The Northernettes Junior Synchronized Skating Team is leveraging its high-energy chemistry and pre-skate rituals to aim for the podium at the Hevelius Cup and the 2023 U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships in their second season representing Team USA.
"From our very first practices this spring, we were always aiming for top five at Nationals. That's really what we've been working for," skater Martha Nordland said.
But before the Championships, the Northernettes are focused on skating their best and hoping to win a medal for Team USA at the Hevelius Cup on February 9-11 in Gdansk, Poland.
"I think if we can go there and have two really strong programs, really show those international judges what we're capable of, I think we can have a really good shot of bringing home a medal and representing the United States to the best of our capabilities," skater Alison Weber said.
Although the Northernettes are a relatively new team going into only their sixth year as an organization and team, they and their coaches have always been ambitious.
"Our head coach Alana (Christie) started this organization with a junior team, which is a little bit different than how most organizations would work starting with a really low-level team and then working their way up as their skaters got older, and stronger," Nordland explained. "But she kind of did the reverse and started with junior and then just this year, added a preliminary and a pre-juvenile team.
"So it's really fun to see those skaters also developing their synchro skills and just thinking that five, 10 years from now, they'll be on the junior team, hopefully, competing for Team USA."
Established in 2017, the team considers its relative youth as an organization and its diversity as qualities that make them beautifully unique.
"Most of us were individual skaters that came from all over Minnesota and Wisconsin to create our junior team, and we've all learned synchro skills fairly quickly compared to some teams where other girls maybe started synchro at a really young age," Weber said. "It is really cool to see how much we've developed and grown in such a short amount of time."
They began their season in November, competing in the Fall Classic in Irvine, California, followed by the Boston Classic in Boston, Massachusetts. But their greatest result to date came in early December when they secured a fourth-place finish in Ann Arbor, Michigan's Porter Classic.
"These competitions were a really good test, to see where we compared to other teams," Weber said. "Porter was a really good chance for us to show that we can compete with the other strong USA teams."
"It was good to finish so high with the domestic teams and go into our international and then the Championships with that confidence boost, knowing that we can do that and we are a top contender in the junior division," Nordland added.
The team started preparing last spring with their coaching team helping them discover their individual strengths and musical interpretation, which, coupled with team connectivity, allows them to fully shine.
"Alana kind of uses the beginning of the season to see what our skating styles are like, and then chooses music that really fits our skating styles so that we can skate our programs to our best capabilities," Weber explained. "When she gets us the music, she'll have us all sit in the hockey boxes and we'll just like, keep our head down and listen to the music. And we'll all kind of think of things that the music reminds us of or feelings that we are feeling when we're listening to the music. And we compiled all of our ideas to create the theme we want to show when we skate our programs."
A lot of thought went into the presentation of each program and the emotions conveyed, as well as facial expressions and minute movements, as Nordland clarified.
"We wrote down ideas and we went element by element, just talking about what we want to be on our faces and what emotions we are trying to portray."
The team's programs this season are each powerful in their own way, allowing the team to bring the audience on a journey with them while celebrating their success as a team and organization.
Their short program is a rendition of Hozier's "Take Me to Church" and while the team is not expressing any religious messaging, they are hoping to convey their love and devotion to skating and each other with the performance.
Their long program, meanwhile, conveys their intense pride and joy at their accomplishments.
"This year, it's the sixth year of Northernettes and our long is the song "Finally" by Fergie. So it's kind of like, finally, we've come to this place where we're a strong team, we're competing at these international competitions, and we're reaching our goals as an organization and as a team," Nordland said.
The Northernettes feel confident not only because of their training but because they have developed certain pre-skate rituals that help them get into their ideal performance zone.
"We have some songs as a team that listened to a lot on the bus and are kind of our team songs, and some of them have dances set to the songs," Weber said. "And we just really like to jam out to those right before we compete; it gets us in a good mood."
The preparations begin in the locker room, where the team creates a highly energized environment before they compete.
"We definitely noticed that we skate better when we're coming off of like a high hype energetic locker room versus when we all just kind of leave more like 'okay, whatever.' We need to get in our zone and get super excited. And that's when we have skated our best this season is when we've had the best locker room moments before," Nordland said.
These routines also come with little bits of superstition, like the practice of placing stickers in their skates before they compete.
"We have these little gold star stickers that we put in our skates before we compete and different people have their little superstitions like some people always put it in their left (skate) and some skaters always put them in their right," Nordland said. "Or like I always put it in my right (skate) for the long and in my left (skate) for the short and that's just kind of a fun little tradition. And certain people are like, 'Oh my God, I can't skate my best unless I have the star sticker in my skate.' People get super into that."
Looking forward to their international competition, the team is hoping to not only (hopefully) win a medal, but feel good about their performances.
"(Our goal is) just to put out two really strong skates. It's only our second time competing internationally, so we're still building that and just hoping to skate confidently, skate what we know is our best, and just feel proud of those skates," said Nordland. But we also want to come home with a medal."
