Palm Springs graduate part of dance team for L.A. Kings

Bill Byron
The Desert Sun
Jun. 23, 2012

There isn’t a whole lot of opportunity to become a great ice skater here in the desert.

You know, not exactly a hockey or figure skating Mecca. No high school hockey teams, no Olympic skating trials — there is one ice rink in Cathedral City, but it just opened recently.

But that didn’t stop 2010 Palm Springs High School grad Jasmine Roy from becoming an Ice Girl for the L.A. Kings. And as luck would have it, she joined them in their first, and only, Stanley Cup season.

The 19-year old UC Riverside junior tried out for the Kings version of cheerleaders last summer and made the cut, despite stiff competition. But she’ll still be trying out again this weekend in an effort to keep her spot.

“I knew how to skate, I just didn’t know how to stop,” Roy says of her technique prior to becoming an Ice Girl. “When I was here (in the Coachella Valley), they didn’t have the ice rink. The first time I skated was in Riverside when I was about 10.”

She was in the minority of this season’s 15 Ice Girls, of which she says only she and two others needed some serious coaching in skates.

“You have to be very fast,” she says about the nine or 10 times a night that she ventures out onto the ice for two- to three-minutes cleaning up the snow created by Zambonis and entertaining fans.

“Sometimes the players say stuff to you and they don’t get out of your way, so that can be hard sometimes,” she said about the difficulties of the job. “But for the most part they’re great.”

Though Roy is still unsure if she’ll be getting a championship ring, the experience — with or without the jewelry — was well worth it, she says.

“I feel blessed to be a part of it — I’m like, ‘Wow, I was a part of them winning the Stanley Cup,’ to say I was part of the Ice Crew that year — I love it,” she said. “I got to stand with (the Cup) on the ice after the game and it was so much fun — we were shaking, people were crying.”

But despite having a year of experience under her belt, it’s no guarantee that she’ll get to be an Ice Girl again next season.

She has to try out just like everyone else this weekend.

“That’s what makes it so nerve-wracking, but at the same time, it’s fun,” the political science major says.

The current record for time on the Ice Crew is five seasons, according to Roy, but she’ll be happy if she can make it to two.

“I hope to make it, I plan to make it, I will be so happy if I do,” she said.