If you love skating it might be a bit difficult choosing the right sport for you since there are so many various sports which are played on ice and include skates. In this article, I will introduce three skating sports which are considered to be the most popular ones, as well as some of the subcategories within these sports. I hope you enjoy reading about these sports and perhaps even learn something new.
Ice hockey
I will start with my favorite sport, ice hockey, but I will not harp on this too much since there is a whole other section of this blog dedicated solely to hockey where I go into details of the sport.
When I am explaining hockey to other people I always say that it is similar to football, only you do not kick the ball with your legs but you hit the puck with a stick. But the goal is the same – score more points than your opponents and your team wins.
The sport can seem a bit harsh and violent at times, but the players all wear helmets as well as other protective gear to avoid any injuries.
When it comes to some teams that you can follow if this sport interests you, some of the best are the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers.
Speed skating
Speed skating is pretty easy to understand. It is basically a race only you do it on ice with your skates. There are two different kinds of speed skating disciplines – long-track speed skating and short-track speed skating. The difference is obviously in the distance you have to race over. For long-track speed skating the difference varies, but it usually consists of several loops around the track which is 400m long. On the other hand, the distance for short-track speed skating is only 111.12m which is a bit over one-quarter of the track.
Figure skating
When it comes to skating sports, figure skating is the most beautiful thing to watch in my opinion. It is almost like a ballet on ice, but with more acrobatic jumps, more spins, and more, well… skating. There are many different categories of figure skating, so let’s examine some of them.
Figure skating (single) – this consists of one figure skater, man or woman, who performs choreography with a song. It is usually filled with various spins and jumps, as well as spirals. However, it is also important that the skater acts out the choreography in terms of propper emotion or style.
Figure skating (pairs) – this is pretty much the same as with singles, but instead of one person, you have a pair that does the choreography together. This is very interesting to watch since most of the spirals and twists are done together, not side by side, but in combination with the partner. Also, the jumps are pretty fun since the man usually throws his partner into the air and allows for a higher jump.
Ice dance – this is a variation on figure skating but it is a different sport entirely. There are no jumps, so the skaters have to stay on the ground at all times which means they need to get more creative to capture the audience’s attention.
