Eddie O’Neill/Daily Mining Gazette Skating coach Jennifer Bukovich (left) helps a young skater work on his skills during a session Tuesday at the Baltic Rink.

BALTIC — It is Tuesday afternoon at the Baltic Rink, a big green barn ice rink in Baltic and Jen Bukovich has traded in her traditional figure skates for hockey skates. A handful of kids from age 7-16 have laced up their skates as well and are getting ready for Week Two of Bukovich’s hockey power skating class.

“At this level, there are some ice-skating fundamentals that are universal,” she said. “I’ve been coaching local hockey players how to skate better for about  five years now. It came at the request of a number of local coaches.”

She said she teaches a similar class each week at the community rinks in L’Anse and Baraga and leads figure skating classes at Michigan Tech. She has been doing it for 21 years.

“I grew up on skates in the Detroit area,” she said. “As a young girl I was involved in figure skating competitions in the local area and the beyond. I competed in several states and Canada.”

Hockey skating and skills run deep in the family. Her uncles were Copper Country hockey legends Tony, Mike and Joe Bukovich. All three were stand-out  hockey players for the Portage Lake Pioneers. Tony even went on to play for the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings in the 1940s and is a member of the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame.

As the kids meander onto the ice and line up to work on their hockey stride,

Bukovich states that the key to good hockey skating is “keeping your feet underneath you, knowing where to push from for power and keeping your  chest up so you so you can see ahead.”

She added that in hockey you have to have the ability to turn in both directions.

“I read somewhere that 80 percent of a hockey game is changing direction,” she said. “You have to know have to stop and start in both directions and for some kids, that is a challenge.”

But her players are picking things quickly on this Tuesday afternoon.

“I am most proud of my students and how they work,” said Bukovich. “They are getting results from what they are putting into it, and that is the way it should work.”