Being a skater there are so many people that inspire me. However the one that inspires me the most is my former coach, Melissa or better known on my team Mel bell. I met Melissa when I joined team reflections, she was the assistant coach to Amy, head coach of team reflections. My first impression of her was that she looked fun and relaxed but had a seriousness about her, she was approachable. If I had some trouble with a move in the team’s program I could go to her for help. A couple months after joining the team I approached Melissa about starting individual lessons with her on the side of team practices and my primary lesson with my current coach Amy.
I started to do one lesson every other week with her and instantly noticed a difference in my skating overall. Having her as my synchro coach as well as an individual coach meant that she knew what I needed to work on for the team and for my personal tests. The best part of having her as an individual coach is she would demonstrate what you are working on and she would do it with you if you got confused. Having her as the assistant coach with synchro meant she could jump right in the middle and skate with us during practices. This was a huge help a lot of the time because it would give us the feeling of what we needed to do.
Now before Melissa became a coach she had to start somewhere, right?
At age 2 Melissa’s father, a former hockey player, took her to the rink with him all the time. She was hooked, and has been skating for about 31 years now and still counting.
In these 31 years of skating she has done so many amazing things with her skating carrier. It all started with a simple synchro clinic her moms frien
d suggested because her daughter skated synchro.
“I tried the clinic and fell in love!”
After that it only got better, she continued to skate synchro for 14 years took a 12 year break and returned to synchro by coaching. In those 14 years of skating synchro she eventually joined the Haydenetts. The Haydenetts have been the number one team representing the U.S.A for three years.
The first time Melissa watched the Haydenetts in 1991 she knew she wanted to be apart of the team. “I set a goal right there and then that someday I would be captain of the Haydenetts” she set a goal and never gave up. Later on she achieved her goal and joined the Haydenetts being on the team for 3 years and became team captain.
“Being a Haydenette was an amazing experience. I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to represent our country doing something we loved. It required a tremendous amount of dedication; we spent hours on and off the ice training each week and we missed many days of school and social events because of our training and competition schedules. It was totally worth it though!! Looking back on my time, I’m thrilled that I was apart of a team that has helped advance the sport in the US so much.
There’s a saying – ‘Once a Haydenette, always a Haydenette.’ The team really believes in that and there is a great respect for the history of the team and sport among past and current Haydenetts. My favorite memory of the Haydenetts was stepping on the ice for our short program at the very first World Championships, held in Minneapolis, MN. The whole arena was on there feet chanting U-S-A and waving flags. It was incredible. I felt so honored and proud to be on the ice at that moment.”
Having had Melissa as a role model for skating has changed my thoughts on how to go about it. I started with “It’s just fun and games” to “I’m going to do everything I can to be the best I can be.” I think back to my time having Melissa as my coach and my favorite memory was from my first season on the team. We went to Colonials, which is in Lowell, Massachusetts. This was our second competition of the season. We were the last team to skate and had just gotten off the ice from a clean skate. We went to the locker room to change, then went to go find a seat. About twenty minutes had passed after we stepped of the ice and we were still walking to our seats. We heard that they were announcing the results so we stopped immediately and looked to the ice to see the results displayed. There it was, on the board, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Second place! We all started screaming and crying. This was my first competition with Melissa and I will remember it forever.
