enlarge Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Leah Israel, 9, of Cape Elizabeth and Maggie Nolan, 10, of Falmouth skate with other members of the North Atlantic Figure Skating Club during a practice in Falmouth.

enlarge Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Cecilia Kusturin, 7, of Gorham applies a flourish to her finish during a recent practice for the national championships.

enlarge Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Lori Johnson, coach of the North Atlantic Figure Skating Club synchronized skating team, leads a group in a series of moves.

enlarge Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

The Maplewood Highsteppers of Woodbury, Minn., practice Wednesday at the Cumberland County Civic Center. Ninety-two synchronized skating teams will compete in the sport’s national championships, held at the civic center today through Saturday.

TODAY'S SCHEDULE

• 1:15 p.m. – Opening ceremonies

• 2 p.m. – Juvenile free skate (12-20 skaters, all under age 13)

• 3:51 p.m. – Intermediate free skate (12-20 skaters, all under 18)

• 6:40 p.m. – Junior short program (12-16 skaters, 12 to 18)

DAILY TICKETS: $25 adults, $20 for children and seniors

ALL-EVENT TICKETS: $60/$50

 

FALMOUTH — Alan Wolf, president of the North Atlantic Figure Skating Club, strode past a door leading to the Cumberland County Civic Center ice surface Wednesday. In one arm was a box. In the hip pocket of his jeans was a walkie-talkie.

"There's always going to be a bump in the road," he said, stepping back to allow a line of more than a dozen identically dressed young ladies to clomp past in skate guards. "But we really haven't had any major issues yet."

The Falmouth-based club is putting on the U.S. synchronized skating championships that begin today and run through Saturday at the Civic Center. Many of the 92 teams and 1,700 skaters who qualified to compete in the event filtered through the Civic Center on Wednesday to register, check out the venue, and for those in the juvenile and intermediate divisions, practice on the newly repainted Civic Center ice, replete with a lighthouse logo at its center.

One of the parents in Wolf's club even managed to paint one of those touristy stick-your-face-in-the-hole wooden cut-outs where a visitor can pose for photographs as if he or she is a giant red lobster.

Last year's nationals in Providence, R.I., generated a six-figure profit for the host club. If the NAFSC can manage even half of that, Wolf said, it would make the club financially secure for several years, and fund its own synchro team to boot.

"We have no idea what the bottom line is going to be," said Wolf, whose club has been working on the event since the U.S. Figure Skating Association awarded it to Portland last May. "It's new to us and it's new to the Civic Center staff."

Steve Crane, general manager of the Civic Center, said he expects crowds of perhaps 3,000 on Friday and Saturday nights, when skaters from the upper levels of the eight divisions are featured. Spectators will sit on one side of the arena with judges opposite.

"You really can't measure this event by ticket sales," Crane said. "This is really about the volume of people who have come from all over the country, and booked hotel rooms. The real money is being spent outside of the Civic Center."

Rinks in Falmouth, Yarmouth, Portland and Saco are being used for practice, with the NAFSC reselling blocks of time to the visiting teams.

The club pays expenses for all 39 officials in attendance, including meals, hotel rooms and flights, so Wolf is hopeful a potential storm Sunday holds off at least until Monday, thus avoiding another night of lodging costs.

Ceremonies to open the competition are scheduled for 1:15 p.m. today and feature two groups of skaters from Wolf's club, including a nascent synchro team of eight girls aged 7 to 12. They'll be skating to the ABBA song "Mama Mia" in matching fuchsia costumes sewn by Meg Kusturin of Gorham, who has three daughters on the team.

"Synchro is a great way to keep kids skating who might otherwise leave skating," said Kusturin, who said she hopes the exposure to national-level skaters will elevate the activity, in her daughters' minds, from passing interest to something more. "Once they see these other girls skating, it's going to be a sport for them."

"What we're really trying to do now is to spark the interest," said Lori Johnson, coach of the NAFSC Nor'easters, as the young synchro team has dubbed itself.

"(Synchro) is not as demanding as trying to skate as an individual at a national level," said Deb Coppinger, NAFSC's director of skating. "So it's a way to keep girls and boys skating, and staying involved."

The only other organized synchro team in Maine hails from Colby College in Waterville, the Maineliners. A conflict with midterm exams caused them to decline an invitation to take part in the opening ceremonies, which will include a synchro team from Dover, N.H., and six non-synchro NAFSC skaters performing to music from the movie "Slumdog Millionaire."

"A lot of people wouldn't even know that synchronized...