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Hopkinton’s Carey to be featured in figure skating showcase

by | Mar 22, 2023 | Featured: Sports, Sports

T.J. Carey

Caroline Depietri and Hopkinton’s T.J. Carey will perform at a skating show in Norwood next month.

Ice dancing has taken T.J. Carey around the world, and he has competed at the highest levels of national and international skating, but the Hopkinton resident will be close to home as he takes part in the Ice Chips theatrical skating show on April 7 and 8 in Norwood.

The event is put together by the Skating Club of Boston and is returning for the first time after a three-year hiatus. Carey has been taking part in Ice Chips every year since 2008.

“The audience will be able to see all different levels of skating,” Carey said. “There are the younger skaters, the more developing skaters, soloists and national and international competitors.”

The headliner for this year’s event is Nathan Chen, the 2022 Olympic gold medalist, three-time world champion and six-time U.S. national champion.

Carey will be performing with his skating partner, Caroline Depietri. The pair have known each other since childhood and formed a partnership over a year ago after Depietri had skated for years as a singles competitor. Carey and Depietri compete in ice dancing, which is a type of competitive figure skating that brings together the technical elements like spins and lifts and traditional dance styles like the waltz or foxtrot to the ice.

Carey has been on skates since he was 3 years old. It was a natural fit for someone who comes from a skating family.

“My mom was a skater, all three of her brothers played hockey, their dad played and coached hockey, my two older sisters were figure skaters and my older brother was a hockey player,” he said. “From a very early age, I just always really loved skating and watching skating, too.”

Carey recalled watching old DVDs of his sisters’ skating competitions over and over again. Soon, he was the one on the ice in competition. He took part in national championships at three different levels and has competed around the country as well as in Germany and France.

He thought he had retired after his final competition in November, the U.S. national qualifiers. He and Depietri were second alternates, and Carey did not train for the next two months ahead of the nationals in late January. On Jan. 17, he received an email that said another couple had withdrawn and they had an invite to compete a week later.

“My partner called me and I said, ‘Worst-case scenario, we get last place and push through a four-minute program and we do our best,’ ” Carey recalled. “We made the decision that we were going to come back and we had one week of training for our last nationals.”

Carey and Depietri competed at the senior level at the national championships alongside Olympic and world medalists and some of the most accomplished skaters in the country. They placed 14th overall in the senior ice dance division at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose, California.

“It was a pretty good competition to go out on,” he said.

Ice Chips 2023: Full Throttle will take place Friday, April 7, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, April 8, at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. The shows will be held at the Tenley E. Albright Performance Center at The Skating Club of Boston in Norwood. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit scboston.org.

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