Can You Help This Mom? Tired of the Losing Synchronized Skating Team

Ok A.P., my daughter doesn’t do synchro she does freestyle. I have two other daughters that do compitive ringette. Ringette girl was on a forever losing regional team but loved the game. Always hoped into bed early night before games, willingly missed parties – I thought she was a bit insane. My husband recognized that she needed a more competitive situation. She was 7 when this started. Although she was 2 years younger than the youngest girl on the team, we took her to tryouts and she made the team without difficulty. I was shocked – I guess I secretly expected that she would be first cut and this rep team sillieness would be done. So, she made the team. It cost us twice as much as regional and we now had to drive 1 hour just to practices 3 times weekly, triple the amount of tournaments (which all required hotels) and last 3-4 days and blah blah blah. This team lost all but one game. Actually they got burried at all but one game. The difference was, she was happy because all of the girls skated their tushies off. They ALL attended every practice – if Ringette Mom couldn’t get Ringette Girl there, they called anotehr Ringette Mom or Ringette Uncle – the dedication was outstanding. After games, they were exhausted, it was a group environment that was the deciding factor. It wasn’t the win that she was necessarily after but the committment level was key as a team unit. Maybe ask your Synchro Girl if she is discouraged by lack of success or lack of effort from other girls – lets face it, in Synchro if they aren’t all on the same page then you are wasting your time. Perhaps she needs more dedicated team environment. If the problem is a coaching problem then the club needs to step in and the parents voices need to be heard as they would undoubtedly have a united opinion – I wouldn’t waste any time with that even if you are half way through a season – why pay when you know it’s a lose lose situation – better to lose and be on the development road for next year than to just lose and lose some more.

Also, perhaps you need to consider that it is for Synchro Girl and not you. You mention that your view is that it is for fun-Synchro Girl is clearly not having fun.

This is a problem our ISI team had. We skated in the Adult group, and I’m not sure how the kids were divided, but for us, this meant we had to compete against people who were so much better than us, we had no chance at winning. (Adult is an age level! Not a skill level!!) One of the teams we competed against every year required Freeskate 4, brackets and choctaws. Our team requires that you can skate backwards, and turn from forward to backward/backward to forward. Last nationals, there were 5 teams, 2 very good, 3 less good. I’m assuming that in everyones minds the top 2 teams were competiting against each other, and the bottom 3 against each other- it’s absurd to look at the top 2 teams as competition.

When we saw who was in the competition, we’d often come up with our “1st place”- in this case 3rd… we didn’t usually get that either, but it made our low standings feel better, because we did our best in the competition we had a chance with. This is not to discount the team who got the “real” first place- they did a great job, and it’s not their fault that the divisions are ridiculous, but it would be like having a pre-juv/juvenile skater (which many of them were…and higher) skate against basic skills levels!

The other thing we did was make goals to improve our program from year to year- what are we doing this year, that we couldn’t last year. Skate on one foot through the triangle pass through- check, more intricate footwork in a circle- check, we were improving.

In my area there aren’t synchro teams to choose from unless you are up for a long drive. (And now long drive is the only choice, as my former team no longer exists) so if you want to skate synchro, you either did it on this team, or not at all. I know it’s much harder for a kid to deal with not winning, but I think it’s just important to evaluate- are you skating because you like skating synchro? Or are you skating because you want a gold medal. If it’s the medal, then this synchro team probably isn’t the place to be.

I’d quit at the end of the season, unless there are alternates available. Then I would talk to the coach about quitting mid season. If there are line alternates who aren’t getting to skate- not quitting is essentially taking their place on the team.

BTDT- with my 10 year old. She loved, loved, loved synchro, but….she also wanted to skate qualifying in freestyle and it was taking a lot of time and energy to do both and yes, her team was losing ALL the time. I finally realized that the skaters had talent, but this coach wasn’t going to take them there– ever. So she and I talked it through and decided she’d hone her freestyle skills for a while a see how that feels and if at some point in the next year or two she wanted to go back to synchro instead, we’d try out for another team, even if we had to do some driving.

This is really good advice, and I do think that lack of commitment by some skaters was a issue with my dd’s old team too. BTW, what is Ringette?

One thing that IceMom said about sticking with the team until the end of the season is a good one for many reasons (bedsides the health of your back ). We want to teach our kids to honor their commitments, to finish what they start. My son is on a robotic team that has many problems, along with not having a functional robot going on the day of the competitions. We look at it as a Character Building experience. Set goals to reflect that, then at the end of the year re-evaluate and decide like Sk8rzmom says if it is the commitment of other girls she minds or if it’s the fact of losing and go from there. Lots of good advice above and in the comments!

OMG! What a lglaring error on my part: Don’t quit the team because in this family, we honor our committments!

Thank you so much, p, for pointing that out! Man, what an oversight!

Anyway, I really, really wanted to pull Ice Girl from synchro last year, but I didn’t. I confess, the reason I didn’t wasn’t for the honor of finishing a commitment, but for fear of covert reprisals at the rink.

Ringette is sort of like hockey. They have all of the rules on Wikipedia. I had not heard of this either, so I had to look it up.

I totally understand why the kid is discouraged, and I agree that it is probably time to leave this team, after the season of course. If she still likes synchro then maybe it is time to move to a more serious team. If she is just done with it (after 2-3 years a lot of people are) then just be done after the season and put the money into individual skating. Leaving during the season is not a good idea, and sticking it out will teach important lessons about commitment and such. And later, if she decides she really misses it you could probably search out a better (even if it means more long distance) team that will hopefully be a better fit for the kid.

Honoring a commitment can be difficult, but it is so important (to the person and the team when a team is involved). It is hard to do this on the skater’s part and the parents part (I think parents do have the harder part at times because we do not want our children to struggle), but it will pay off later in life.

synchmomto2, I am so sorry if I threw you off – frankly, I wasn’t sure if I should even speak of another sport even for comparison use. Yes, Ringette is sort of like hockey however . . . there are a few differences – no contact – ever ( and yes they hit the boards and sometimes 2 at a time but you get tossed from the game if you get 3 (or maybe 4) penalities, you get benched by coaches for being disrespectful in any capacity, and it’s all about skill and finess. The fastest / best skater can’t just take the ring and go!! Instead of a puck, a hollow 6″ rubber ring is used ( looks like a mini tire) and the sticks have to blade. The girls MUST pass over any blue line to another player to progress across the ice surface and there are only 3 players (from each team) allowed in the end zones at a time and penalties are called if there is are more – sort of like too many chicks on the ice. Really cool that a player can’t just dump it in deep to the other zone but must pass to another team mate. Lots of other little tid bits that would probably bore you to tears but one that is sort of cool . . . if the ring touches or enters the Goalies Crease, it is hers and only hers. She is required to pick it up and in less than 5 seconds, strategically toss it to a player of her choice (hopefully one of her own team) so that she can then carry it onto the next player. All girl game too. Sometimes there is a boy and no two ways about it – the girls let him know that they do not want him there.

Unfortunately that is an important consideration. The skating community is so small and the repercussions endless for you and mostly for your DD. Wish it wasn’t like that.

Thanks so much for all the comments and suggestions. Quitting is NOT an option! (I would never let her quit and she doesn’t want to) The coaches are really telling them that basic skating skills need to be done better. Next year we will re-evaluate if we want to stay on this team or do a travel team. Thanks again!!

I was the coach of a team like this for many years. Because ISI groups you by age, I had a Teen team and we competed against Intermediate USFS teams at some competitions. My girls were mostly in the FS3-4 range with a few higher and a few lower. So, let’s just say backward three turns were not even in the cards for choreography. Twizzles? Ha! We barely pulled off a back lunge line. You tell me how we’re supposed to be competitive? Our rink did not have the ice available for me to have two practices per week not that the girls would have committed to it anyway. I also know for a fact that some of them didn’t even skate outside synchro. I considered going Formation except the girls didn’t want to do a whole program filled with pumps. I let them be my guide. Frankly, they just really enjoyed skating together so I never pushed it. Did it suck to get last a lot? Yes.

We changed the structure of our teams a couple seasons ago and formed the teams based on levels and all of the teen girls now on the “middle level team” quit synchro and some skating all together. I went from a team of 17 to a team of 9 because of the bruised egos. Our first competition as a re-formed “middle level” team with a wider age range putting us into Youth (plus all the teens dropped out), we got first place out of 3 so I know the re-shuffling of the teams was a good thing. But, I’m still sad that all those girls just quit all together. Bottom line is that it’s not always the coach’s fault. You have to look at the structure of the program and decide what you want out of synchro. Fun with your friends or winning? Just remember that if you want winning, you have to work for it.