It has been a successful season at the NOTL Skating Club, with club skater Hailey Mitchell earning a silver medal at the 2024 Skate Ontario Provincial Championships held recently in Brampton.
The nine-year-old skater competed all season leading up to the provincials in the under-10 category, where she topped the final rankings before skating against the best in the province to reach the podium.
Hailey lives in Welland, but joined the NOTL Skating Club because it’s known to skaters around the region for being a great club, says her mother Shannon Mitchell.
Also highly respected in the Niagara skating world is NOTL club coach Judi Boyle-Krzeczkowski, who has been coaching for almost 40 years, and has now taken another of her skaters to a provincial podium position.
“We came to this club after hearing about it through word of mouth from other skaters,” says Shannon. “And we came for Judi.”
Hailey says she wasn’t at all nervous to skate at that level of competition. “I was just excited. I was relying on my training,” says the very poised young athlete.
“She’s very consistent,” says Shannon, and heading into the competition in first place gave her confidence. “She works pretty hard. I pretty much knew she would skate the way she practiced.”
Hailey trains every weekday and Sundays at the Centennial Arena in Virgil, and sometimes chooses to spend part of Saturday, her one day off, on the ice as well. But she still manages to find time to hang out with her friends.
“When I’m not skating I like to spend time with my friends. I just can’t do anything too risky,” she says, although that didn’t stop her from tobogganing this winter.
She also has to keep up her school work, a pact she has made with her mom and her coach if she wants to keep skating, which includes leaving school early some days to get to her lesson, or missing school due to a competition.
As long as she keeps her marks up, she has the full support of her mother, who spends her share of time in the arena stands. “I love watching her skate. I can watch her skate all day, and she would if I let her,” says Shannon.
And while Hailey is sometimes exhausted by the end of the day, “she always has the energy to come back the next day.”
Boyle-Krzeczkowski says she’s watched Hailey not only improve her skills but also become “more self-reliant” on the ice. She was very much a perfectionist, and had to learn how to manage the occasional bad day, says her coach. “She’s become a lot better at doing that. She has figured out how to handle stress — she can manoeuvre her way around it.”
“She’s a super-hard worker,” Boyle-Krzeczkowski continues, “and she’s a smart skater. The way her mind works allows her to understand what her body is supposed to do, and she’s a good listener. She’s not just a kid who says ‘I want it,’ she’s willing to work for it.”
And her parents are willing to put in the work necessary to support her, says Boyle-Krzeczkowski. “They called me two years ago and asked me to coach her. They’d heard this was the club to skate at, and she’s come a long way since then. She completed her double jumps in 11 months — that’s very quick at this age.”
Hailey is a very talented young skater, adds her coach. “And it’s really cool to watch her. She makes the other kids want to work harder, to do better. She has a very bright future.”