This year — 2024 — marks the tenth year in which skaters across Canada have celebrated their Scottish heritage by taking to the ice in tartans and kilts. Back in 2015, five cities (Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Calgary) hosted kilt skates as a way to celebrate the bicentennial of the birthday of Canada’s first Prime Minister. This year, 13 communities posted their plans for a kilt skate event and 10 went on to host an event.

Some have been hosting events for several years; others were inaugurating their first-ever community kilt skate event. The first kilt skate of the 2024 season was held in Montreal — one of the original kilt skate cities from ten years ago. Over the decade, Montreal has had to reschedule kilt skates —because of blizzards, rather than warm fronts. Montreal has consequently held its annual kilt skate in indoor arenas. And that’s where they launched the 2024 kilt skate season with an event on January 28.

Next up, on February 3, was Toronto. In 2016, the inaugural Toronto kilt skate consisted of one lone skater waving the flag and baring his knees on the iconic outdoor rink at Nathan Phillips Square. For the next three years the event was held on the outdoor ice, but in 2020, in a partnership with the American Hockey League Toronto Marleys, the event was moved indoors. Last year the Toronto-area event was held outdoors in nearby Brampton. This year, new organizers chose a new venue: the skating rink at Evergreen Brick Works in the picturesque Don Valley.

The following weekend saw the Great Canadian Kilt Skate return to Calgary where, since 2015 the event has been held at the Olympic Plaza. For the second year running, Calgary’s kilt skate has been included as part of the Chinook Blast winter festival.

The following weekend at the other end of the country, another kilt skate was tied into a winter carnival: Moncton NB’s PolarFest. It was Moncton’s second annual event, held out on the Muskrat Trail of Centennial Park.

The Ottawa Valley is the heartland of kilt skating, and this year, four kilt skates were organized in the region. One of them in Russell ON had to be cancelled. On February 17 (the same day as Moncton’s event) the first ever kilt skate in Renfrew County was held on outdoor ice in Pembroke ON. The organizers put together a winter carnival at the local recreation centre and the positive response augurs very well for a return to Pembroke next year.

The very next day (Sunday, February 18) 150 kms down the road from Pembroke, the 10th annual Great Canadian Kilt was held in the birthplace of kilt skating: Ottawa ON. Once again, Ottawa had a large turnout on the outdoor rink at Lansdowne Park where the Scottish Society of Ottawa has been hosting events since 2016. (The inaugural event in 2015 was held on the Rideau Canal Skateway.)

In many provinces, the following day (Monday, February 19) was a holiday, and in Antigonish NS the organizers took advantage of the long weekend to host its second annual Great Canadian Kilt Skate. Home to the Antigonish Highland Games, the kilt skate enjoys strong support from the local community.

For the Sunday (February 25) three kilt skates were scheduled in communities in two different provinces. In the Ottawa Valley, the biannual South Glengarry kilt skate was held at the hockey arena in Williamstown ON — the third of the four Ottawa Valley events.

Later that afternoon, about 500 kms south and west, Fergus ON held another in its series of flag-waving kilt skates at the Centre Wellington Sportsplex. Like Antigonish, Fergus hosts a renowned Highland festival each summer, and there is a lot of community support for a winter activity such as a kilt skate.

The third of the kilt skates scheduled for that day was originally to be held on February 11 in Winnipeg MB. But that weekend’s warm weather rendered the Riley Family Duck Pond at Assiniboia Park unskateable. Rather than cancel outright, the organizers rescheduled for February 25 — and the gamble paid off with a perfect winter day for kilt skating.

The three kilt skates on February 25 proved to be the grand finale of a terrific kilt skate season. Some communities kept up a tradition that has been going back as long as a decade; others hosted their first events and hopefully established a tradition they’ll maintain for winters to come.

All in all, 2024 proved to be a very successful kilt skate season. The idea of celebrating Scotland’s contribution to Canada with bare knees and ice continues to grow, and we’re confident that the kilt skate communities will return again next year with more to be added.