"I loved how it looked and said ‘I want to do that'," the now 17-year-old athlete says.
Hopper is a senior at Liverpool Regional High School. Over the past nine years, she has figure skated competitively, volunteered with CanSkate and recently trained to become a paid coach with the Queens County Blades skating club.
There are many different technical aspects of figure skating; Hopper likes to spin.
“I’ve always had stronger spins than jumps,” she says. “The jumps kind of came later so I’ve always prided myself in my spins.
Hopper works with coach Heidi Clattenburg-Sparkes to choreograph the routines to include the technical aspects necessary for each competition.
She skates to various genres of music and prefers a quick tempo.
"Last year I skated to jazz and the year before it was river dancing, I do the tango… this year I have an orchestral piece but it's an upbeat piece," she says. Being a singer, Hopper is quite picky about her music,
she says.
The teenager sings competitively, is a part of the Queens County Girls Choir, has been part of stage productions by the Winds of Change Theatre Society and spent the past summer singing with the Nova Scotia Youth Choir.
"I loved how it looked and said ‘I want to do that'," the now 17-year-old athlete says.
Hopper is a senior at Liverpool Regional High School. Over the past nine years, she has figure skated competitively, volunteered with CanSkate and recently trained to become a paid coach with the Queens County Blades skating club.
There are many different technical aspects of figure skating; Hopper likes to spin.
“I’ve always had stronger spins than jumps,” she says. “The jumps kind of came later so I’ve always prided myself in my spins.
Hopper works with coach Heidi Clattenburg-Sparkes to choreograph the routines to include the technical aspects necessary for each competition.
She skates to various genres of music and prefers a quick tempo.
"Last year I skated to jazz and the year before it was river dancing, I do the tango… this year I have an orchestral piece but it's an upbeat piece," she says. Being a singer, Hopper is quite picky about her music,
she says.
The teenager sings competitively, is a part of the Queens County Girls Choir, has been part of stage productions by the Winds of Change Theatre Society and spent the past summer singing with the Nova Scotia Youth Choir.
Season goals
Hopper has been competing since she was 11.
This year is likely the Liverpool resident’s last year figure skating competitively and she says she hopes to achieve some personal goals.
“I’d like to skate a clean program which means I would do all my jumps and spins perfectly, I wouldn’t fall at all, that would be good,” she says.
She’s also looking to compete again the three main competitions she was in last year: the Rob McCall Memorial Competition, provincials, and Skate Atlantica – a competitive tournament for the top-six figure skaters in each level from the Atlantic Provinces. She’s also competing in Fall Skate in St. Margaret’s Bay this November.
After hanging up her skates, Hopper has academic goals in her mind. She’s looking at universities’ science programs, and hopes to go on to medical school.