home hockey game, the BGSU Spirit Skaters hyped up the crowd all season long with their pregame performances.

“We throw T-shirts and perform during intermissions, and we shovel the ice during media time out,” Madelyn Tutz, Spirit Skaters President, said. 

The club sport features a team of figure skaters with a long-standing history. The Falconettes, a competitive synchronized skating team, competed at national events from 1996 to 2005.

The Spirit Skaters hope to bring that competitive edge back to their blades, Presentation Chair Abbie Thomas said.

“We used to have a really strong club figure skating team that would travel for competition, but recently that fazed out,” Thomas said. “But a couple of the underclassmen and I, we’re going to try to bring it back next year. So we’re really excited for that.”

Behind T-shirt tosses and synchronized performances, a strong team bond keeps the club together when the going gets tough, Thomas said.

“I really love this team,” she said. “We all support each other so much. If we fall, sometimes we have pretty bad falls, but we all support each other. It’s a laughing moment for us.”

Spirit Skaters Vice President Jamie Cox relied on that team support when she dusted off her childhood skates for club tryouts, she said.

“My skates were the same skates I’d had since I was probably eleven, and they hadn’t been sharpened, so I was super rusty,” Cox said. “You got to shake the rust off. And it gets better that way. It’s like riding a bike, but when you fall off, you’re two feet taller, and you got a lot more power going into it when you hit the ice.”

When the club isn’t performing at the Slater Family Ice Arena, they give back to the community at the Ribbon at Glass City Metropark in Toledo, Cox said.

“We’ve done things with our community,” she said. “We’ve gone to the Ribbon and skated with the community. They’ve had fundraisers they put on that we’ve skated at.”

To learn more about the Spirit Skaters, visit their official club sport page here.