NashvilleScene: Nashville Is a Southern Skating Hub

Everyone now knows that Nashville is a hockey town. It may have taken almost two full decades, but by the time the Nashville Predators made the franchise’s first run to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2017, Music City had given its chilly, gold-drenched smilodons a warm embrace.

But Nashville’s status as a Southern figure-skating hub isn’t as well-known. Twenty months prior to the Predators’ first game at Bridgestone Arena, the downtown venue — then known as Nashville Arena — played host to the 1997 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, jump-starting the city’s status as one of the premier figure-skating locales in the South. 

Seeing stars like Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan in person was surely a big moment for local Olympic hopefuls, but there weren’t always easy pathways to high-level skating instruction within reasonable driving distance. Attempting to excel in any nontraditional sport can put a financial and logistical strain on families. Laura Sanders Holzman, an ex-pro figure skater who has taught young athletes across the state, started Nashville Skating Academy with that in mind.