Skating in unison in their crimson uniforms, Purple Line, Northwestern’s synchronized skating team, performed in their first figure skating showcase Friday night at the Robert Crown Center and Ice Rink, 1701 Main St.

“(It) was really exciting,” said Kristen Lease, a Medill freshman and team member. “I was really happy to see friends and classmates come and cheer us on.”

Founded last spring by Brittany Bettendorf, a Weinberg sophomore, Purple Line has 15 skaters on the team.

“I joined the crew team last year, and I realized that I missed the team atmosphere,” Bettendorf said. “I had ice skated as a kid, and I wanted to keep skating. I knew two other ice skaters, and realized that there was some interest (for an ice skating team).”

With the help and encouragement of her cousin, Purple Line coach Carrie Rennemann, Bettendorf developed her idea fully.

“Carrie started the team at University of Illinois, and she said it was something I could do,” Bettendorf said. “We talked to Peter Parcell, the head of club sports and intramural sports, and he gave us pointers. We held a meeting in April and had over 30 names on a list. We realized that this is something that people wanted to do.”

Once Purple Line was established as a first-year club at NU, tryouts were held in spring 2004 and again in the fall.

“We wanted to have an idea of who could be on the executive board so that over the summer, they could select the music and establish the practice ice,” Bettendorf said. “There are so many different little things, like costumes, that have to be put together.”

Over the summer, members of the executive board chose the music for the performance, set the locations of the practices and set a budget for the team.

With no financial support from the university, Purple Line has been able to raise money by selling concessions at the basketball and football games, as well as from dues that each skater pays.

“The initial agreement with the school was that we can skate with the school name and have access to certain things, like the school vans, but we get no monetary support from them as a first-year club,” Bettendorf said.

Although they have been scheduled to attend various competitions throughout the country, Purple Line has yet to compete before judges.

“This year we had a little bit of a fiasco with competitions,” Bettendorf said.

“We were supposed to attend sectionals in Texas and compete against various other teams in our division, but because the (United States Figure Skating Association) allows teams to bypass sectionals, no one from our division was going to compete and we withdrew.”

Purple Line was scheduled to compete at the Bronco Cup at Western Michigan University on Saturday. However, the team could not attend because of the snowstorm on Friday night.

The team is scheduled to attend the 2005 U.S. Team Skating Championships which will be held on Feb. 23.

As nationals and the end of the season approach, Bettendorf said she has regained much of the team atmosphere that she had missed through Purple Line.

“A team of individuals is so much different than a team of skaters working together,” Bettendorf said. “Everybody was new to the sport of synchro, to Northwestern and to each other.”

Reach Marcy Miranda at [email protected].