Elvis Stojko, Dorthy Hamill, Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi and Kurt Browning are a few of the past greats of the figure skating world.
Taber is home to the latest and greatest figure skating superstars and the young masters of the blades of steel take to the ice for the Taber Skating Club’s skating carnival “Toys Through Time” this Saturday at the Taber Arena at 2 p.m.
“Each number has a theme based on toys and it takes us in progression all the way from the first toys that were invented a hundred or a thousand years ago with musical instruments and rag dolls all the way to toys nowadays like Lalaloopsy and Monster High dolls and it just kind of takes us through time,” said Natasha Homeniuk, vice president of the Taber Skating Club, adding this year’s carnival has close to 75 skaters from 3-17 years old.
For the past five years Homeniuk has been involved with the Taber Skating Club. This year’s show will feature soloists doing numbers the skaters have been learning all year, group skaters and two guest skaters including Jazlyn Tabachniuk from Lethbridge and one of the Taber Skating Club’s coaches and his wife Travis and Amanda Hillier.
“They used to be professional skaters and skated with Disney on Ice. Just this past year, after a few years of not skating together, they’ve been out on the ice practising and they’ve decided to do a number for us to. So that will be very exciting, that number.” Homeniuk added the group skaters have been rehearsing for the past month for the upcoming performance.   
According to the Hillier’s biography, Amanda and Travis met in 1999 through “Disney on Ice” after each had separate competitive skating careers. The two pros began skating pairs together and performed various roles in “Wizard of Oz,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Toy Story 2,” and “Finding Nemo” — with performances in Europe, the Caribbean, the United States and Canada. In 2005 Amanda and Travis “retired” from “Disney on Ice” and began coaching.
The skating carnival wraps up the season for the CanSkaters but for some of the older skaters in the club still have one more competition in Lethbridge which goes in April, according to Homeniuk.
“Our STARskaters start in September and they will go until April and the CanSkaters they start in October and its two sessions and go from October to December and January until March.”
Homeniuk noted this year, five skaters represented the club at the STARskate finals in Rocky Mountain House.
As for the behind the scenes work for this year’s skating carnival thanks goes out to parent volunteers who have helped with costumes and decorations and to a class at D.A. Ferguson School who have helped out with decorations for this year’s show. Homeniuk added there is usually a large audience that attends the skating carnival each year and this year the event will once again include a raffle to raise money for the club.
“Something that we started last year that took off and we’re doing more this year is we have a huge raffle table with prizes donated from local businesses and it has really grown this year with having quite a few really great prizes,” said Homeniuk.
Admission for the carnival is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors, $2 for youth ages 5-18 and children 5 and under are free.