After Denny Morrison’s return to Calgary from the World Single Distances Championships in Salt Lake City, which were very successful for him with two silver medals and a bronze medal, he and Jamie Ivey signed up for the 500m at Finale. This may not sound all that remarkable, had it not been for the fact that they planned to race it on wooden skates, or ‘houtjes’ in Dutch, a type of skates that is not very well known in Canada, but is still commonly found throughout The Netherlands. In fact, most Dutch children still learn how to skate on houtjes, but it is definitely not the type of skates on which one would expect to see an Olympic silver-medalist or, for that matter, on which world records are to be expected anytime soon. But then again, a world record was not what they had in mind in the first place, as Morrison explained earlier in his own account of that race, posted on this website last April: “We just wanted to pay a tribute to the pioneers of the sport!”

Eventually however, they did the unthinkable and raced a better race than anyone could ever have predicted beforehand. Not only did they crush their own expectations of what would be possible on these skates and were they able to set some very strong personal best times, but even the world record on houtjes proved to be not too far out of reach. In the end, Ivey managed to skate a new track record, national record and unofficial world record on houtjes with a time of 47.55, whereas Morrison’s time of 48.17 was good for a provincial record on houtjes in BC.

The first question that comes to mind is whether Morrison had any trouble getting used to skating on houtjes, which after all are very different from the skates on which he usually races: “I had never skated on houtjes before the public skating session, the night before our big race. I think Ivey may have been practicing up on them though, because he seemed to catch on much faster than I could. It took me a good two hours to become confident enough on the skates to do a flying lap, and even then it was pretty sketchy. Looking back however, I think it was the poor rocker that was giving me such a bad feel. Still, we got them rockered to a perfect 8m radius, plus or minus 5 meters!”

Even though houtjes are still common practice among Dutch children learning how to skate, it is not a popular type of skates in the rest of the world. Morrison: “I actually had no idea that anyone had skated on a pair of skates like this since about 1869. The houtjes that we skated on especially were quite old and in terrible shape. We were surprised that they held up as well as they did. One thing I noticed right away from skating on houtjes was that my ankles and shins were exploding from having to work so hard to try to balance. Learning to skate on houtjes may explain why so many of the skaters on the Dutch national team are able to race on those flimsy Vikings!”

Looking back now after having skated on houtjes a couple of times, Morrison has a good idea of what would be the advantages of these skates over other types of skates: “The advantages I suppose would be that they are light-weight and cheap. Not to mention the benefits in ankle strength generated from just skating on them once or twice. Actually, I believe I may use them for my first two or three weeks of on-ice training this year!” On top of that, only last week Morrison discovered that he has benefited from skating on houtjes in a way he could not have imagined beforehand, when he was named Long Track Male Skater of the Year by Speed Skating Canada for the second consecutive year at the Annual General Meeting Banquet. “I think it was a close race between me and some of the other top Canadian athletes. What really won me the award though, was the bonus points from the 500m race on houtjes, which many other skaters opted out of. That race put me over the top and made me a shoe-in for the award!”

Still, it seems very hard to believe that there are no disadvantages when it comes to racing on skates that are basically just a piece of wood attached to a blade: “Well, the only disadvantage of houtjes is really not so much the houtjes themselves, but rather my own disadvantage of being born with wider-than-normal feet. This causes me to boot out, or rather ‘shoe out’ when fully extending or doing crossovers.”

In the end, Morrison was not able to win his race against Ivey and because of this he had to settle for just a BC record, instead of the track record, national record and unofficial world record on houtjes. So does he still look back satisfied in terms of goals and expectations or is he somewhat disappointed? “Personally, I am only disappointed by the fact that I was beat by Ivey. The fact that I was on a poorer pair of skates could be to blame for that, but come next year I will have a brand new pair to break in before the race at Finale, so Ivey had better be prepared for that one. Otherwise though, my goal of breaking 1:00 flat was not just met, but crushed. I was sure that my opener would end up being at least a 15 seconder. But I think that given the fact that I did a 12.77 after four big slips off of the line shows that I carried a lot of speed into that first lap, and I think that that is what did it for me.”

The next question that comes to mind then is where exactly this race was lost: “Well, in traditional speed skating races – with carbon fiber boots and alloy blades – which I do most regularly throughout the season, the corners are where I typically have the advantage over other skaters. On the houtjes however, I was unable to generate very much pressure without booting out a lot, and so was caught coming out of the corners with not very much speed. And I'm just not very good at accelerating in the straight away, especially on houtjes.”

Obviously, this first race on houtjes has given Morrison an idea of what can and needs to be improved next year if he wants to have a shot at skating a new track record, national record and unofficial world record on houtjes. “Next year will be surprising for most I am sure. We are working on new techniques to generate easy speed: aerodynamic skin suits, bent blades, rockers which are smooth to within +/- 3m, that sort of thing. Also, we are currently developing new toques which will be hand-knit in such a way that they will create a golf ball effect at speed, and cut wind resistance by 95%.” With all these new developments Morrison is sure that there is still room for improvement when it comes to skating on houtjes: “There is plenty of room for improvement. I believe that in less than a year we will see the world record drop below a 44.20.”

After the great successes at Finale and his positive stories on skating on houtjes, one cannot help but wonder if Morrison is considering a complete switch to this type of skates next season. “I don't want to say anything too soon. I still haven't totally decided. I've already bought a brand new pair of houtjes which I am excited to race on early next season. But in the back of my mind are still those other three pairs of VanHorn boots which are going to be made for me this summer, which – who knows – may even be faster than houtjes.”

All in all, it seems fair to conclude that Morrison looks back on a great race that may have been slightly disappointing to him because he was not able to win, but that small detail seems to have been completely wiped out by all the positive things he can take with him from this race for the rest of his speed skating career. “There are really no bad things to take with me for the rest of my career, because the entire experience of skating on houtjes was positive all around. I think everyone should give it a shot! As to the good things however, the first thing that comes to mind is ankle strength. But maybe even more importantly, it taught me that if I really put my mind to it, anything is possible!”