November 23, 2024
Sports

2-time ice dance champ to skate in P.I. program Limestone native O’Keefe in 2 shows

Kevin O’Keefe doesn’t get a whole lot of time off.

This week, the Limestone native and two-time national ice dancing champion is spending some of his down time in Aroostook County and will be a featured performer in today’s “Blast from the Past” skating show at The Forum in Presque Isle.

There will be shows at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.

The 24-year-old, Detroit, Mich.-based O’Keefe, who is taking part in the Presque Isle show for the first time in five years, will skate two routines in each of today’s performances.

The Forum was his home rink as a youngster. He started his career as a figure skater but changed to ice dancing when he was 14.

“It’s good to be back up here,” said O’Keefe, who graduated from the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in 2000 and is staying this week with his parents, Jerry and Norma O’Keefe of Limestone. “I’ve seen a lot of familiar faces.”

Among O’Keefe’s career honors are two national titles at the intermediate and novice levels – he has competed in seven national championships – and medals at the U.S. Sectionals and the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships in New York.

A 2005 graduate of Northeastern University in Boston, O’Keefe skated and worked full time as an engineer at a robotics company in Massachusetts before moving to Michigan.

O’Keefe didn’t skate competitively this past season but spent the winter as a full-time coach with the Crystallettes Synchronized Figure Skating Team at the Dearborn Figure Skating Club in Dearborn, Mich.

He coached school-aged skaters in the mornings and evenings, which allowed him a lot of flexibility to practice on his own.

“It opens up the entire day to train for myself,” O’Keefe said. “Also, I work for myself, so it’s easy to get away for a few days for a competition.”

O’Keefe is searching for a new partner, which will be his first order of business this spring.

Once he finds someone with whom he can compete, the pair will spend the rest of the spring and summer learning choreography and getting in shape for a meet in August in which the U.S. federation will select the skaters it sends to compete in the Grand Prix, which is an international competition series.

The year’s schedule means skaters get little down time, O’Keefe said. Skaters spend the spring and summer training, developing new routines, and traveling around the country to participate in skating shows.

O’Keefe said most skaters are paid to appear in shows, but he’s performing in Presque Isle for free.

“I’m just happy they invited me to come up here and skate,” he said.


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