What's the average annual skating costs for a competitive skater, including ice, coach, costumes, travel, etc. What could parents expect to pay out annually, for example, at the juvenile and pre-novice levels? Skater would be around 10 - 12 years old, I guess. Anybody want to go there?

Around 50K/year, is what I've heard.

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at that level...in canada...depending on the city, the club and the coach...about four to seven grand cdn...and up...

by elite level...it can get up to and beyond fifty grand cdn...

similar numbers and a bit higher in the states...in usd...

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do ya ever get the feeling that ms. bielman wishes she'd never done that damn spin???

A lot less than dressage..... but a lot more than most other sports!

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Here's my guess:

This is all U.S. dollars.....

$12,500/year ice, coaching, off ice classes (I am estimating $250/week)

$4,000/year competition expenses. Includes competition and practice ice fees, hotel, coaching fees. I'm basing this on 5 competitions a year at about $800 each. My estimate is $150 in event and practice ice fees, $400 hotel for 3 nights, $50 gasoline, $150-200 coaching expense for each competition. Our coaching fees vary widely based on how many skaters are sharing the coaches travel expenses.

$1,000 to replace boots and blades every year.

$1,000 practice and competition clothing, tights, incidentals......I don't think we actually spend this much, but you easily could if you love to buy skating related stuff, and like expensive competition dresses....You can include cost of obtaining skating music here....

Grand total estimate - $18,500

$18,500 US (?) That's about $28,000 Canadian.

Seriously, how many average Canadian families could afford to pay that for the sport. I guess that would account for the drop-off at the pre-novice level; the higher up you go competitively, the higher the costs. For some skaters, extended family help out - I know of one where her grandparents pay the full costs of summer skating and pay for new boots/blade every year. They use Air miles for travel and another relative buys the costumes. But not everyone has that support.

BTW, our total yearly skating costs are around $3,000. Test skater, doesn't compete but is on the synchronized team. Will probably drop freeskate this year (coach is moving), which will cut the costs in half. My skater, now a teenager, is not ready to give up skating totally, but school activities, and a social life, that's starting to get more interesting, need time. It's a busy time when you're a teen - so much to see; so much to do.

A lot depends on where you train and with whom. If you train where the ice is $10/hr for freestyle (don't faint) and with elite coaches who charge elite prices... you could easily spend $25,000 on average. I purposely haven't calculated down to the penny. I don't really want to know exactly how much I spend...

My husband laughed when I told him what question I was responding to. He told me to tell you that he just bought a doughnut and had pay on an installment plan. Our user name should be WeBeBroke!

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Babyskater's Mom

I couldn't believe the prices at Chelsea Piers when I visited New York - $16 per hour for freestyle, and average coaching at $80 per hour. And although the situation is very scenic and the ice is good, the pads are smaller than Olympic size. Am I right in thinking that is where Sarah Hughes trains?

In the UK, prices are more like $4 to $5 per hour for freestyle and coaching at $40 to $45 per hour - with the exception of a very small non-competitive rink in Central London which charges more.

Well, Chelsea Piers is where SH's skating club is, but Chelsea Piers is NOT where she was training. I keep thinking Hackensack NJ for some reason??? (And now, since she's going to Yale, who knows...probably the campus rink?)

My guess is that NYC is just expensive b/c it's a "world class city." (Of course, San Francisco is no chop liver either as far as "world class city" is concerned. And we only charge $10/hr for freestyle!!! And those of you who skated at YB know how beautiful the rink is.)

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

The rinks in my area usually charge between $10 and $12 for freestyles, and those sessions are only forty-five to fifty minutes long. And, like we've been mentioning, those sessions are open to skaters of any and all levels.

As far as Sarah Hughes is concerned, Yale's rink is not year-round (one of my adult students works there). The rink in Newington, CT where Nikolai Morozov's teams train, is forty-five minutes or so from New Haven, and Simsbury would be a little over an hour away. The thing with Simsbury is that it's out in a gorgeous part of Connecticut, but not near any major highways. Newington is the opposite; the rink isn't in a particularly pretty area, but it is convenient from I-91, I-84, and Route 9. I haven't heard anything about where Sarah's planning to skate except that she does plan to continue working with Robin Wagner, so I assume she'll be comuting to NYC or Hackensack fairly frequently. Last I knew she was skating in Hackensack.

Welcome to my rink, but freestyle is $12/hr and lately if you even spend 5 minutes over that hour without repaying, the manager is more than willing to have you arrested. Plus, many of the coaches are expensive... one I believe charges around $65 for a half-hour lesson... it may be as much as $75 for the half-hour. Granted, she is a wonderful coach... but still. Thank God I don't pay that for my lessons!

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"Without a struggle, there can be no progress" ~ Frederick Douglass

Unbelievable as it may sound, my juvenile level daughter's expenses are probably somewhere near $14,000/yr (US). We're not even talking any high ranking skater here, just a plain old juvie with big inconsistant jumps that trains locally. I work solely to pay the skating bills. I have to work part time night shift to accomidate driving my skater to the rink and to school along with her siblings to their schools. We have no extra money. The house is in need of repairs, etc., etc. It's a fairly common story at the rink. It's crazy I know. But what can I do? My kid loves it and she really does have all the ingredients to be successful, she's just not "soup" yet. I don't have any unreal expectations for her. As long as she continues to really want to skate and shows continued commitment and improvement, I'll make the sacrifices. I'd like to see just how far she can take herself, but if she said tomarrow that she didn't want to skate anymore and I thought she really meant it, I'd probably be doing a happy dance.

Hey! You must skate at my rink!! Is the name Gateway, and the big bo-zo who will arrest anyone name starts with R and ends in Y? yep yep, i must skate were u skate!! and the coach i beleive u are refeering to is Cecilia, and she charges 48 and hour. She is a wonderful coach, like u said, and imo, is worth every penny spent on lessons. but getting back to the original topic, my parents spend an average of 7-8 grand a year and i am a preliminary skater w/ the usfsa. hopefully my ice time and number of lessons w/ increase next year, and if that happens, it will be an estimated 9-10 grand for the next year. my home rink isnt that great a training facility, but im fortunate enough to go to a place in the summer that is a really great top skate facility, w/ top coaches and the whole nine-yards, and just for one week up there(2 sessions a day on ice, 1 speciality class on ice, and 2 off-ice classes daily) the cost is about $400, including about 4 hours of coaching(40 min each day). I hate to think what my parents would be paying annually if i skated at that rink year round, although i wish i could.

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~Sk8Bunny~
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"I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?"

Wow! Some of you are paying a lot more than me. My child is juvenile level in the U.S. and I sat down and added it all up. I'm actually paying more than I thought! I figured at least between $10,000 and $11,000 which includes a little off-ice training and 2 competition dresses a year, with one pair of skate boots and blades, plus competition fees, coaches fees, hotels for out-of-town comps, ice time, yearly membership fees. My coach fees and ice time seem more practical than some (ice $8 per session, coaches between $40 and $60). That's the problem. Do coaches really deserve that much? What really do they accomplish at each session? Mine talks on her cell phone sometimes!!

We were pretty horrified, too! And the first time I went to the USA, I came home and told my coach he was teaching in the wrong country! On the other hand, we had a fantastic evening in Massachussets on a 2-hour adults-only session which cost about $5.00 AND included an ice-make half way through - that was serious luxury for us!

At my rink, we pay the equivalent of $16.50 per week for as many patch (freestyle) sessions as we like; however we pay that 52 weeks/year, whether we are there or not. Individual sessions are either (roughly) $6.60 or $7.40 per session, depending on the day and time of day, and the $16.50 fee kicks in on your third session. Most of the coaches charge the equivalent of $43 per hour for lessons, although one charges less and one rather more.

Then, of course, there are test fees and competition entry fees. Those are the ones that mount up - one competition secretary last year, trying to be helpful, asked for just one cheque for all your entries - I very nearly didn't enter when I saw what it added up to! Individual cheques per class don't hurt nearly so much!

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

My 6yo daughter is costing me about $10,000 a year. Of course that doesn't include the other outside activities, like dance! The most fun was when she went from ISI to USFSA... and competition entry fees doubled! YIKES!

Ice time costs in the USA have gone way up over the past few years, and I think it is absurd.
Some Municipal rinks in Colorado offer ice at $5.00 a session, but private rinks ream skaters for outrageous amounts.
Skating is beginning to slump in popularity, so hopefully those prices will come down to reasonable rates.
The absolute lack of diveristy in skating is partly due to the elite culture and cost$ that endure in the skating world in the USA.
Off ice programs/training in the USA are very haphazard, and sometimes damaging and nonproductive, but fill up a summer program brochure so that the high price looks like it can be justified.

THe rink I skate at charges $8 for 45 minutes freestyle if you have one of their "debit" cards; $10 FOR 45 minutes pickup. They also have an "intensive ice" program that's about $365/month for all the ice time you want (roughly equivalent I think to about 2 sessions per day, 6 days a week).

They also run a 2 for 1 on all freestyle sessions before 12noon.

My coach charges $35/half hour, which isn't bad.

I just saw a television programme about kids in elite activites, and Melissa Piperno (Cdn.Junior ice dance champions, 10th Jr worlds) said she's on-ice for 22 hours a week. On ICE! Then 10 hours off ice a week. All I could think about was how much that cost per week, eek.

Although, I know several national level singles skaters and they're on the 10-12 hour a week training mode, and that works OK.

What is it about ice dance that requires so much on ice time?

Your partner!

Seriously, when there are two of you, it does come out as more than twice as difficult, since you not only have to do the dance as well as you can, you also have to learn to do it while partnering and being partnered, and that does take time.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

To answer your last question : 2 compulsories to train, one Od and one FD... That's a lot more than a singles skater with two programs!
As for ice time fee... In Quebec, skating 15 or 20 or 25 is usually the same price. Most kids go to sports school where they go to school for half a day and train for half a day. There is usually a package deal for ice time, ie. 1500$ unlimited ice time for the high season (usually from September to April).
As for coaching, I know few coaches who actually had students making up to the Olympics and they charge all around 40-44$CAN/hour.

So, if you make quick comparison between the States and here... without calculating, I guess it is way much cheaper here.

Choreography of the free dance and the original dance seems to take forever.

PointBleu,

Do you mean $1500 total for the entire 8 months??? Say it aint so! I thought I was getting a deal with $325/month for unlimited freestyle sessions. (There's about 25 available sessions per week, 45 min each.)

Even the really low level learn to skate coaches get $56 US/hr here. The top area coaches are $80-$90/hr. This is not a high cost of living area either.

I need to seriously think about moving to Canada if this is the case. (The thought comes up from time to time as my husband is Canadian.) Anyone know what ice and coaching goes for in Barrie?

Canada is a wonderful place! Here is a link to the Mariiposa skating club in Barrie and it lists the costs, etc.

http://www.skatemariposa.com/

I agree,

My parents spent just under 30,000 a year for my brother. In the US I bet that would be hitting 50 or 60. I think you guys in the states are getting ripped off. But then again, a lot of Canadian caoches are heading to the states for more money.