Three times per week, over a dozen young speed skaters congregate at the Archie Browning Sports Centre in Esquimalt to swiftly glide around the rink, and to practice form and technique as some of them prepare for competition season.
"I find it is a very friendly sport," said Ian Phillips, an organizer for the Esqumalt Speed Skating Club. "It's a very supportive sport. The older kids support the younger kids and we look at it as a complete team sport. No one is better than anyone else; everyone gets the same attention."
The relatively small club sees about 10 to 20 recreational skaters per year, as well as between five and 10 more competitive skaters who compete at meets and championships throughout the province.
"All of our competitive skaters have qualified to go through provincial championships, and usually two or three of them come with metals. They do quite well," Phillips added. "The competitive skaters, [mostly] in their early teens, probably started skating when they were eight or nine years old, and it takes a few years to get to the point where you can be competitive with the skaters on the mainland who do have an advantage because there's so many clubs there."
The club focuses on short-track skating, which is on a conventional ice rink rather than an oval track, where the younger skaters race for 200-metres, 400-metres and 800-metres, and the older skaters race at 500-metres, 1,000 metres, 1,500-metres and 3,000 metres, as well as relay races.
The competitive skaters typically partake in the provincial championships, which are mostly held on the mainland, but they also participate in local meets like an upcoming meet in Esquimalt on Oct. 26, which could see dozens of skaters from mainland clubs and the Penninsula Speed Skating Club based in North Saanich.
Among the competitors at the club is the family of Special Olympics speed skating coach Sue Madsen, who has five grandkids now involved in speed skating.
"It's my favourite night of the week when they come [to practice], they all come on Thursday, and I love it," said Madsen. "We see kids come and go, but it's very different than I think any [sport] I've been in before."
Madsen said she saw an ad in a newspaper for speed skating about 14 years ago, which is how she first got into the sport, and years later she was invited to work with the Special Olympics team.
"I sort of retired a couple of years ago, but I had to come back because they needed a coach again. And of course, I'm glad I did. I missed it," she said.
One of Madsen's grandchildren, 12-year-old Grace, competed in the provincial championship for the first time last year, and this year she hopes to keep improving and keep competing.
"My grandma started to speed skate [and] then, I didn't really like figure skating, but my brother was speed skating, and I started to speed skate," Grace said.
Two of her other grandkids, Sawyer, 10, and Adam, 9, said they like skating to spend time with their friends and going fast on the ice, and they look to continue improving their skating.
"I do fall, and I don't like falling," Adam joked. "I just noticed today that I was able to do crossovers quick. I just learned that today."
Overall, Phillips, who has been involved in the local skating scene for around three decades, says the future of the sport is bright, and there's no shortage of young talent around the region.
"Our membership is pretty consistent over the years. Some years it will fluctuate a bit with having a bit few more skaters, and other times a few less. But this year, I think we're really happy that we have a lot of new young skaters join the club, because we look at them as our future. You've got to really grow the sport from a very young age," he said.
