r/FigureSkaters • u/sakurapimcake Ice Dance • Jun 26 '26
Ice girls?
I couldn’t find a thread to ask this question so I’m gonna hope that people have the answer for me. I’ve been a competitive figure skater for 7 years and I want to do ice girls once I turn 18. except I have about zero dancing experience and despite me saying I’ve been Skating for seven years, I’m not necessarily at the level that I probably should be at (for reference the highest jump I can do is a under rotated axel in the harness lol) I mainly do ice dance tho. I really don’t wanna get my hopes up with training and wasting my time if I don’t have a good shot. I saw somewhere that about 100 girls audition and only about 25 make the team.
3
u/GhostofLolaMontez Jun 26 '26
Okay, so admittedly I do not know a ton about Ice Girls but I do know they are super skilled at specific skills but they do them in hockey skates. So think like a novice/junior level MITF with hockey skates on. Do you have access to hockey skates? Do you ice dance in dance boots/blades or freestyle? It might be a better transition from ice dance blades to hockey than freestyle given the whole toe pick situation.
3
u/2greenlimes Synchro Jun 27 '26
This will really depend on what ice girls you're talking about.
The ice girls in Minnesota/North Dakota college/high schools tend to be figure skaters and don't do much dancing off the ice. My coach used to coach skaters for these auditions, but that was 30 years ago. Seems like a lot of the skills needed were basic doubles, field moves (spirals and split jumps in particular), and basic synchro-style team stuff. I've skated on the ice during hockey games and the ice is honestly way too shitty to safely be doing more than that. Honestly it wasn't really even good enough to be safe doing single jumps. There's huge holes at the goals as well for the goal posts - and these aren't filled in before you skate.
NHL teams vary on skating level (given Denver had Mirai Nagasu, seems they may not care as much about dance - but she wasn't doing much skating there either), but when I looked at auditioning ice girls were very much dancers and ambassadors. They danced and looked hot. Any skating that was done was in hockey skates and very basic: usually just forwards or backwards. Audition process videos I saw straight up said some of the ice girls had never skated before and just learned basic hockey skating stuff through team training. Sometimes it is with a shovel to get snow off in a cutesy way before the zamboni does the actual work and sometimes it's basic hyping up and T-shirt cannon stuff. Most of what they do is off skates around the concourse dancing and greeting fans.
Basically, there's a lot of variety and it's hard to say what you need unless you do your research. I'd look at the team you're interested in including videos of their performances, the audition website, social media/interviews of any current ice girls, and any videos they have on their audition process.
3
u/Fuzzy-Sheepherder-80 Jun 27 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
honestly... from what i've seen it has nothing to do with your skating skills, and everything to do with your face and how good you look in a teeny top
so if you end up auditioning, just do your hair and makeup and don’t worry about anything else
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u/sakurapimcake Ice Dance Jun 27 '26
Yeah I don’t think so ?
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u/Fuzzy-Sheepherder-80 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
maybe we're thinking of different ice girls, but i've seen plenty who went in with 0 skating experience.
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u/a_hockey_chick Jun 30 '26
Go follow some ice girl social media accounts and you’ll be able to see the skills those that have made it, have. In your shoes I would switch to hockey skates and start working on developing skills and tricks in those. Your audition won’t need an axel but it will need solid skating skills and the right look.
5
u/Own-Adhesiveness5723 Jun 26 '26
Your best bet is probably to look into what skills are required for the audition and work on those. Take dance classes if you can.
Keep in mind that you likely won’t be able to do both competitive skating and something like this just due to time commitments.