Throughout any given day an Oswego State student walking through the Marano Campus Center can look down in the ice rink and see athletes of various teams exhibiting their talents in either practice or a game.
On one of these occasions, they will look down and see a beautiful display of choreography as figure skaters glide in unison across the ice.
What they are seeing is the Oswego State Ice Effects Synchronized Skating Team, the school’s competitive club figure skating team.
Founded 16 years ago by their head coach Melissa Manwaring, the Ice Effects are the only synchronized skating team to represent the SUNY system. They have competed and won on local, regional and national stages.
Despite its talent and success, the club has found it difficult to be recognized around campus.
The club’s president, senior Amanda Lattimore, said she thinks the team often goes under the radar.
“We’re a very small team,” Lattimore said. “I think it makes it harder to get noticed, especially when a lot of people don’t know about us.”
Lucy Bergemann, a junior skater and the club’s public relations representative said the club is small and can be overlooked.
“Often times I’ll talk about the team and most people won’t know that there is a [skating] team,” Bergemann said. “A lot of this stems from us being very tiny.”
To make up for their size, the team has recently amped up their efforts to increase recognition from the student body and beyond.
“We have skated at a couple of hockey games recently, so we have gotten recognized a little bit through that,” Bergemann said. “We also increased our presence on social media.”
While non-major sports often find it hard to get noticed, this is especially true for club sports teams.
However, the Ice Effects were not always a club team. They simply have not had enough skaters in recent years to be deemed a varsity-level team.
“This year and last year we have only had 11 girls,” Lattimore said. “You need to have at least 12 to qualify for the collegiate level.”
Currently, the Ice Effects are part of the Open Collegiate Synchronized Skating level. In fact, they are the third-ranked team in the nation at this level.
Despite holding this impressive ranking, the team is looking to become a varsity-level program again, which would put them at the Collegiate Synchronized Skating level.
“Our main goal for next year is to make it back into the collegiate level,” Lattimore said.
Not only would being a varsity team get them noticed, but it would be a deserving title with the talent that they have.
“Even though we aren’t a varsity team, we still have a lot of the success like the bigger teams on campus do,” Bergemann said. “I think as a club team we just don’t get that recognition.”
Success does not even begin to describe this team’s track record.
During the weekend of Jan. 30, the team traveled down to Richmond, V.A. to compete in the Eastern Sectional Championships, a competition that sees the nine best collegiate figure skating teams from all across the east coast showcase their skills on the ice. Oswego State won first place in the competition, solidifying their spot as the highest ranked team on the east coast.
On a more local level of competition, the team also placed first in the Skaneateles Invitational last semester, where it went up against fellow central New York college teams.
Although a little credit for this success would be nice, the team is just grateful for the opportunities it has had.
“We do this because we love it and we don’t ask for recognition,” Bergemann said. “But we would certainly love for our college community to know [about us].”
As a small club team, the Ice Effects rely heavily on the funding they get from the Student Association.
“We are extremely thankful for the support we get from SA,” Bergemann said. “Without them, we wouldn’t be able to do what we love.”
The fact that they are fully student funded, whereas many of the teams they face have a lot more money and ice time, is what makes the success this team has had so impressive.
In their final competition of the season during the weekend of Feb. 6, the Ice Effects took home gold at the Empire State Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. The monumental win saw the Ice Effects take down teams from schools like Syracuse University and Colgate University.
“It really means a lot,” Lattimore said. “It shows how much hard work we put in.”
The Ice Effects team consistently shows they are among the best teams across the league year in and year out.
At the same time, the Ice Effects show the beauty of gratitude and humility in sports.
“It’s been kind of surreal,” Bergemann said. “To be able to overcome the challenges we face and to have a team that is small, yet so tight-knit has been amazing… We are so grateful for the opportunities we have had.”
