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BOULDER, Colo. -

Hands up if you knew the University of Colorado had a club sport dedicated to figure skating.

Keep them up if you knew it was for synchronized skating -- a team form of the sport within the predominantly individual world of figure skating.

Yes, it's true -- the CU synchronized skating team, now in its third year as a club sport, doesn't exactly steal the spotlight.

However, if these women meet their goals as a team, they may be able to turn CU into an outpost for the sport at the college level in the western half of the United States.

CU junior Jenny Spencer started the club two years ago as a freshman, and immediately began searching for skaters on campus.

"We did a lot of advertising on Facebook," Spencer said. "I searched for skaters at Colorado and came up with a big list."

Last year, the club began competition, and this year it has added a coach to help choreograph routines.

The sport of synchronized skating takes moves and techniques from traditional singles figure skating and combines them with the sort of team choreography that looks like a marching band on ice.

At its current collegiate open level within the United States Figure Skating Association, the CU club competes with at least eight members on the ice at all times; at higher levels, 12 or 16 skaters take to the rink during a program.

"You form together in chains or circles and do elements," senior Kelly Ascher said. "At the higher levels, you get lifts, groups of two or three girls lifting another girl."

Skaters rely on one another not only during complicated lifts, but even just in basic formations, as they hold onto teammates' shoulders.

Eastern sport

Club members said the team is one of the westernmost squads in the country; the sport is centered on the northeast and upper-midwest, but Colorado is a small oasis.

"There's a couple teams in California, (and) it's us and CSU in Colorado," Ascher said.

However, the nearby Broomfield Event Center recently hosted a major regional event: the USFSA Midwest and Pacific Coast Synchronized Skating Sectionals, which ran Jan. 29 through 31.

CU topped Colorado State in their sectional competition to claim victory; even better was the recruiting opportunity it granted the team.

"Having our sectionals competition so close to home was awesome for us," Ascher said. "We used it as a big recruiting tool."

The team took skaters on tours and hosted events -- and already has three or four athletes interested in attending CU next year and joining the team.

"We have some girls coming out already next year," Spencer said. "It's looking really good right now."

New recruits

Those skaters hopefully will be able to step right onto the ice and into the team as freshmen, because the club jumps right into competition planning and training as soon as the school year starts.

"At the beginning of the season, before we get a formal program, we do drills, just to get us skating together," junior Amanda Huelsman said. "After a while we have a choreographed program with different elements."

The programs are prepared for the club's primary competitions: an invitational in Michigan in December and the late-January sectionals.

Right now, though, the club's members are enjoying practice time and preparing a show routine, which will be seen at the minor-league Rocky Mountain Rage hockey game at the Broomfield Event Center on March 13; ticket sales through the club are a fundraiser.

"It's really fun to have the spring to do a show program and do really fun, cool things," Ascher said.