Week 8: A Party Wraps Up the Season

Born out of necessity when the pandemic prevented community events, the Home Edition of the Great Canadian Kilt Skate has proved to be a tremendous success — one that will likely carry on into future kilt skate seasons. By encouraging people to skate on their own whenever and wherever they safely could, we .saw many come out to kilt skate for the first time — including Jim Hunter. Not only is Jim our first kilt skater from Regina, SK, he likely holds this year’s and perhaps the all-time record for the most senior kilt skater.

On November 2, 2019, Jim was inducted into the 80+ Hockey Hall of Fame, and he wears the yellow jersey proudly along with his Hunter tartan kilt. The criteria for induction: you have to be 80 years of age and still playing in a regularly scheduled league.

Twenty minutes from Regina, in Lumsden, SK, J.-P. Bautista-Hunter (no relation) took to the ice with his daughter. J.-P.. says that, unlike Jim, he doesn’t get out on the ice often, but is happy to do so for a kilt skate. “We would like to get more involved next year.”

Regina and southern Saskatchewan may be new to kilt skating. We’re delighted that the Home Edition enticed individuals and families out onto the ice, and hope that an organization will step forward to work with the Scottish Society of Ottawa to create a community event after the pandemic has passed. But further north in Saskatoon, there is a Highland dancing school that has taken to the ice every year since 2015, and the Home Event brought them out on the ice again.

Year by year, we’ve watched the Highland dance students grow up, and we’ve seen new dancers/skaters join the festivities. The girls do their bit to maintain the ice.

This year’s western-most contribution to the Great Canadian Kilt Skate — Home Edition came from Calgary, AB, where Amy Brown saw the kilt skate Facebook ad and wondered whether you had to actually have a kilt. By no means: just tartan up! And so Amy went skating at Carburn Park in her Scottish Ice Hockey jacket.

I’ll bet there’s a story there!

Moving east to the geographic centre of Canada, Evelyn Mitchell, who organized the community kilt skate event for many years on behalf of the St. Andrew’s Society of Winnipeg, posted that her family continues to get out onto the ice. We think Evelyn looks great in her grandfather’s kilt!

And of course, Cathy Laver-Wright, this year’s organizer of the Winnipeg kilt skate continued to get out on the ice every day. The last time we checked, she was up to SK8#60. For her birthday week, she was often accompanied by friends.

Moving further east to near Orillia, ON, these lads took their game out to the ice on Lake Dalrymple.

These youngsters have a long way to go before joining Jim in the 80+ Hockey Hall of Fame like Jim Hunter in Regina, but I’m sure they’re up for many more years of hockey — sometimes in kilts. Cheers, lads!

Further south in Cedar Valley, ON, BJ Roberts joined the number of tartan enthusiasts who, in this year of innovation, have provided a new twist to the Great Canadian Kilt Skate: the kilt ski. “It rained all morning,” BJ reports. “I didn’t venture on the pond so I did the ski when the sun came out.”

The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) provided a wide catchment for kilt skaters and in Week 8, Toronto added to the store of photos in its bid to regain the title of Kilt Skate Capital it won in 2018.

In Montreal, Corporal de Luca of the Black Watch (RHR) of Canada went out to the rink with his wife and children on the last day of the kilt skate. He reported that the weather was great.

Many other Montrealers sent in their photos in the final week of the Great Canadian Kilt Skate — Home Edition.

This man in his tartan trews makes a point that Amy Brown demonstrated in Calgary: the kilt skate is not only for kilts; it’s time to release your inner Scot by getting out for winter activity while wearing Canada’s favourite colour: tartan!

Ottawa, ON, is the home of kilt stating, and the Scottish Society of Ottawa organizes the Great Canadian Kilt Skate on a national basis. On this Week 8 of the Home Edition, the Rideau Canal Skateway closed after just 26 consecutive days of skating — one of the shortest seasons ever. But community rinks and other ice surfaces remained viable, and many of the organizers of the kilt skate did manage to get out for one for turn on the ice before the Home Edition wrapped up on February 28.

Indeed, Wayne MacDonald of SSO’s board of directors contributed the growing trend of kilt skiing at his home in the Gatineaus. Wayne has designed a kilt skate survey so we can get your feedback on this year’s Great Canadian Kilt Skate — Home Edition. It will be distributed by the various partner organizations that bring the kilt skate to communities across Canada.

The last Saturday in February brought fresh snow to Ottawa. The national kilt skate co-organizer, Sue MacGregor, headed out to her neighbourhood rink for 11 a.m. She was on a mission.

Sue was among the people who joined in a Zoom call and Party to wrap up the 2021 kilt skate season and the final weekend of the Home Edition competition to be named Kilt Skate Capital of Canada. Some 30 people registered for the call. They linked in from Winnipeg to Dublin, Ireland (where there was no ice skating, kilted or otherwise, this year.) And, yes, that’s SSO’s Heather Theoret speaking from out on the ice in Ottawa, and that’s Cathy Laver-Wright in the middle of the bottom row, listening from out on the ice in the sub-Arctic temperatures of Winnipeg. As you can see, most participated from the comfort of their homes. But hats off to those who remained true to the spirit of the kilt skate: thrawn!

The Zoom & Facebook Party was the brainchild of William (Bill) Petrie, Chair of the Clans and Scottish Society of Canada (CASSOC), the organization responsible for the Toronto kilt skate in past years. Bill created the Zoom Party, and managed it with his wife Sylvie Theriault, and spearheaded a Facebook advertising campaign.

 With no local “community” events to bring kilt skaters together this year, the Zoom & Facebook Party created a remarkable opportunity to build a national community of people passionate about Scottish heritage and enthusiastic about getting out for some winter fun. The Zoom event began and ended with a live bagpipe performance by Rory Sinclair, with a bagpipe/steel drum interlude in between. Participants — many of them, like Sue, zooming in from the ice rinks — discussed the kilt skate season that was now passing and plans for kilt skates to come. Bill had also arranged some activities to entertain and amuse and enable participants to get to know one another across the miles.

Born in response to the pandemic, the Zoom & Facebook Party, like the Home Edition itself, is an innovation that will likely continue into future years. After all, at this time last year, how many people would have thought to use Zoom to create a pan-Canadian kilt skate event?

“This just ended up being a win win win,” says Bill. “Lots of fun,  images we'd never have gotten otherwise, exposure in advertising far beyond what we normally get and lessons learned for our next events.” There’s no doubt it’s been an unusual and extraordinary year for the Great Canadian Kilt Skate that will shape the event for years to come.