Arctic Edge Skating Club presented the Finding Frozen ice show Saturday at the Canada Games Centre at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

The Star spoke with Ann Milton, director of skating for Arctic Edge, in-between the two shows. She said the “first show was exceptional, really. It came together very nice. All the soloists skated well. Sets worked well. Lights worked well, so it really came together.”

Milton was asked what she was expecting for the second show.

“A little more energy and excitement. This is wrapping up our skating season this year and so it’s kind of the grand finale of a month that’s been super-busy ... we had two and a half to three solid weeks of practicing for the ice show, so it’s come together really quickly after a really busy month already.”

“Ideally, we have a lot more time than we did this year. With the pandemic and the unpredictability, we made the call at the beginning of March, so the music and all of the preliminary work started, but the skaters didn’t start on the ice until three weeks (ago) and then we just worked solid and hard at it. A lot less time than we normally like but they pulled it off.

“It is pretty amazing,” she added.

Milton explained what the show is about.

“It’s a very very simple plot. Our skaters have wanted to be Disney characters or portray them in their own eyes for many, many years and so we just found a storyline that would work around them and so we’ve taken Olaf, the fun little snowman and using Tinker Bell to use her magic and between the two of them they’re looking for the Frozen characters and along the way through the Enchanted Forest they come up with a whole bunch of other characters.

“We’re just taking a moment from each of the movies that the characters are from and just portraying it on ice. It’s a combination of acting, skating and just some real fun dancing on the ice.”

There were about 50 skaters in the program.

“We only did our Starskate figure skating programs,” said Milton.

“Usually we include our Canskate as well, but with the timeline, it just wasn’t possible this year.

“Our youngest is three and our oldest is 38.”

The 38 year-old is Carrie McClellend, who played Enchantress in the Beauty and the Beast portion of the program.

“She’s someone who’s committed to Sport for Life and continues to progress, continues to volunteer with our club and be a huge inspiration for kids. She just keeps persevering and achieving year after year,” said Milton.

As far as seeing the program in action, “it’s exciting,” said Milton.

“It’s also a little bit bittersweet and sad, because normally, our ice show, we have more skating afterwards and this sort of wraps up our season for us.

“This season was a super-challenging year. It was very hard, with skaters not knowing each day if they’d be able to come to the rink, or if they’re classified to isolate and planning training around all that unpredictability – not knowing if we’d able to have an ice show, not knowing if we’d be able to travel – this was beyond a doubt the most difficult year.

“Our skaters have risen to the challenge. They’ve really impressed me. Even when they were isolating, they were doing off-ice training, they were doing virtual off-ice classes and they were back and keen and just kept pushing themselves forward and setting their goals, even if they didn’t know what they might be working towards. So it’s been a very special year for me to see them come to this.”

Milton added, “I just hope the audience enjoys it and I think it’s just a fabulous way to wrap up a season that was full of challenges and show the kids’ perseverance and success, that ‘stickin’ with it.’”