April 1, 2016 at 4:35 p.m.
Skating with Grace
Senior Hoger leaves lasting mark on Rhinelander Figure Skating Club
Skating with Grace
"I love you and I'm going to miss you," one skater wrote. "Thank you for everything you've done for me."
"If I wasn't for you, I wouldn't be in freestyle," another message said.
Yet another said, "Thanks for believing in me and being my coach."
All the messages were for Grace Hoger, a Rhinelander High School senior who has left an indelible mark on the club, one that many within the program say will be difficult to duplicate.
Hoger's love affair with the ice began when she was a toddler. The middle child in her family, she would stand - her nose pressed to the glass that surrounded rink - watching her older sister, Cassie, receive instruction.
"I wanted to skate and I ended up loving it," Hoger said.
She hit the ice at the tender age of 3. From there it's been a whirlwind of practices, camps, out-of-state training sessions, slumber parties at ice rinks, skating shows and plenty of competitions. She's taken part in over 50 competitions in seven states, placing in the top four roughly 90 percent of the time. She's won gold at the State Games of America, the Badger State Games, the USFSA High School Nationals and helped bring a high school figure skating state championship to the Northwoods through the Northern Edge program that she and Cassie helped found.
Competition, both at the youth and high school level, is something the Hogers helped to emphasize during their time in Rhinelander.
"It's just turned into this huge thing," said sophomore and Northern Edge team member Shandi Peitsch. "Now we're getting ready to go to nationals again. It's kind of crazy when you think about it, how two people kind of started this out and now there's a whole team of us."
Hoger is respected by her peers. "We just kind of clicked and we always bounce ideas off each other as we are skating together," said RHS junior Lauryn Cook, Hoger's Class A teammate in the high school ranks. "She kind of coaches me and then I give her pointers sometimes."
Parents within the program realize Hoger's special talents.
"There is something about her," said Holly Rose, who emceed last month's show. "You can't put it into words. You can't define it, but when you watch her skate, you watch her skate."
Most importantly, the younger skaters in the program look up to Hoger, as evidenced by all the well wishes she received in the program.
"She just kind of made it easier on us," said Skylar Peitsch, a seventh-grader with six years of skating experience.
It is with the younger skaters that Hoger has perhaps left the greatest impression. Three years ago, when the club was in need of a coach, it turned to some of its most experienced skaters - the Hogers and Cook.
"By default they were the only real coaches available," Tracy Cook, Lauryn's mother, explained. "They have really stepped up and kind of taken things over."
"It was kind of difficult sometimes," Hoger said. "We spent most of it figuring out elements and helping all the younger teammates so that they could have a good experience."
Hannah Miller and Heidi Strosahl have since taken on some of those coaching responsibilities, but Hoger and Cook still play a significant role preparing the club and the Northern Edge high school team for their events and competitions.
Hoger admitted preparing for this year's final high school state competition took a back seat because it fell on the same weekend as the Rhinelander Figure Skating Show. She and Lauryn Cook fell from first to second as a team in the final competition and were unable to defend their Class A state crown.
"It kind of came back to bite us in the end," Hoger admitted. "We didn't skate our best (that) weekend, definitely not our best. We still skated well, but I think we could have but a little more time into ourselves."
Other times, nights of coaching led to late-night cram sessions or simply making up programs on the fly.
"We literally spend until almost midnight here just doing randomness out on the ice," Lauryn Cook said, recounting some of her favorite times with Hoger. "Either we'd be working on our program or, a few days before the show, we would spend like almost until 11:30 just skating and goofing around and then every now and then we'd work on the program."
"They were putting together a number the night before and the day of," Rose said, telling a story about one experience at Badger State Games. "They didn't take into account one of the moves that they did that Lauryn's hands would be wet from doing a cartwheel on the ice. She grabbed this stick and, instead of holding on, slid right off it and they worked it in and made it look like that was how to supposed to be. It was awesome, and they got first place."
If some of Hoger's skating experience and expertise has rubbed off on the club, it's because she has plenty of it to share. In the speech she gave before her senior solo during the club's show last month, Hoger recounted early-morning drives to Wausau to train with coach Gizo Ujarmeli and spending up to four days a week during the summer months training in Bloomington, Minnesota with coach Thomas Amon.
"It was a lot of time and money, just a lot of effort," Hoger said. "My parents said if I was going to do all that I had better love the sport and I ended up loving it, so it was worth it."
Hoger still has a couple of duties yet to fulfill in her skating career in Rhinelander. She will help coach several youth skaters and put them on the ice this weekend during the Hodag Classic competition Saturday and subsequent skills test session Sunday.
"We practice that over and over," she said of the youngsters' routines. "There's a category called elements, so we'll just practice the individual moves. Just make sure they're comfortable, work out any last-minute kinks."
"Being a coach, it's almost like being a parent," Hoger added. "It's like your child does something exciting it's like, 'Wow, I'm the reason that they did that.' It feels really good."
Hoger will skate in her final high school competition later this month as the Edge - a co-op of skaters from Rhinelander, Tomahawk and Three Lakes high schools and the Wausau Engineering and Global Leadership Academy - returns to the USFSA High School Nationals April 15-17 in Strongsville, Ohio.
"It's kind of sad but exciting at the same time," Hoger said of her high school career coming to a close. "It's the end of one journey, but it's opening a door to a new one."
Hoger will attend Winona State University in Minnesota next fall. She plans to enter the pre-med program. Figure skating, however, will still play a large part in Hoger's future plans, which include applying for the Disney on Ice performance group.
"I've been working on my audition video. Hopefully that will all go well," she said. "Even if I don't get accepted into Disney I will be skating collegiately. My hopes are to eventually transfer to Delaware and skate with their collegiate team. They won nationals the last two years."
Asked if she sees herself continuing to be a figure skating coach down the line, Hoger said, "definitely."
How will the Rhinelander Figure Skating Club look next season without Hoger?
"Different," Lauren Cook said. "Really different."
"Grace brings that element of so much creativity," added Shandi Peitsch. "To lose that, it's going to be so much different next year."
"There will be a hole that will be hard to fill, obviously," Tracy Cook said. "Some of the skaters that come through, they're just irreplaceable."
It won't just be Hoger's influence on the younger skaters in the program that will be missed. Rose said the passion and panache with which Hoger performs will be another significant loss.
"I think when you watch Grace skate you see more than just a skating number, you see into Grace," she said. "You see into her mind, into her heart, into her soul. There's just a depth that I think people kind of take for granted and don't realize that there's more to it than just a cool looking number."
For Hoger, it's been years of investment, the dividends of which she's share with her teammates and students.
"Figure skating takes time and work and dedication," she said. "It may drive you crazy and sometimes you really, really hate it, but it's definitely worth it at the end."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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