Skating duo building for the future

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Senior pair Summer Homick and Marty Haubrich went into the 2023 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships in Oshawa looking to build for the future.

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They scored 51.10 with their short program, and 99.25 in the long (freeskate) program, both personal bests at the Jan. 9-15 nationals, good for seventh overall.

“It was good to get out in front of a live audience again,” said Haubrich. “And being senior, you have a bigger audience there, which is a pretty cool experience. I loved that part.”

“We went there to do good skates, for us, and we did that. Both those skates were clean. We were just trying to put out a good overall performance and I think we did that.”

“I was super happy with our performance,” said Homick, from Tillsonburg. “I think we wanted to go out there and show our potential as a team, and we were able to do that. We put out two solid performances and we showed our state of progression at this point in our career, and we can keep building on that in the future.

Homick and Haubrich also finished third at the Nov. 3-6 Skate Ontario Sectionals in Richmond Hill, and sixth at the Nov. 30-Dec. 3 Skate Canada Challenge in Winnipeg, which happened to be ‘only about a four-and-a-half hour drive’ from Haubrich’s hometown of Dubuc, Saskatchewan.

“They were also pretty solid performances,” said Homick. “Again, they were building blocks on the big tower.”

The pair were representing the Brant Skating Club and Skate Esterhazy.

“We were hoping to get good scores on our twist, which we did,” said Haubrich. “And just overall, performance-wise we were trying to step into that ‘senior role’ and try to show that we’re not just a couple of young kids; show that we belong with them.”

“I would say this season we’ve been trying to improve our overall skating skills… we have the basics of the pair elements and now we’re looking to the off-season to build on them,” said Homick. “When we have all of the background skating, it will all come together.

A major achievement will be adding side-by-side triples.

“I would say we’re pretty close,” said Homick. “Each day we come to the rink they get better and better. Since we have all this time now, we can kind of let our bodies recover and then we will keep working on the triples.”

“Our pair elements are getting pretty solid now, so we just really need to work on getting our individual elements – like side-by-side triples – and that will just make everything better overall,” said Haubrich.

“Every day at the rink is a new challenge, and we’re going to continue working on all of our jumps,” Homick nodded. “We probably won’t be competing again until the summer, or maybe even September, so we have a lot of time to work on stuff like that and continue to build. As we continue to face those challenges, we can grow together.”

Homick and Haubrick are thankful for the assistance from their coaches Alison Purkiss, Michael Marinaro, Kirsten Moore-Towers, and Paul MacIntosh.

In the short term, Haubrich and Homick are preparing a show number for upcoming ice shows at the Brant Skating Club and Tillsonburg Skating Club.

“Last year we did Staying Alive and High School Musical and this year we’re trying to find something new,” said Homick. “We’d like to change it up every year, especially if we’re doing guest shows so people can see a different version of us, different genres of music.”

“For show programs we always like to do something a little upbeat, a little more fun,” said Haubrich.

Homick also competed in 2022-23 novice women’s, representing the Tillsonburg Skating Club at Skate Ontario Sectionals. She finished 18th, scoring 28.37 in her short (15th) and 49.12 in the long.

Last season Homick and Haubrich won silver medals as a junior pair in Oberstdorf, Germany, but due to changes in ISU rules, 17 is now the minimum age to compete internationally in senior. That means Homick, 15, is too young. And Haubrich, 21, is too old to compete in junior.

“Last year was super, super exciting to be able to do the internationals,” said Homick. “Obviously this year it was a little disappointing because you gain so much experience internationally and you learn so much about yourselves and from other judges around the world, but I do think it will be good for us to have that time to focus on ourselves and focus on us building as a team.”

“It was a little bit of a shock at the beginning of the season when we heard about the rule change, but at the end of the day this season was going to be a building one for us anyways,” said Haubrich.