When you think of Portland and figure skating, one person likely comes to mind: Tonya Harding. But over the past 10 years, a dedicated team of skaters and coaches in Sherwood have been working to put Oregon back on the national and international stage. Three of them are going to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Columbus, Ohio, this week.
“In the Northwest ... we haven’t really produced that many top skaters,” said Kehaunani “Mari” Malama. Malama is one of the coaches behind Sherwood Ice Arena’s high-performance team, Axis on Ice, whose skaters have reached elite levels of competition. “It was kind of our goal to turn that around and show that the Northwest can produce elite skaters — skaters who can go to worlds and want to go to the Olympics.”
It wasn’t an overnight success. “At first, we only had kids that were making it to regionals,” Malama said. “It was a huge, huge accomplishment for us for them to even make it to sectionals.”
“I’ve skated my entire life,” said Malama, who grew up in Honolulu. Her older sister, Nani Tanaka, was a high-level competitive skater who trained with Michelle Kwan. “When I was a baby, I was wrapped up in a blanket, taken to the rink, and that’s kind of how my life has been.”
Malama moved to Portland in 2006 to attend the University of Portland, planning to attend medical school. While in college, she started teaching at the Lloyd Center ice rink with her sister. So even though she was “dead set on medical school,” she started coaching more and more skaters. “And then I had two kids in particular that asked me, ‘Well, we want to do this. We have Olympic dreams, so we want to train full-time if you’re going to be available to coach.’” So, Malama chose figure skating coaching over becoming a doctor. But there wasn’t a blueprint for how to build world-class skaters in Oregon. To grow as a coach, she had to travel with her athletes to Colorado, California and Switzerland to be coached on how to coach future Olympians.
Initially, she frequently went on coaching trips to Irvine, California, to learn from 2022 Olympic Champion Nathan Chen’s coach, Rafael Arutyunyan, who told her that coaches need to be taught, too. He insisted she come with her skaters when she sent them to him.
“It really doesn’t matter if a skater leaves and learns from someone else and then comes back,” unless their coach learns along with them, Malama said.
Arutyunyan could look at her skater’s jumps and find the problem 10 steps before takeoff. He developed that keen eye by learning from other coaches, like famed Olympic figure skating coach Tatiana Tarasova.
Malama said it’s important to show her students that growth mindset, “I think it definitely passes on to them that we are trying to learn, always.”
The Champions
In a sport where girls outnumber boys three-to-one, Sherwood Ice Arena has built a team filled with talented male skaters. It began with Samuel Mindra, who started training with Malama when he was 10. Mindra has nine siblings, but his mom is glad he’s the only one pursuing a skating career. “I spend all my time at the rink. She’s like, ‘You got to be home more often,’” laughed Mindra.
Samuel Mindra, 20, is heading to his second U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
Emily Hamilton / OPB
Mindra pretty much lives at the rink. He gets up at 6:30 a.m. and drives 30 minutes from Portland to Sherwood, balancing skating, off-ice training, physical therapy, and coaching his own students.
He’s now 20 years old and working as a coach at Sherwood while prepping for his second U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Last year, during his debut at the championships’ senior level, he came in ninth, got a standing ovation and was invited to perform at the gala.
Mindra’s training mate, Michael Xie, is 18 years old and started skating after begging his parents to gift him skating lessons for his 10th birthday.
Michael Xie, 18, juggles his international competitions for Team USA with a courseload in linguistics and data science at University of California, Berkeley. He said he has one goal for his first competition at the senior level of U.S. Figure Skating Championships: “To show the best I can and inspire others.”
Emily Hamilton / OPB
His parents didn’t realize he might be able to get to the elite levels until he got his triple jumps at 13. “They weren’t unsupportive of it, but it was more like, ‘Oh, you can quit whatever you want. You’re spending a lot of money,” Xie laughed.
His mom drives him an hour to the rink in Sherwood from Camas, Washington. She said he’s trained elsewhere with high-profile Olympic coaches, but the supportive family environment at Sherwood Ice Arena is worth the trip.
Now Xie is juggling his skating with a courseload in linguistics and data science at University of California, Berkeley. He was assigned to represent Team USA at two international competitions this season, one in Osaka, Japan, and one in Bangkok, Thailand. He’s joined Berkeley’s collegiate figure skating team but has kept up training with Malama at Sherwood during breaks.
Ryan William Azadpour, 16, is going to his first competition at the junior level of U.S. Figure Skating Championships this year. “You have to love the sport,” said Azadpour. “You have to want to do it every day and you have to be disciplined to wake up early in the morning and go even if you don't want to, when you want to sleep more.”
Emily Hamilton
The youngest athlete is 16-year-old Ryan William Azadpour, who will compete in his first U.S. Figure Skating Championships at the junior level this year. He had a rough season last year and missed qualifying for the national development camp and considered quitting to focus on academics. But his love of skating made him keep pushing. “You have to love the sport,” said Azadpour. “You have to want to do it every day and you have to be disciplined to wake up early in the morning and go even if you don’t want to, when you want to sleep more.”
“It’s kind of daunting going to his first event,” said Malama. She told Azadpour she has no expectations for him beyond soaking up his first national championship. “Go and learn as much as you can. This is your first one and you’ll be back there.” Azadpour said this kind of environment is important for him, “This is a really supportive rink and the team here really motivates me to push myself,” he said.
Supportive training with an Olympics mindset
The coaching team in Sherwood created that training environment intentionally.
Malama wants to ensure there are opportunities for kids to get involved in figure skating at every level, with a clear stair-step from “learn to skate” to the elite competition track. That’s what the U.S. Figure Skating association is pushing rinks to establish: an American twist on the Soviet-style skating academies that are so good at producing Olympic champions.
Samuel Mindra warms up January 2024 at Sherwood Ice Arena, while coach Mari Malama works with another student in the background. Mindra will be competing at the 2024 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
Emily Hamilton
“We’re looking at other countries and what they’re producing and how the systems work. And also talking with people who have come from those systems,” said Malama.
The difference is that in many former Soviet countries, the state covers the high training costs. But in the United States, “Every family is responsible for their own finances, which makes it really difficult and limiting,” said Malama.
But what the team at Sherwood Ice Arena is doing is clearly working. Malama believes that the work over the past decade to build that family training atmosphere will pay off big time. And maybe we’ll have our first Oregonian Olympic figure skater in 32 years.
“That is definitely the goal,” said Malama. “We are trying.”
Ryan William Azadpour, Samuel Mindra and Michael Xie compete at the 2024 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Columbus, Ohio, on Jan. 22-28. You can find a full event schedule and where to watch here.