After giving more than 50 years of her time to skaters from around the area, the area is giving back to Wendy Toye as she is set to be inducted into the Humboldt and District Hall of Fame.
Toye said it came as a shock when she learned of her impending induction, noting she was surprised to know that 50 years of volunteering was enough to get in.
Toye started her figure skating career in LeRoy when she was 7 or 8 years old.
In the late 1960’s when the National Skating Test program was first introduced Toye was trained as an amateur coach and began coaching beginner skaters.
Toye coached a number of clubs around the area during her years as a skater including LeRoy, Watson, Jansen, Muenster, and Humboldt.
After a number of years skating, Toye made the jump to judging, on the advice of her mother, who was already a judge.
“When I was 15 my mom said I should write this test and start trial judging and I did and I’ve been judging tests and some competitions ever since.”
Toye began as a preliminary level judge and moved her way up to senior bronze accreditation prior to her completing high school.
After high school Toye slowed down her judging duties to focus on school, starting up again once her children began skating.
“I got involved and did some coaching but soon realized that it was the judging that I really enjoyed,” she wrote in a biography submitted to the Humboldt Journal.
She began judging juveniles, writing a test every couple of years until she eventually was accredited to judge gold in all levels.
During this time Toye also acted as a clinic instructor, where she instructed training sessions to judges, evaluators, and coaches from around the province.
Toye also became certified as a novice competitive judge and judged many regional and provincial competitions.
Today Toye remains an accredited gold level test judge but has since stopped judging competitive competitions, noting that the constant changes to the accreditation process and the lack of time forced her to give it up.
“I still do tests in town and the local area because that really hasn’t changed. Well lots has changed since the beginning.”
In addition to judging Toye has also served a variety of roles within the provincial figure skating community, serving on the executive of the Humboldt club for a number of years before transitioning to the role of Quill Plains Regional Figure Skating Coordinator from 1984-1986.
After three years in that position Toye moved to another position serving as CanSkate Director.
“This position put me in charge of all the learn to skate, learn to figure skate, and power skating programs in every club in the province as well as training of all the coaches,” she noted in the biography.
In September 1993 the Coaches and Officials Development seminar began in Humboldt, which Toye, along with Nadia Stevenson, served as site organizers for many years.
Throughout the years Toye has helped bring a number of events to Humboldt including Annual General Meetings, test days, spring and fall skating schools, and regional and provincial competitions.
Toye has also lent a hand at the provincial level serving as a judge at five of the last six Saskatchewan Winter Games, including the 1990 games in Melville, which served as a memorable experience.
With low numbers of males set to enter the Winter Games, Toye and the provincial board decided to allow more girls, which was a good idea, she noted, until a couple of weeks before the competition she had a sudden realization that it is going to increase the number of girls in each flight.
“So I phoned the chairman in charge and she said ‘yes, there’s a flight of 36 and a flight of 24’ and we had to judge them manually, without a computer, because at that time the computer system would only judge 20… so they had to count it manually and we had to judge it,” she says.
“So talk about having a good idea and having to pay the price for that idea.”
To this day Toye, who has judged for approximately 50 years, continues to do so.
Over the course of her career Toye has been awarded a number of volunteer awards including the Program Planning Award in 1988, the Saskatchewan Figure Skating Association Coaches Choice Award in 1992, and the Sask Sport Volunteer Award in 1993, among others.
Looking back at her career she says the thing that stands out the most for her is watching these skaters grow up from passing their first test to winning a medal at regional competitions, before moving on to National, International, and Olympic events.
“I’ve seen a lot of kids start out maybe not so good but accomplish great things over the years and even in test skating that’s what it’s all about, seeing them progress.”
Toye said a big part of the reason she started coaching and judging and a big part of the reason she continues to do so is because there is a large need for it and a real shortage in up and coming judges.
She admits she is not sure what the answer is to improving the number of judges and coaches in the province, but says one thing that might help is making the training less difficult.
“You have to take a lot of training and the training is getting to be more and more and if people can’t do it gradually as they go along then they just get discouraged and stop.”
Toye says she has noticed a real improvement in the quality of the skaters over the last 50 years, noting the coaching is better today than it was when she was skating.
With judges and coaches in high demand Toye says anyone looking to follow in her footsteps needs to have an interest in figure skating.
Toye, along with Kelly Bates, Brad Lauer, Jerome Engele, and the 2007-2008 Humboldt Broncos will all be inducted into the hall at this year’s induction ceremony on June 24.
To read more about Jerome Engele, Kelly Bates, and Brad Lauer.
For more information on the 2007-2008 Humboldt Broncos check out next week’s Humboldt Journal in the lead up to the June 24 induction ceremony.
