Alicia and Mary: Sisters, Skaters, and Podcasters

Hello and welcome to Dutch to Golden, a figure skating blog to satisfy astonishingly few of your skating news, analysis, and recap needs. I'm TJ Carey, and I'm someone with a lifelong love for figure skating, practicing, watching, and discussing, so let's delve deep into what's up with our interviewees this week.

I've posted several interviews with competitive skaters here before, where I've shared the stories that haven't made their way to an audience in a competitive arena, but lately, I've been looking to learn about and share the story of a couple people with a different role in the skating world. While I always enjoy uncovering the stories behind a skater, this time, I decided to uncover the story behind a voice, or more accurately, voices.

Mary (right) and Alicia (left) attending the 2019 Autumn Classic International

Alicia and Mary Mirtsos are a pair of sisters residing in the Toronto area who have been skating since they were both children, and their love for the sport stuck with them as they grew up to be huge fans of the sport. Their shared passion for skating is part of what led them to create their own podcast, Flutzes and Waxels, where they discuss the results and performances of recent elite competitions. They use their personal experience in training as skaters to provide insightful commentary on each skater. Their deep understanding of the development of elite athletes and the scoring used to evaluate them, as well as the close bond they share as siblings, always makes for an informative and entertaining episode, for both new and old fans of the sport.

Their journey in the sport began when their mother, a teacher in physical education and math, began taking Mary, the oldest daughter of the two, to a recreation center take part in different sports like swimming and soccer. This rec center was also the location of the Mariposa School of Skating, an organization in Barrie, Ontario that was the home of some of the world's best figure skaters. Even with the high caliber of training featured at that rink, passing spectators were lucky enough to be allowed to watch practice sessions, meaning someone like Mary could see high-level skating in person for the first time in her life.

"That's the beautiful thing about Mariposa, compared to places like the [Cricket Skating and Curling] club and the Granite Club in Toronto now, or even Ice Galaxy. They are a little bit more open, but for the most part, those sessions are pretty locked down. You don't have people just wandering through, but if the Mariposa was locked down like that, we would've never become skaters." Alicia added.

Mary in her early years of skating

From there, Mary began to learn to skate at the age of two. As her mother brought her to her first session, she strapped her into a pair of bob skates, which are platforms with two blades on the bottom that are tied to a young skater's shoes as a more stable alternative to traditional blades. Seeing that these were not the kind of skates she saw the other figure skaters wearing, young Mary began to throw a tantrum, saying "These aren't real skates! I want real skates!" This, Alicia believes, was the beginning of a hobby that both sisters would take very seriously throughout their lives. This quality of becoming fully invested in an interest and putting all of their effort into is something that the sisters believe is a big part of who they are as people.

"We don't really do much by half measures. If we're interested in something, we'll go whole-hog and spend way too many hours on a figure skating podcast," Mary noted.

That was the beginning of Mary's dedicated path to figure skating, and as she grew up going to the rink and watching competitions on TV, it was no surprise that Alicia would watch along and take an interest in the sport too. She took her first steps on the ice at the age of 3, and soon enough, her interest in the sport became just as deep as her sister's. She and Mary continued to go to the rink as a hobby while also becoming fans of the sport, taking every chance they could to see their skating idols. Growing up in the 1990s, at the time of figure skating's booming popularity across North America, competitions and professional shows were broadcasted in great numbers to Canadian TV audiences. With all this skating on the TV, it meant young Mary and Alicia could watch their favorite skaters, tape them on VHS, and watch them over and over until suddenly, the Michelle Kwan Mulan On Ice special snaps.

Mary (left) and Alicia (right) in their childhood

That was the unfortunate case for Alicia, but for Mary, she recalls being particularly interested in watching the Canadian dance couple of Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz. As Mary wasn't a fan of doing jumps, Bourne and Kraatz became her vision of what she would want to pursue in skating. "If I were to consider, you know, going somewhere with this, ice dance was always the route ... I remember watching them on TV and thinking 'Oh, that. That's what I want to do.'" A few years later, Alicia took a similar interest in Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, the successors to the Canadian dance throne. These teams became the sparks of the sisters' love for ice dancing that throughout their lives, they have never lost.

Currently, the sisters display their vast knowledge and great fondness for ice dancing, along with the other competitive disciplines, on their podcast, after each competition wraps up. Their deep understanding of ice dancing allows them to explain the complicated rules, mechanics, and scoring controversies to fans who are less familiar with the event. If there are viewers who need help understanding and recognizing the different options couples have for choreographic elements to perform, Alicia and Mary have a video on their YouTube channel to help. If someone needs a step by step explanation as to what happened on Papadakis and Cizeron's one foot sequence at the European Championships, there's a podcast episode waiting for them that covers everything they need.

Of course, with all of this knowledge of the regulations and mechanics of the sport, it's no surprise that while these two love to watch ice dancing, they are sticklers, or as they them to call themselves, "The Mean Judges." When watching the required pattern dance section of a team's rhythm dance, Alicia and Mary will be quick to call out when a cross-roll is performed more like a cross step, a key point is scratchy, or an untraditional free leg is not their favorite. Some might wonder why it is that they tend to critique teams with such a high standard. If one person where to be assigned the responsibility, it would probably be their former dance coach, Scott Chalmers.

While they first knew him as a coach for CanSkate, Skate Canada's introductory skating program, Scott was always especially passionate about coaching higher level ice dancing, and teaching skaters exactly how to execute their turns and steps correctly. He was a strict coach, but as tough as he was during lessons, he was still a kind person to the sisters as well as his other students. "It really came from a place of love and respect for the sport of ice dance, and so he was very particular about how you executed turns. it wasn't just about getting the edges correct," Alicia explained.

Alicia, along with Mary, quickly developed
a desire for perfection from a young age.

Scott also had the philosophy of having his students work on their skating until it was perfect, instead of simply reaching a level that was sufficient for passing a test. He would work to have skaters be so prepared for their tests that failing would be nearly impossible. This approach was something the sisters greatly admired, and one that they struggled to find while working with other coaches later in their lives. "I did fail a few [tests] when I wasn't working with Scott. I never failed a single test when I was working with him, because he would say 'No, you are not ready. You're not testing it,'" Mary noted. Even after passing a test, Scott would have his students correct the errors they made on their previous test. The sisters believe that this mindset is a big part of what made them who they are now.

Mary had even taken from Scott in her short-lived partnership with the only boy at their local rink. She had considered committing to the competitive track as a teenager, but the sacrifices her family would've had to make made that too difficult. She doesn't really regret this, as she and Alicia much preferred the day-to-day process of training and practicing over actually competing. The opportunity to learn and improve on each session was the foundation of their relationship with the ice.

In 2017, the sisters began a new part of their relationship to skating: their podcast.

Frustrated with the "surface-level" skating coverage they'd seen in the media that normally discussed just the top finishers at big events, the sisters thought were was something missing, something more comprehensive, that should exist. Now living together as adults, Alicia and Mary found themselves having a weekly in-depth conversation about whatever competition had just ended, and through these conversations, they found what they were looking for in figure skating media. "Because we had felt that frustration about the thing that we felt like was missing, we decided that 'Well, we might as well try to fill the gap,'" Alicia said. They were inspired by a film podcast called Linoleum Knife, hosted by two husbands who essentially add a couple microphones to a conversation they were already going to have with each other.

With Alicia having an understanding of how to start a podcast from studying media in college, as well as Mary having friends working in music who she could borrow recording equipment from, the two were set up for an inexpensive start to their new project. 

Something that the two sisters have discovered overtime while creating episodes is that even with the two microphones placed in front of them, it's easy to feel like they don't need to put on a performance for anyone. This is not only because of the absence of a video format, and therefore a camera, but also that the conversations they have for their podcast feel just like the conversations they would have outside of the show. "It doesn't feel as much like a performance, like you're putting on a persona for other people, because it's easy to just forget that 'Oh no, I'm just sitting here chatting,'" Mary noted.

The sisters are now creating episodes for a fifth consecutive figure skating season, and even as they've gained an audience over time, it still feels as though they're recording episodes for a small handful of listeners. Of course, they understand what it means to provide criticism for young athletes, and as a result, they do their best to provide commentary that is both positive and constructive. "We created this show talking about juniors first, thinking about how we wanted to talk about skating in a way that, if it was something I wouldn't say to a kid's parents, I'm not going to say it on the air," said Alicia. They have received messages, all very positive, over the years from skaters who they've talked about on the show, but every time they get a direct message on Instagram from a blue check-marked account, their hearts sink as they wonder if they crossed the line and upset a skater.

The first response they got from a skater, however, is one they will never forget. A junior ice dancer, who had been featured on the podcast, reached out to Alicia and Mary, thanking them for being so positive in their reviews. This was a big reminder of what kind of impact this show can have on the young athletes being discussed. "We're giving our honest opinions, and to hear that that meant something to somebody, it's nice to hear. It's like we're putting a little bit of an impact, however small."

It's a tough balance. While they both try to be as encouraging as possible for the skaters, they're still "The Mean Judges." What connects their encouraging attitudes and their high standards of quality is their consistent desire for skaters to be the best they can be, just like their former coach, Chalmers. It's this same desire for the well being and success for the athletes that has made them so vocal about safety in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while they did receive some criticism for speaking in depth about what could have been done to better protect athletes, they still felt a respnosibility to advocate for the health of everyone involved in recent competitions.

Having a deep appreciation for all skaters in an event is something that Alicia and Mary would like to share with their listeners. With primetime television coverage often only showing the top skaters in an event, it is difficult to become fully invested in the careers of skaters who are rarely shown in these segments. With a more comprehensive format designed to see both a skater's strengths and their opportunities for improvements, the sisters hope that their show will encourage viewers to root for more skaters than just those at the top. "The sport is better for it if you can appreciate more than just the top few skaters, and I really think you are better for it when you can appreciate more than just the top couple of skaters," said Alicia. "There is nothing that gets us more excited than seeing a junior, especially ice dance team, I mean that's our soft spot and I think everybody knows that at this point, but to see a junior dance team and say 'Yeah, that maybe wasn't a great set of skates, but look at this thing that you've got.'" All in all, their goal is simple, to leave figure skating better than they found it.

The sisters' shared love for skating has taken them many places
together, including the Lake Placid JGP in 2019 with their mother!

I had thought about ending the interview at this point, but through talking about their upbringings in the sport, their skating idols growing up, and the beginning of their podcasting endeavors, there was one crucial question I knew I needed an answer to. What lead Mary and Alicia to pursue their interest in the sport together, instead of separately, after all these years?

"I think the biggest thing is that we have always been fairly close. Everybody I talk to who finds out that I have a podcast with my sister goes 'I could never do that with my sibling!' and there was absolutely a period in time when we were teenagers where I would've said the same thing, but we've always been fairly close. We've always been quite a lot alike. and we also both quite like structure in our lives, quite a lot, so this gives us a place to have the time to spend together that's kind of non-negotiable at this point," Alicia explained.

Recording episodes for the podcast acts as a routine way for the sisters to spend time with each other, and it's this structured activity that makes it easier for them to connect, especially after a long day of work. "We both work 9 to 5's, and whether it's like now, when we're in separate rooms on our laptops for COVID times, or often different parts of the city at the job, when you get home from work and you're exhausted and you just want to eat dinner, lie in bed, and watch something on your laptop, this is a good excuse to say 'No, we're gonna hang out right now and talk about skating,'" Mary said.

It's their shared interest in skating that may have also kept them from drifting apart earlier in life. When Alicia moved away from home to go to college, she was still able to bond with her older sister over the ongoing Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. "It was really nice," Alicia said,  "to have that thing to bond over where we didn't know anybody else who cared nearly as much as we did."

Alicia and Mary were an absolute pleasure to talk to. It felt like I had my own exclusive episode to listen to! The way they bounced back and forth between each other for responses is very reminiscent of how they speak on the show, and it really shows just how close they are. You can find their weekly recap episodes of major skating competitions at Flutzes and Waxels Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. To keep up with them on social media, get in contact with them, or access bonus content and merchandise, here's where you can find them:

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: @flutzescast

YouTube: Flutzes and Waxels Podcast

Gmail: flutzescast@gmail.com

Patreon: patreon.com/flutzescast

Redbubble: flutzescast.redbubble.com

Happy Listening!

-TJ