Denny Morrison Website

Written by: Denny Morrison

Calgary, March 13^th 2007 - About eight weeks before Finale, Jamie Ivey and I were out with some friends at Joey Tomatoes. Through the conversation, it was brought up that Jamie had a pair of very old wooden skates hanging in his living room. A few drinks later, we decided that it would make for an amazing race at Finale if we were to skate a 500m against each other on these skates. Since Jamie had three pairs, we figured we could rig up at least two pairs of them and make them skate-able. We also though that Finale would be the perfect place to have such a race and to pay a tribute to the pioneers of the sport!

We signed up for the 500m at Finale, which was on the Tuesday following my Monday afternoon return from the World Single Distances Championships in Salt Lake City. This gave us only half a day to prepare for the race the next morning. We took the skates to the 7:00 public skating session, and after a short and harsh sharpening job, we tested our ankle strength with a few laps around the track. Ivey had the 14" wood, while I only had 12".

We didn’t think this would make a huge difference, but once on the ice it was definitely noticeable. After successfully using the skates as a conversation piece to coax a couple of good-looking girls into talking to us, things got serious. The 8:40 ‘Links’ ice session started and after Ivey skated a few laps behind a senior skater on Clap skates, we took turns doing our pre-race tempos. Ivey clocked a 37.69, while I failed to complete a lap with my first effort on my skates. I swapped Ivey and after a lengthy one lap warm-up on them, flew to a 39.1 second tempo. Two broken leather straps, and a split rivet later, we called it a day. We took the blades to the High Performance Olympic Oval Skate Tech, Dustin Johnston, who did an excellent, hand-coordinated job, smoothing out the rocker on my blades to a perfect 8m ( +/- 5m ), with the hockey skate sharpener. He did the same with Ivey’s skates, achieving a very nice 12m rocker ( +/- 5m ). At 10:45 pm me and Jamie finally left the Oval and headed over to James Lewis' house for some quick skate repair. (James Lewis is a friend and teammate of ours who makes high performance carbon fiber boots for Jamie and other High Performance skaters.) He was able to sew the leather strap on one of the skates back together, but had to hammer a new rivet through the clasp on the other skate. We left his house at about 11:30 and decided to leave the final sharpening touches until the morning before the race.

The morning of, we use Shapton stones to sharpen our blades to an illustrious polish, and head onto the ice 30 minutes before our race. Wearing the traditional warm-up blazers, overtop of our classic one-colour skin suits, hand-knit toques, (with custom two-toned ‘J’, and ‘d’ lettering woven respectably into the upper portion of each), formal black business dress shoes, with of course ‘houtjes’ strapped right onto them! To top it off, brand new, 2007 model, Kaenon HardKore high performance racing glasses with large sized G-12 polarized lenses. Skating together with our game faces on, we do two sets of warm-up laps, some light accels, and attempt a roll start and standing starts – Jamie performing the first ever toe-start on houtjes. We get our arm bands, and relax on the bench as the pair before us lines up to race. Sitting quietly on the bench looking at the ice, our heads intensely jerk up, Erben-style, as the gun fires, starting the race before us. Now focused and poised for the upcoming 500m, we remove our warm-up blazers and make our way to the line.

In the ready position, we demonstrate an ultra low tuck F Yu style start position and the gun goes. I immediately have one, two, four slips and finally find my groove. Ivey is fast off of the line, but tops out early at the 50m mark. I attack and sail past Jamie in the first inner. He responds and counter attacks in the second half of the first turn. Mark Wild shows us our 12.15 and 12.77 second openers, while Jamie manages to get close enough on the back stretch to gain a draft – saving him approximately 1.5 seconds in the final time. My second corner is as sloppy as a Dutch groupie at Café Bok, after the World All-rounds, and Jamie pulls ahead. Far far ahead. I try to gain easy speed in the final 100m, but it is too little, too late. Jamie wins the race, skating a new track record, provincial record, national record, and unofficial world record for houtjes skates with a time of 47.55. My time of 48.17 is also good for a provincial record in BC on houtjes.

We glide around in our victory lap, and two minutes later make it to the front stretch where a standing ovation and elated crowd cheer us on as we struggle our way to the bench. The houtjes race is bound to become an annual event, and may eventually be given its own time slot for racing at Finale. A victorious day for Jamie Ivey, but more importantly, a special day for the history of the sport of speed skating throughout the world!

Photo Credits:

Photo 1: Denny Morrison and Jamie Ivey at the startline of their 500m race at Finale, credit Robert Braam
Photo 2: Jamie Ivey and Denny Morrison, credit Crystal Phillips

Last week (17 Juin 2007) Denny Morrison was named Long Track Male Skater of the Year by Speed Skating Canada after a successful season that he concluded on wooden skates, or ‘houtjes’, at Finale in Calgary. This 500m raised quite a few eyebrows and even more questions. Does this race imply Morrison may be considering a switch to houtjes permanently? Was this the best race possible at the time or is there still room for improvement? And how will he make sure he will be even faster on houtjes next year? Here’s an interview with Morrison to answer all these questions once and for all.

By Jolanda Abbes, originaly posted on http://www.speedskating-online.com/

After Denny Morrison’s return to Calgary from the World Single Distances Championships in Salt Lake City, which were very successful for him with two silver medals and a bronze medal, he and Jamie Ivey signed up for the 500m at Finale. This may not sound all that remarkable, had it not been for the fact that they planned to race it on wooden skates, or ‘houtjes’ in Dutch, a type of skates that is not very well known in Canada, but is still commonly found throughout The Netherlands. In fact, most Dutch children still learn how to skate on houtjes, but it is definitely not the type of skates on which one would expect to see an Olympic silver-medalist or, for that matter, on which world records are to be expected anytime soon. But then again, a world record was not what they had in mind in the first place, as Morrison explained earlier in his own account of that race: “We just wanted to pay a tribute to the pioneers of the sport!”

Eventually however, they did the unthinkable and raced a better race than anyone could ever have predicted beforehand. Not only did they crush their own expectations of what would be possible on these skates and were they able to set some very strong personal best times, but even the world record on houtjes proved to be not too far out of reach. In the end, Ivey managed to skate a new track record, national record and unofficial world record on houtjes with a time of 47.55, whereas Morrison’s time of 48.17 was good for a provincial record on houtjes in BC. 

The first question that comes to mind is whether Morrison had any trouble getting used to skating on houtjes, which after all are very different from the skates on which he usually races: “I had never skated on houtjes before the public skating session, the night before our big race. I think Ivey may have been practicing up on them though, because he seemed to catch on much faster than I could. It took me a good two hours to become confident enough on the skates to do a flying lap, and even then it was pretty sketchy. Looking back however, I think it was the poor rocker that was giving me such a bad feel. Still, we got them rockered to a perfect 8m radius, plus or minus 5 meters!”

Even though houtjes are still common practice among Dutch children learning how to skate, it is not a popular type of skates in the rest of the world. Morrison: “I actually had no idea that anyone had skated on a pair of skates like this since about 1869. The houtjes that we skated on especially were quite old and in terrible shape. We were surprised that they held up as well as they did. One thing I noticed right away from skating on houtjes was that my ankles and shins were exploding from having to work so hard to try to balance. Learning to skate on houtjes may explain why so many of the skaters on the Dutch national team are able to race on those flimsy Vikings!”

Looking back now after having skated on houtjes a couple of times, Morrison has a good idea of what would be the advantages of these skates over other types of skates: “The advantages I suppose would be that they are light-weight and cheap. Not to mention the benefits in ankle strength generated from just skating on them once or twice. Actually, I believe I may use them for my first two or three weeks of on-ice training this year!” On top of that, only last week Morrison discovered that he has benefited from skating on houtjes in a way he could not have imagined beforehand, when he was named Long Track Male Skater of the Year by Speed Skating Canada for the second consecutive year at the Annual General Meeting Banquet. “I think it was a close race between me and some of the other top Canadian athletes. What really won me the award though, was the bonus points from the 500m race on houtjes, which many other skaters opted out of. That race put me over the top and made me a shoe-in for the award!”
 

Still, it seems very hard to believe that there are no disadvantages when it comes to racing on skates that are basically just a piece of wood attached to a blade: “Well, the only disadvantage of houtjes is really not so much the houtjes themselves, but rather my own disadvantage of being born with wider-than-normal feet. This causes me to boot out, or rather ‘shoe out’ when fully extending or doing crossovers.”

In the end, Morrison was not able to win his race against Ivey and because of this he had to settle for just a BC record, instead of the track record, national record and unofficial world record on houtjes. So does he still look back satisfied in terms of goals and expectations or is he somewhat disappointed? “Personally, I am only disappointed by the fact that I was beat by Ivey. The fact that I was on a poorer pair of skates could be to blame for that, but come next year I will have a brand new pair to break in before the race at Finale, so Ivey had better be prepared for that one. Otherwise though, my goal of breaking 1:00 flat was not just met, but crushed. I was sure that my opener would end up being at least a 15 seconder. But I think that given the fact that I did a 12.77 after four big slips off of the line shows that I carried a lot of speed into that first lap, and I think that that is what did it for me.”

The next question that comes to mind then is where exactly this race was lost: “Well, in traditional speed skating races – with carbon fiber boots and alloy blades – which I do most regularly throughout the season, the corners are where I typically have the advantage over other skaters. On the houtjes however, I was unable to generate very much pressure without booting out a lot, and so was caught coming out of the corners with not very much speed. And I'm just not very good at accelerating in the straight away, especially on houtjes.”

Obviously, this first race on houtjes has given Morrison an idea of what can and needs to be improved next year if he wants to have a shot at skating a new track record, national record and unofficial world record on houtjes. “Next year will be surprising for most I am sure. We are working on new techniques to generate easy speed: aerodynamic skin suits, bent blades, rockers which are smooth to within +/- 3m, that sort of thing. Also, we are currently developing new toques which will be hand-knit in such a way that they will create a golf ball effect at speed, and cut wind resistance by 95%.” With all these new developments Morrison is sure that there is still room for improvement when it comes to skating on houtjes: “There is plenty of room for improvement. I believe that in less than a year we will see the world record drop below a 44.20.”

After the great successes at Finale and his positive stories on skating on houtjes, one cannot help but wonder if Morrison is considering a complete switch to this type of skates next season. “I don't want to say anything too soon. I still haven't totally decided. I've already bought a brand new pair of houtjes which I am excited to race on early next season. But in the back of my mind are still those other three pairs of VanHorn boots which are going to be made for me this summer, which – who knows – may even be faster than houtjes.”

All in all, it seems fair to conclude that Morrison looks back on a great race that may have been slightly disappointing to him because he was not able to win, but that small detail seems to have been completely wiped out by all the positive things he can take with him from this race for the rest of his speed skating career. “There are really no bad things to take with me for the rest of my career, because the entire experience of skating on houtjes was positive all around. I think everyone should give it a shot! As to the good things however, the first thing that comes to mind is ankle strength. But maybe even more importantly, it taught me that if I really put my mind to it, anything is possible!”

Photo Credits: