Six Reasons You and Your Child Should Learn How to Ice-Skate

When you reside in Montana where winter lingers for seven months of the year, you may find yourself searching for activities to fill those long months and stave away those winter blues. Hunting or skiing, both Nordic and alpine, are often the first winter sports that come to everyone’s mind in a place with quick access to some of the best trails and terrain in the states.

But don’t forget about the great outdoor skating lakes, ponds and parks so close to home as another means of accessible recreation for ice-skating or pick-up hockey for the whole family.

What if you and your family don’t know how to ice-skate? Is it going to be another expensive hobby? Can someone teach us proper technique for gliding across the ice?

Gallatin Ice recognizes the importance of making ice-skating affordable and accessible to the general public in a state where winter takes precedence over every other season. To get the whole family involved, they offer a Learn to Skate program for a mere $75 per five-week session for all ages. Eight, five-week sessions are offered throughout the year on Wednesdays and Sundays so there are many options.

If that’s not reason enough to immediately sign up your kids, and yourself, for a session of Learn to Skate, Gallatin Ice has compiled a list of additional reasons to learn a valuable skill this year.

1. Skating is excellent exercise. Skating is a great form of physical activity that emphasizes coordination, balance and agility. With a central focus on lower body movement, skating helps develop strong leg muscles, making it an excellent complement to other sports.

2. Skating teaches one of the greatest life lessons. The first thing you will ever learn in a skating lesson is how to fall down. Sounds counterproductive, right? Every skater, no matter how skilled and experienced, knows it’s inevitable that they are going to fall down, over and over again. We see it more often than not during the Olympics in figure skating and ice hockey. Professional skaters fall down... a lot. BUT they always get right back up and continue on with their routine. No matter how many times we fall, we too must learn to get back up and keep pushing forward.

3. Skating is fun. Every parent wants to know that, above all else, their child is having fun on the ice. Gallatin Ice instructors are constantly creating new ways to make learning to skate fun and engaging by using toys, games and creative incentives throughout each session. It is their number one goal to make sure everyone is all smiles before leaving the rink.

4. Skating is a lifetime sport for anyone at any age or ability.Because skating is a low-impact activity, it can be grouped in with golf, swimming, skiing and biking as a lifetime sport. That means it’s never too late to learn – that means mom, dad, grandma or grandpa can join in on the lesson too. There are also many adaptive forms of ice-skating for those with ranging disabilities.

5. Skating is an inexpensive winter activity the whole family can enjoy. Additional opportunities for winter fun on the weekends and holidays open when everyone in the family knows how to skate. The Gallatin Valley has multiple maintained outdoor skating rinks, ponds and two indoor sheets of ice (run by Gallatin Ice at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds) for recreational skating and pick-up hockey.

6. Skating offers a smoother transition into ice hockey. Kids and adults who have taken skating lessons before playing hockey excel much faster and have an easier time transitioning into hockey than those who don’t take any formal skating lessons. One shouldn’t have to worry about the correct placement of his/her feet and trying to maintain proper balance whilst performing a simple drill such as stickhandling a puck through cones.

Want to Learn More?

To register for Learn to Skate or gain more information, visit gallatinice.org/learn-toskate.

Article provided by Gallatin Ice and Bozeman Amateur Hockey Association.