Figure skating club adds star power

Queenstown Ice Skating Club has benefited from some additional star-power this season.

Retired competitive US figure skater Aly McDougal’s spent almost four months at the Queenstown Ice Arena coaching our up-and-comers ahead of next month’s nationals.

McDougal, 25, officially retired from the sport when she was just 20. She started out on the ice with her family, in Alabama, when she was about 3 or 4 years old, began lessons when she was 7, and initially focused on singles, before switching to pairs when she was 12.

"I ended up having to move to Florida to continue training ... my family stayed in Alabama, and I moved with my grandmother."

She and her pairs partner, Paul Schatz, went on to compete in "three or four" US nationals at the junior and senior level — they placed third in 2014-’15 as a junior pair, no mean feat considering the skill level required to even qualify to compete at that level.

After four years, she moved back to Alabama, and later found her passion in coaching, initially with kids.

"I think that’s what drew me into it, getting to kind of nourish that excitement and pursuit in somebody else that also loves the same thing that you love."

Over the past two years, she’s also started working with more adults, an experience she describes as "really, really awesome".

"You get to kind of have that second chance to get on the ice and explore a new hobby ... it’s cool to help people get into it later on."

McDougal says she and her husband, Thomas Gibson, have always "played around" with the idea of coming to New Zealand, and while they were planning their wedding last year — they celebrated their first anniversary this week — they decided "let’s do it".

"We don’t have a house ... we don’t have any big bills, no kids, so let’s go for a year."

Six months in, McDougal got a call from the Queenstown Ice Skating Club asking if she’d be keen to lend her coaching skills to our skaters.

"So we just came down here and made it work," she says.

Here since June, she’s been coaching every level, including competitive skaters, for whom she has an immense amount of respect.

"I’m from a rink that kids have unlimited ice time ... out of school, to do what they need to do to pursue their sports.

"These kids, they are motivated.

"They come in at, like, 6.30am, 7am, before school, they’re doing off-ice, they’re doing an hour on the ice, and then they’re going to school, and then sometimes they’re coming back [after school]."

Ahead of the nationals in Christchurch, McDougal says she’s confident hard work will pay off.

"They just have the best attitude, so I’m really hopeful that we’re going to see some cool results."

It’ll be bittersweet though — immediately after nationals, McDougal and her husband will head back to the US.

But they haven’t ruled out a return.

"[We’re] keeping the door open for the future," she says.