Mariposa School of Skating
| Formation | 1973 |
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| Headquarters | |
| Location | |
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Director
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Doug Leigh |
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Coaches
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| Website | www |
The Mariposa School of Skating, located in Barrie, Ontario, is a major figure skating training center in Canada.
The school was founded in Orillia, Ontario in 1973 by Doug Leigh and Tom Harrison. The school moved to Barrie in 1988 after the Orillia city council refused to allow the building of a new rink on land to be donated to the school by Georgian College.
The current head coaches at Mariposa are Leigh for singles, Lee Barkell for pairs, and David Islam for ice dancing.
Leigh began a novice skating career, but had to quit at age 16 to finish his schooling. However, he had the opportunity of competing in the Junior Championships of Canada in 1966, finishing in second place. In 1969 he began his coaching career and since embarking on the Mariposa skating school he has coached at 6 Olympic competitions and 26 World Championships. The name "Mariposa", which means "butterfly" in Spanish, refers to author Stephen Leacock's fictional name for Orillia, the school's original home.
The Mariposa School of Skating has many different programs and opportunities such as The Seminar, Summer School (an extension of the seminar), A Cooperative education program for High Performance Athletes,Spring school/Fall school, Canskate programs, and Power skating programs. Although this internationally known organization is acknowledged for coaching many well-known Olympic athletes, programs are provided even for the youngest and least experienced of groups. Worldwide, anyone is welcome to register for these programs and even though countries such as Canada and the USA are the more popular candidates, skaters from South Africa, China, Japan, and Europe are also known to have attend such events. By far, the most popular program is their Summer School program which in fact is an extension of "the Seminar". It usually begins mid-June, and can last from 4 days all the way up to 7 weeks of training. The common misconception is that this seminar only contains on-ice program training, however it in fact, contains many other components.
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Wikipedia