Skater back on ice after suffering stroke


It was never a question of if, it was only ever a question of when.


Suzanne Hermann was as certain she would skate again after suff ering a stroke in March as she was when she fell in love with the sport 20 years ago during her fi rst lesson on her 15th birthday.


Ly uses time off from injury to serve on church mission


“I’m a person that believes everything hap- pens for a reason,” said Justin Ly a month be- fore leaving for a two-year mission to Vietnam for the Mormon Church.


An undiagnosed stress fracture in his groin helped set Ly’s mission in motion.


“I didn’t know I was injured and was trying really hard to skate through it,” he said. “The doctors said I needed to take time to heal.”


“Skating through it” meant a ninth-place fi n- ish in junior men at the 2016 U.S. Champion- ships after winning the novice silver medal in 2015. That’s when Ly learned he would need to take time off to heal, and his next step clicked into place.


“I felt like it was a sign,” he said. “I was up in the air about when to serve my mission and this was a sign that it was the right time to take a breather from training.”


As always, Ly’s faith was there to help him through a diffi cult time.


“I’ve been through some challenges,” he said. “My religion means a lot to me and sharing it with others has been special to me.”


It may only be happenstance that just when Ly, whose father is Vietnamese, was ready to serve his mission, an opportunity to go on a mission to Vietnam became available.


“My father was born in Saigon, and I still have a lot of family there,” he said.


Ly left home in Salt Lake City in October for a nine-week training session to learn the lan- guage and the ins and outs of mission life.


He leaves for Hanoi in January.


“Our home base will be Hanoi, but we’ll be moving all around the country,” he said. His skates are going with him.


“I asked the mission president if I could bring my skates,” Ly said. “Normally you are not al- lowed to participate in hobbies because it can distract you from your mission work, but skating is new to the Vietnamese and I can do my mission through skating.”


— Dave LeMieux 34 NOVEMBER 2016


It was a love aff air that led Hermann, now a member of the Amherst Skat- ing Club in Am- herst, New York, to sectionals and the U.S. Adult Championships a number of times over the years.


“Nothing alerted me to the stroke,” Hermann said. “There were no mental issues. I just hap- pened to have a hole in my heart and got a blood clot. From the start I just said, ‘This is where we are. From here it’s full force ahead and the sooner we get started the better.’”


Two days short of seven weeks after her stroke, Hermann was doing simple two-foot glides under the watchful eye of coach Carly Donowick.


“That fi rst session lasted a half hour and I slept for two days,” Hermann said. “It felt very sat- isfying.”


As satisfying as that fi rst session was, it has also been frustrating.


“My proprioception was completely off on my right side,” she said. “It was driving me nuts. My foot was turning out and I could hear it from the way the blade sounded. I was con- cerned I was forming bad habits so I asked Carly about it.”


Donowick, more concerned with assessing Hermann’s abilities and keeping her upright than critiquing her technique during that fi rst session, simply answered, “No, we’re good,” Hermann recalled, laughingly.


“Carly did a tremendous amount of work and never treated me as if I was fragile,” she said.


A week later (and after another session on ice) Hermann asked her physical therapist if it was OK if she tried to skate.


She was, in many ways, starting over again, retracing her fi rst steps in the sport.


This past summer was fi lled with hard work for Hermann. Two- to-three hour sessions, fi ve days a week left her toasted, she said. It has been like pairs skating, in way.


“I don’t get frustrated, but I do get annoyed with how my body is working,” Hermann said. “My left side and right side are split. My left side says, ‘This is the way you do it,’ and my right side says, ‘No. I want to do it this way.’”


It has been a partnership, as well, with the staff at the Amherst Skating Club, including Co-Director of Competitive Skating Kirk Wyse.


Together they’ve fi gured out what she can do and how she can best do it.


“When I landed my fi rst Axel at the end of July I skated over to Kirk and said, ‘I win!’” she said. “I hope to be back competing this year be- cause, why not? I’m not back to 100 percent, but it gives me something to work for.”


— Dave LeMieux Skating to five gold medals


Five times is the charm for Ice House Skating Academy club member Ashlyn Olson.


Ten years after taking her fi rst exam, her pre-preliminary moves-in-the-fi eld test, she is a fi ve-time U.S. Figure Skating gold medalist in moves in the fi eld, free skate, pairs, pattern dance and free dance.


She passed her senior moves-in-the-fi eld test on Jan. 6, 2012. She competed through the novice level in singles and pairs before test- ing out of both disciplines. She passed her senior free skate test on Aug. 27, 2015, and her senior pairs test on Feb. 11, 2016. In be- tween her singles and pairs tests, she passed her gold dances on Dec. 10, 2015. Olson said getting her fi fth gold, her senior free dance test, on Aug. 25, 2016, was exciting, yet bit- tersweet.


“I was so excited that I had worked so hard and gotten to this goal, but also I knew this was my last one and I wouldn’t do something like that again,” Olson said.


Olson is a freshman majoring in psychology at Oakland University in Michigan, and coach- es at Ice House Skating Academy in Hartland, Michigan. She plans on becoming a full-time coach after college. She still competes as a singles skater and is a member of the Harmo- ny Theatre Company’s senior team.


— Colette House


PHOTO BY C. MEGHAN THARP


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