Welcome to IDC’s New Team Series! For this series, we interview athletes who will enter the upcoming 2024-25 season in a new partnership, or debuted last season. In our seventh interview, we meet Summer Homick & Nicholas Buelow, junior ice dancers who represent Canada and train at Mariposa School of Skating in Barrie, Ontario.

On ice photo by Yoriko Suzuki.

Tell us about your individual skating journeys, including any early special memories.
Summer began skating at the age of 4 in the Canskate program in Tillsonburg, Ontario and started as a singles skater until she was thirteen. At age 13 she began pairs and after three seasons of pairs skating she transitioned into ice dance.

Nicholas started free skating in Barrie when he was 5. He started because he had siblings in the sport and he wanted to give it a try for himself. When he was 8 he was approached by his now coach David Islam as to if he wanted to try ice dance and he wanted to continue to pursue that side of the sport. He continued to do both disciplines up until the age of 13 when he switched to just ice dance.

What drew you to ice dance?
When Nicholas first started ice dance at age 8, he realized he loved the performing side of skating and wanted to continue skating with someone. Summer was approached by an ice dance coach when she was a pairs skater who told her she should consider ice dance. After a few days of tryouts for ice dance, she was so interested in the discipline and wanted to pursue it.

Tell us how your partnership started. Describe the tryout.
Our partnership started when Summer was in the transition from pairs to ice dance and we were both on the look for new partners. Summer’s pair coach, Alison Purkiss, reached out to our current coach, Mitch Islam, asking if Nicholas would be interested in doing a tryout with Summer. About a week later we had our first tryout and it went so well. We immediately felt a connection even though we had never met before. During this tryout we both found out we have similar dreams and aspirations in the sport of figure skating.

What is it that you already like most about dancing with your new partner?
Summer likes most about Nicholas is his dedication to the sport and his work ethic. Nicholas has a positive mindset and is always willing to try new things.

Nicholas likes that Summer is always willing to try again when something isn’t right and that she will do whatever it takes to achieve her dreams.

What experiences do each of you bring to the partnership? (International competitions, training, etc.)
Nicholas competed on the junior international circuit for two years with his former partner.

Summer competed pairs for one year on the Junior Circuit nationally and internationally with her previous pair partner. Following the junior year, Summer competed for two seasons in senior pairs.

What has been the biggest adjustment for each of you so far in the partnership?
The biggest adjustment for both of us was figuring out each others routines at competition and matching our energy levels at events. Overall, we just needed to figure out what each other needs in order to be as successful as possible.

Tell us about your training site.
We train at Mariposa School of Skating with our lovely coaching staff, Mitch and David Islam, Kelly Johnson, and James Callan. We skate four hours a day, five days a week at Allandale Recreation Centre in Barrie, Ontario. We are also fortunate to have an environment filled with supportive training mates who help push us to be better.

Who are your coaches? 
Our coaches our Mitch and David Islam, Kelly Johnson, and James Callan and after we partnered up, Summer moved to Barrie to train at the Mariposa School of Skating.

Who is choreographing your programs. Is someone else arranging your music? If so, please share those experiences.
Our rhythm dance is choreographed by Mitch Islam and Kelly Johnson and our free dance is choreographed by Kaitlyn Weaver and Mitch Islam. When we found out the rhythm dance theme for this season, Grease was one of the first options and we were sold on the idea. We loved the idea of portraying the character of Sandra Dee and Danny and wanted to bring this movie onto the ice. Our free dance is a piece of music from Sleeping at Last and is so special to us as we tell the story of the two sides of love. The beginning starts with cautious side of love where you are scared to lose your person and the second piece builds to the carefree part of being in love and not wanting to live without your person.

If you could have a lesson with any ice dancer past/present, who would it be? Why?
Nicholas would be interested in having a lesson with Adrian Diaz. He seems like we would have an interesting view on how we can improve.

Summer would have a lesson with Madison Chock because she is so talented and has unique programs every season.

What is each of you looking forward to most this skating season? What will be your biggest challenge(s)?
We are looking forward to our first National Championship together as a team. We will also be looking forward to continuing to gain experience as a team and growing together as athletes and people. Our biggest challenge is adapting to this change of discipline and getting comfortable with each others personalities.

Tell us about your debut competition this season?
Our debut competition was Next Gen Camp in July of this year. We had struggles initially while we were figuring out how competing together would work, however after the rhythm dance we were able to come back and put out a free dance that both of us were happy with.

Please share anything you would like our readers to know about you as a team?
We are both same age and attend the same school. We love the training environment at Mariposa School of Skating and our teammates are so uplifting and we strive to inspire others around us.