Hockettes skater Claire Moran remembers the day that the COVID-19 pandemic flipped her world on its head.
She was at school, glad it was Friday and nervous about an advanced placement (AP) chemistry test she had later that day. A school-wide announcement that classes would be held virtually for the next two weeks momentarily stole her attention away from the upcoming assessment.
"So I was like, this little time at home [will be nice]," Moran said. " Everything will be fine."
Little did she know that two weeks of the pandemic would turn into almost two years.
"I don't think any of us expected it to be like that," she said.
Attending school online was not the same as going to class in-person. Rather than walking into a building each day and spending time with her friends, Moran was in front of a computer. Gone were conversations at lunch and sharing inside jokes in the hallway. The moments that had once seemed mundane suddenly held a lot more meaning.
However, the full scope of the change did not fully hit her until her time on the ice was impacted, too.
"Skating has always been something that I've relied on through every change in my life," she said. "It's always like, 'Oh, I have skating still.' So then when that shut down, that's when my life started to change a bit more because I had all this free time.
"And that was when my schedules started changing… and when my life started to really be affected by the pandemic."
Skating became something else that was conducted via technology. Rather than get together in a rink, the Hockettes convened via Zoom, where head coach Lindsay Grajek and her staff emphasized that safety was the top priority.
Grajek was in her first year as head coach, and the sudden onset of adversity was like being pitched a curve after seeing only fastballs.
"I think that personally I had to learn to roll with the punches a lot," Grajek said. "And to just take everything in stride and remember that the skaters are so capable and we all can only do what we can do, you know? So [we just kept] reminding ourselves that if you do your best then at the end of the day when you give it your all, you have no regrets."
She built community by developing goals with the team and discussing their expectations for the upcoming season. The ability to devote more time to off-the-ice aspects of the sport was a silver lining of the pandemic, according to Grajek.
"A lot of times when we do train off the ice, we're focused on the program," she said. "We're focused on the skating. And [being virtual] forced us to say, 'Okay, we're not really sure if there will even be a competition. So let's focus on the team.'"
When they were finally able to skate in-person again, the Ann Arbor-based Hockettes were forced to travel to nearby Ohio, as their home rink was still closed due to health and safety restrictions. Though the new location added more travel time for a few skaters, for junior team member Evelyn Lemm, the opportunity to carpool with her teammates was something she will not soon forget.
"The carpools really were a bonding experience you could do with your team, because you didn't have those competitions where you're spending the night in a hotel room together," she said. "But you had those car rides where you're spending an hour or so together singing.
"It was the little things that you added to it that made it really even that much more fun, even though it's out of your way."
The team would have to jump other hurdles, too, like figuring out how to adjust their skating style to compete virtually rather than in a rink. Though the season looked a little differently than they had initially expected, the Hockettes were thankful for the opportunity to stay on the ice.
"I think skating was [the team's] one escape from everything else that was going on in the world," Grajek said. "Everything was so scary, so unknown. But the one thing in their life that was so certain was that we were going to find a way for them to still practice, and while they were there… they were going to have fun doing what they loved."
This season's return to in-person competitions brought more changes. Now that they no longer have to wear masks on the ice, the team had to readjust to conveying emotion through their facial expressions. They also had to relearn their warm-up routine, as the time spent performing virtually made the memories of the exact progressions fuzzy.
To showcase the roller coaster of the last few years, the team has turned their journey into the theme for this year's long program. (For more information about the music behind their free skate, check out this story on usfigureskating.org.)
The performance, called "Ghostly Shadows Come to Light", walks through the various aspects of the last two years. First, the fear of the unknown is illustrated through quick, sharp movements. Then, as the virus recedes and the darkness lifts, there is celebration, which the skaters portray through jumping and embracing each other.
Not only does the program give the team a chance to tell their story, but Grajek hopes it inspires those in the audience.
"I want there to be a sense of hope," she said. "Because we're definitely more in that middle moment of the program, [where] we're understanding how difficult it was what we went through, but that we're starting to come out on the other side. So [I just want] that hope and that light at the end of the tunnel."
Lemm is grateful for the chance to convey a narrative so close to their hearts.
"It's been very nice to encompass the light and the next step of the pandemic," she said. "You know that you can connect with people, because everybody experienced the pandemic. It's just nice to be able to relate to the audience on such a big span."
Perhaps that is another reason this program is so special: it provides the Hockettes with an outlet to let the audience in on the community that synchronized skating has provided during a time of isolation and fear. When they perform their long program, they are not just putting blades on ice and performing choreographed jumps and spins— they are taking one of the sport's many gifts and giving it away.
