Felicia Trinidad had a goal in mind when she was just 6 years old. She wanted to become a figure skater.
“I wanted to be good at a sport, so I figured I could become a figure skater,” said the 9-year-old Jersey City native. “I saw Michelle Kwan in the Olympics and I wanted to be just like her. I told my mother that I wanted to skate.”
Elizabeth Trinidad didn’t know how to break her little daughter into the world of figure skating. “I found out that there were lessons at Bayonne High School,” Elizabeth Trinidad said. “So that’s where I took her to learn.”
It didn’t take long for little Felicia to realize that skating wasn’t easy.
“I fell, but not a lot,” Felicia recalled. “I fell a little bit. It was very hard to learn, but I wanted to keep going. So when I fell, I just picked myself and kept going. After a few days, I learned how to go across the rink. That was a big accomplishment for me. It was pretty overwhelming.”
Soon after making it across the rink, Felicia Trinidad improved to where she was able to get more advanced lessons at the famed Ice House in Hackensack, the rink that produced Olympic champion Sarah Hughes as well as Guttenberg’s Kyoko Ina, the four-time pairs national champion.
“It was a big sacrifice for us,” Elizabeth Trinidad said. “It was very hard and very expensive. But once we started her in skating school, she really liked it, so we did whatever we could to let her keep going. Her coaches said that she really had potential, that she could make it.”
However, there was one obstacle about attending the figure skating lessons three times a week in Hackensack.
“I don’t drive,” Elizabeth Trinidad said. “It was very hard for us to get there.”
The mother of a fellow skater told Elizabeth about the skating lessons at the rink at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan.
There was only one problem with taking the skating lessons at Chelsea Piers. Young Felicia would have to take her lessons before she went to school at P.S. No. 38 in Jersey City’s Greenville section. Her daily lessons with Chinese coaches Hongyun Liu and his son Bing would begin at 6 a.m. The Lius have had a fine reputation for producing champions like Lucinda Rhue and Liu Chen.
So four times a week, Felicia and her mom board a local bus at 5:30 a.m. in order to get to Manhattan at 6.
“It’s not every morning, so it’s not so bad,” Felicia says. “I do need my rest. But it is hard at times to get up at five in the morning.”
Felicia has done the trek for the last two years, showing her true dedication to the sport.
Began to pay off
The dedication began to pay off as Felicia became more and more of an accomplished skater, winning several gold medals in local competitions.
Last June, Trinidad won the gold medal in the Crystal Blades competition at Mennen Arena in Morristown, winning the 9-and-10-year-old age bracket. There were other times when Felicia competed against older girls as well.
“I think I won like 20 medals,” said the bubbly Felicia, proudly wearing the string of medals around her neck.
Soon after winning the gold medal at the Crystal Skates, Felicia found out about an audition to perform in the second annual Stars, Stripes & Skates Icetravaganza, an event at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The event was slated to bring together members of the skating community along with celebrities to help raise money for the 9/11 Families Give Back Fund. Some of the skaters involved
included Nancy Kerrigan, Surya Bonaly and Phillippe Candeloro. Celebrities included recording artist Aaron Carter, actor Steve Buscemi and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
At the audition, Trinidad performed her routine to “God Bless the USA,” which was certainly fitting for the 9/11 commemorative event. She did so well that she was selected to perform with 15 other children from the metropolitan area.
“At first, I didn’t know if I would get selected,” Trinidad said. “My mother didn’t tell me that I was picked. When I got the letter telling me I was going, I was so excited.”
While she was happy to get a chance to meet Kerrigan and Bonaly, she still hasn’t had the chance to skate with her idol, although she has met Kwan at Rockefeller Center.
“Luckily, there was no school that day,” said Trinidad, who was fortunate enough to have her picture taken with her idol. “There was this contest on Disney Radio to get a private skating lesson with Michelle Kwan, but I didn’t win. I was calling to get through, but I found out I was dialing the wrong number.”
Trinidad said that skating on the ice of Nassau Coliseum was a “new experience.”
“It was like Madison Square Garden, maybe bigger,” said Trinidad, who is in fifth grade at P.S. 38. “There were no railings, so I was afraid that I would fall.”
Trinidad didn’t fall and had a chance to skate alongside some of the greats. She’s hopeful that it’s only the beginning, as she already has aspirations to perform in the Olympics some day. “That’s my goal,” Felicia Trinidad said. “That’s what I want.”
Trinidad is a well-rounded youngster. Not only is she a straight-A student in school, she also takes piano and dance lessons and does gymnastics. She’s won her share of awards for her gymnastic prowess. She also plays different sports in school, but her heart relies on her skates.
“There’s no better feeling than when I’m skating,” Felicia Trinidad said. “It makes me happy.”