Kilt Skate Home Edition Launched!

In the Covid winter, we’re doing things differently. The “Home Edition” of the Great Canadian Kilt Skate has been launched on rinks across Canada. Rather than gathering for community events, kilt skaters are encouraged to find their own safe and socially-distanced kilt skate space — and send us pictures. And they have!

The public health protocols change from province to province, community to community, and so individual kilt skaters each find their own way to celebrate Canada’s Scottish heritage. For David in Ottawa, it meant rising well before dawn to get his kilt skate in. David has played his pipes at every kilt skate held by the Scottish Society of Ottawa — and organizes the SSO volunteers.

Down the river in the West Island Montreal suburb of Beaconsfield, Jane held her first kilt skate as Home Edition event on the community rink. It looks like there wasn’t much of a problem maintaining social distance that day!

In past years, the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal have organized kilt skates as community events, bringing out scores of skaters.

This year, St. Andrew’s Society member Karen was among the first to begin the Home Edition version of the kilt skate, going out onto her back yard rink on New Year’s Day.

One of the most enthusiastic — and among the first to send us photos — Christine skated in La forêt perdue at Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel in the Mauricie region of Quebec.

A couple of days later, Christine was back out on the ice at St-Roch-de-Richelieu in Montérégie. She explained the cosmopolitan nature of the photo: a Scottish look with an Irish monochromatic kilt, and an English dog with a French name: Voltaire.

We’ve encouraged Christine to continue sending us photos as she explores the rinks of Quebec and shows us her wonderful kilt wardrobe. We hope to see more of the philosophical dog too!

Further west, the Home Edition of the Great Canadian Kilt Skate has taken hold thanks to the promotion of Winnipeg’s kilt skate organizer, Cathy. She took to the ice on New Year’s Eve, when the Home Edition officially opened.

Cathy had originally planned a community event, but is now throwing her organizational and promotional efforts into the Home Edition. And Winnipegers have responded — kilt skating at The Forks on New Year’s Day.

Diana sent us this photo from New Year’s Day. She’s wearing tartan trews rather than a kilt — and that’s just fine. We encourage skaters to don kilts, trews … anything Scottish and anything to celebrate Scotland’s contribution to Canada.

Over the winter, we’ll continue to post as many of the incoming photos as we can. We’re keeping track of the numbers as we determine which community will be named the Kilt Skate Capital of Canada. This year the laurels won’t be awarded on the basis of a community event, but by the numbers who turn out as individuals on Home Edition ice.

Please email us at kiltskate@ottawa.ca or — even better! — add the following hashtags on your social media posts: