The 10K Mark

It's taken 11 years but I'm so excited to share that Skate Guard Blog has now reached 10,000 subscribers on Facebook! 

11 years ago, I started Skate Guard Blog as a way of sharing my passion for figure skating history with all of you. 

Over 1,500 blogs and 5 (soon to be 6!) books later, Skate Guard now has over 3.7 million page views, averaging between 20,000 and 30,000 visits a month. 

I want to express my deepest appreciation for all of you who have commented and shared on Facebook and reached out over the years. Without you, I wouldn't be doing this.

Thank you for your support & I can't wait to share more fascinating stories from the sport's history in 2025!

Belgian Gold: The Micheline Lannoy and Pierre Baugniet Story

Micheline Lannoy and Pierre Baugniet were born six months apart in 1925. Micheline was born in Brussels on January 31; Pierre in Antwerp on July 23. Micheline's mother Simone was an aspiring figure skater; her stepfather Louis de Ridder represented Belgium in three different sports in the Winter Olympics in the twenties and thirties - hockey, bobsleigh and speed skating. Pierre's father René's background is unknown.

Photo courtesy "Skating World" magazine

Micheline started skating at the age of seven; Pierre at the age of nine. Even as small children, the young skaters were regarded as two of the Ligue Belge des Sports d'Hiver's most promising young stars. Before World War II, they both won the 'scolaire' and junior classes at the Belgian Championships in singles skating. She claimed the Belgian women's title in 1941, 1944 and 1946; he took the men's from 1940 to 1944. Micheline also won the Suvretta Challenge Cup, an international event for junior skaters, in 1939.

Top: Pierre Baugniet and Hans Gerschwiler. Bottom: Charles Landot and Pierre Baugniet.

Micheline and Pierre both trained mostly in Belgium, but before the War travelled to St. Moritz for stints in the winter to work with Charles Landot, a skater and painter whom sportswriter Howard Bass described as a "shrewd, white-haired pedagogue". Monsieur Landot primarily taught at the Suvretta House rink but would come to Brussels or Antwerp in the spring and autumn to work with Belgian skaters.

Micheline and Pierre began skating as a pair somewhat by accident. In a 1947 letter to Theresa Weld Blanchard, Pierre's father René recalled, "It was only in 1943 that one day Micheline and Pierre were trying pair skating, just as a recreation, when Mr. [Landot] noticed suddenly how easily they worked together. This evidently resulted from the fact that they had always skated on the same rinks, with the same trainer, having both the same methods, same style, same positions as well as a similar speed." The following year the duo won their first Belgian title. Their country's Nationals weren't held in 1945 because the Antwerp rink was severely damaged by V-1 and V-2 bombs. When Belgium was liberated by the British and American armies, the bombed Antwerp rink was repaired surprisingly quickly and by the autumn of 1945, skating resumed and they repeated as Belgian champions in 1946 and 1947.

In the winter of 1945-46, Micheline and Pierre travelled to Amsterdam, The Hague, Chamonix and Paris, and met skaters Hans Gerschwiler and Daphne Walker along the way. As travels to Switzerland hadn't been possible at the height of the War, it was a great pleasure for them to have contact with the 'outside world' of skating.

Top: Micheline Lannoy and Pierre Baugniet practicing in Switzerland. Bottom: Micheline Lannoy, Pierre Baugniet and others taking tea at the Richmond Sports-Drome. Photo courtesy "Skating World" magazine.

By the autumn of 1946, Micheline and Pierre were finally able to resume their trips to St. Moritz to practice with Monsieur Landot. At the very first post-War ISU Championship, the Europeans in Davos, they claimed the gold medal over British pair Winnie and Dennis Silverthorne. Another Belgian duo - Suzanne Diskeuve and Edmond Verbustel - took the bronze. It was the first and only time two Belgian pairs stood on the podium at a major ISU Championship.

At the 1947 World Championships in Stockholm, all but the American judge had Micheline and Pierre first. They made again history as the first (and to date only) Belgian pair to win a World title and became sporting heroes in their country. In his book "Dick Button On Skates", Dick Button told an amusing story about Pierre Baugniet's time in Scandinavia. He wrote, "In the restaurant at rinkside many competitors, tired but anxious to learn the results [of the men's figures] waited over a cup of strong coffee. One of them, Pierre Baugniet... had not competed that day. His energies were irrepressible while others sat around quietly. Failing to engage us in conversation, he tried to chat with a pretty waitress despite the fact that he spoke no Swedish. The language barrier, however, was a bagatelle to the polished Belgian and when someone whispered a Swedish phrase to him he repeated it: 'Jag älskar dig'. The waitress took one look at him, dumped the cream pastry she was serving upside down on his plate and huffed off. We roared to see the deflated Pierre's expression when he was informed he had told the girl, 'I love you.'" 

Top: Micheline Lannoy and Pierre Baugniet returning to Belgium after winning the 1947 World title. Bottom: Hans Gerschwiler and Pierre Baugniet at Pierre's family's villa on the Belgian Coast in 1947. Photo courtesy "Ice Skating" magazine.

After the 1947 World Championships, rumours swirled that Micheline and Pierre planned on breaking up because they hadn't been seen practicing together for some months. The truth of the matter was that Pierre had undergone an appendectomy. He recovered within months, graduated from the University of Brussels and was back training with Micheline by the late fall.

Top: Micheline Lannoy and Pierre Baugniet performing their program. Right: Pierre Baugniet, Charles Landot and Micheline Lannoy. Photo courtesy "Ice Skating" magazine.

History was made once again at the 1948 Winter Olympic Games when Micheline and Pierre won the pairs event. It was Belgium's first (and to date only) gold medal in any sport at the Winter Olympic Games... and they claimed it in a snowstorm after only weeks of practice time.

In a February 22, 1988 interview with a reporter from "The Whig Standard", Micheline recalled, "We were used to it. Actually, it helped me because I was nervous and when it started snowing somehow it calmed me down... You can imagine, it was quite different (from what skaters are doing today). We did some jumps, but we didn't do triples. Lots of things they do now we didn't do at the time. Otherwise, it was similar but not as difficult. We had two jumps and a one-and-a-half Axel. It was a lot at that time. At that time, we were doing the most. They had all the flags from all the countries, except ours. They played the anthem, but they didn't have the flag. They probably thought, 'Oh, that little country of Belgium.' Belgium is small and we didn't have the skaters. That's what helped us, I guess. We used to skate all morning and there would be only a few people on the ice. We didn't have clubs like you have now. We used to skate among the public skating, but in the morning there was no one there so we had the ice to ourselves." Following the Olympics, they had another runaway victory at the World Championships in Davos and then decided to retire from the sport, their goals having been achieved. Their successes didn't translate to a big Belgian skating boom. By 1955, the country only had one ice rink, located in Antwerp.

Pierre, who had earned his Bachelor of Arts shortly after winning his first World title, continued his education and earned his doctorate in law, then married Arlette Maloens. The couple divorced in the early seventies and he went on to work as an average adjuster at the Antwerp firm Martroye, Baugniet and Varlez.

Micheline made her professional debut with Tom Arnold's continental company, which toured Europe and South Africa. She later performed in the short-lived Olympia Ice Revue, directed by her stepfather, and Holiday On Ice. She also performed in one of Tom Arnold's ice pantomimes at the S.S. Brighton in England. As a professional, she was paired with James Macaulay, a Scottish skater who served as a paratrooper in the British Army during the War. The couple fell in love and married in Paris, before settling in Ayr.

On November 17, 1953, Micheline's fifty-one year mother - who was then working as a skating instructor - was murdered. An article from the "Spokane Daily Chronicle" noted, "Police sought a tall, thin man who was believed to have pushed Mrs. de Ridder from an international train before dawn yesterday after robbing her. The woman died without regaining consciousness. Hospital aides said she had suffered a skull fracture and internal injuries. The Kitzingen station master told police that as the train rolled slowly through the yards he saw a woman clinging to a window ledge while a man tried to pry her grip loose. Trainmen found Mrs. de Ridder alongside the tracks." The saddest thing about it all? Micheline was on her way to meet her mother at the time.

Micheline and her husband James emigrated to Canada in 1956 and had two children. She taught skating in Stratford, Ontario and Aylmer, Quebec in the fifties and Victoria and Nanaimo, British Columbia in the sixties. Pierre passed away in his mid-fifties in 1981, the same year as Micheline's stepfather. By this time, Micheline was coaching at the Kingston Figure Skating Club.

Micheline passed away on March 18, 2023, at the age of ninety-eight. Despite their successes, Micheline and Pierre have never been honoured with an induction into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. 

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Bluesky, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering one of six fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating: https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Flying High: The Violet and Leslie Cliff Story

Photo courtesy National Archives Of Poland

The youngest of Helen (Morrison) and Grosvenor Talbot Cliff's three sons, Leslie Howard Talbot Cliff was born June 5, 1908, in The Curragh, County Kildare, Island. He grew up at Grasmere House, a stately home in Aldershot, which employed two nurses, two housemaids and a groom. Violet  'Vita' May Hamilton Supple was born on November 2, 1916 in Bath. Her parents, who hailed from Ireland originally, were May Josephine Violet (Samler) and William Hamilton Supple.

Violet and Leslie's fathers had much in common. Both were army men who served in the Second Boer War and fought on the front lines during The Great War. Violet's father, a Lieutenant Colonel, had served with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers but returned home from Gallipoli injured. Leslie's father was killed in the line of duty while serving with the 3rd (Prince Of Wales) Dragoon Guards.

Photo courtesy Frazer Ormondroyd

Leslie was an athletic young man who excelled in steeplechase riding and lawn tennis. He first took up skating as a young law student. He met Violet at the Westover Ice Rink in Bournemouth and the two soon formed a partnership... both on and off the ice. After placing third in their first bid for the British pairs title and second in a waltzing contest at the Westminster Ice Club, they claimed their first of six consecutive national pairs titles in 1934. They were quietly married the following spring.

Throughout the thirties, Violet and Leslie were, without question, the UK's most successful pairs team. They won the silver medal at the 1936 European Championships and twice won the bronze medal at the World Championships. Though they 'only' placed seventh at the 1936 Winter Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, one judge had them as high as third. Eminent British skater, judge and writer T.D. Richardson once wrote, "The pairs skating of Mr. and Mrs. Cliff is distinguished by a splendid togetherness, one of the great essentials of good pair skating. Their programme is always a delight to watch as it is performed with excellent speed [and] impeccable accuracy and charm, while their timing is beyond reproach."

As compared to their other, more adventurous hobby, skating perhaps seemed a little genteel to some. In 1930, Leslie earned his flying certificate at the Cinque Ports Flying Club, which operated out of the Lympne Airport in Kent. A regular at the airport at the time was the Duchess Of Bedford, who had been the patroness of Prince's Skating Club many years prior and had taken up flying in her sixties.
Leslie soon began working as a flying instructor and took Violet along for the ride as a passenger in several air races. As a pair in the air, they finished third in the famous cross-country King's Cup Air Race in 1938. They planned to enter again in 1939, flying in a Miles Hawk plane owned by Cecilia Colledge's family, but the race was cancelled by the Royal Aero Club at the eleventh hour. World War II broke out within weeks. BIS historian Elaine Hooper recalled, "Notably, in atrocious weather, on King George VI’s Coronation Day [in 1937], they flew press photographs and cinema footage of the coronation to Yorkshire, to enable newspapers in the county to be first to publish the photographs in the north. In fact, cinemas in Hull were showing the film by 10 pm that evening, all thanks to Leslie and Vita."

Leslie Cliff. Right photo courtesy Archives of the Royal Aero Club, A Fleeting Peace: Golden-Age Aviation In The British Empire.

During World War II, Leslie served as a Squadron Leader with the Royal Air Force, earning the Air Force Cross for his "valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying". His obituary noted, "The summer of 1939 found Leslie Cliff at Sywell, instructing at the RAF EFTS there. Later he volunteered as a night fighter pilot on Beaufighters. When it was discovered that he had been a civil instructor with twin experience, he was retained as an instructor, training pilots for night fighting. Towards the end of the War, he was sent to Robertsfield, Liberia, for anti-submarine duties." He mourned the loss of his 1936 Olympic teammate Freddie Tomlins, who perished in the summer of 1943 on a flight over the English Channel but delighted at the birth of he and Violet's son, born that same year in North Berwick.

Photo courtesy Frazer Ormondroyd

Like Cecilia Colledge, Henry Graham Sharp and a handful of other British pre-war champions, Leslie and Violet returned to the skating world after World War II ended. Having had little time to prepare for the 1946 British Championships, they finished second to the sibling pair of Winnie and Dennis Silverthorne. 

After the competition, Violet and Leslie opted to retire from the skating world and moved to Le Mont Gras D'eau, St. Brelade, on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands.

Leslie passed away in Jersey on August 2, 1969, at the age of sixty-one and Violet returned to England, remarrying to John Moore in October of 1974. She passed away in Andover, Hampshire on March 26, 2003, at the age of eighty-six.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Bluesky, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering one of six fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating: https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Black History Month 2025

February is Black History Month in Canada! Skate Guard celebrates key milestones of black and brown people in figure skating with extensive timelines from Canada and around the world and a required reading list of past stories featured on the blog. 

You can find all of the Black History Month content by tapping on the top menu bar of the blog or clicking here. For an extensive timeline of American firsts not listed here, head on over to your bookshelf and pull out your copy of the February 2022 issue of "Skating" magazine.

You can also check out Skate Guard's Black Excellence Pinterest board, for photographs, newspaper clippings, videos and more. 

To nominate black and brown skaters to the Skate Canada Hall Of Fame, click here. 

In Remembrance

 

2-time Olympic Gold Medallist & 5-time World Figure Skating Champion Dick Button has passed away at the age of 95. An absolute legend in the sport, Button is remembered for his insightful and witty commentary, love of the sport and incredible efforts to further the development of professional figure skating.

Statement on the American Eagle Flight 5342 tragedy:

The 1979 U.S. Figure Skating Championships

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

Jimmy Carter was the President of the United States and the top news stories were the Uganda-Tanzania War and the first documented case of a robot killing a human. The highest-rated television shows were "Laverne & Shirley", "Three's Company", "Mork & Mindy" and "Happy Days" and everyone was singing along to Gloria Gaynor's hit single "I Will Survive".

The year was 1979, and from January 30 to February 4, one hundred and forty of America's best figure skaters descended on the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio for the 1979 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. It was the first (and to date) the only time that the Queen City played host to America's National Championships and though the venue was only four years old at the time of the event, history had already been made there when Elvis Presley played his second to last concert.

The city had landed the event back in 1974, when Jim Carter, the convention manager of the Greater Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau arranged meetings with the Queen City Figure Skating Club, Figure Skating Club of Cincinnati, the Coliseum's director of events Bill Barrett, skating judge Nancy Meiss and the Junior League of Cincinnati to discuss the possibility of holding a major skating event in the city. They entered a bid to the USFSA to host the 1976 U.S. Championships but were turned down in favour of the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and offered the 1979 Nationals instead.

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

At forty-five dollars for an all-event pass or four to seven dollars for a single ticket, the cost of attendance was a bargain even in those days! The reasonable prices paid off for the organizers. Attendance for the men's free skate - at over thirteen thousand, five hundred - broke a record for the largest-ever crowd at the U.S. Championships at that time, much to the delight of then-USFSA President Charles A. DeMore. 

That's not to say there weren't issues... Benjamin T. Wright recalled, "First there were the birds. There was a considerable flock of starlings inside the arena which had the tendency to swoop down on the ice in search of water. One of them even dropped a 'deposit' on the head of an unwary skater! They were disposed of late at night by the mechanism of putting the Zamboni in the middle of the ice with a pool of water on the ice in front of it. The headlights were then turned on and down came the birds. Blam! They were gone. There was press coverage and some environmentalists objected, but at least the menace and distraction they represented was eliminated. The other problem was the ice, which had been painted. With the refrigerant temperature running too high, the paint came through the ice in several places, causing difficulty for the skaters and risk for their blade edges. Eventually, with the coolant temperature lowered considerably, the surface was built up enough by the technical representative, the imperturbable Joe Serafine, to allow the competition to proceed unhindered."

Charlie Tickner and Linda Fratianne. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

Hop in the time machine with me, won't you? We're taking a look back at the stories and skaters that made this event from decades past so memorable!

THE NOVICE AND JUNIOR EVENTS

   

Nine teams vied for gold in the junior (silver) dance event. It was the second year a free dance was included in the competition and the inclusion hardly worked to the advantage of Renee Roca and Andrew Ouellette, students of Bernard Spencer hailing from the Columbus Figure Skating Club. The young team won the final phase of the competition but lost the title and the lone spot on the team for the World Junior Championships to Elisa Spitz and Stanley Makman, who took a tumble but claimed the gold on the strength of their compulsories. Robi Shepard and Kelly Witt took the bronze, ahead of Terri Slater and David Lipowitz.

Elaine Zayak. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

A youthful duo from Foxboro and Stoneham, Massachusetts, Rosemary Sweeney and Daniel Salera, claimed the junior pairs crown. Jimmie Santee - yes, the brother of David - took gold in the junior men's event. Coming from behind, a young Paul Wylie overcame Scott Thompson and Christopher Bowman to win gold in the novice men's competition... after finishing fifth in the junior pairs event with partner Dana Graham. With an athletic free skating effort, thirteen-year-old Elaine Zayak earned a standing ovation and moved up from third to claim the junior women's title ahead of Jackie Farrell of Lakewood, Colorado and Lynn Smith of Walnut Creek, California. Elaine Zayak, an eighth-grade student from Paramus, New York, was the youngest entry in her class. The novice women's champion that year was Zayak's future rival, Rosalynn Sumners of Edmonds, Washington.

THE PAIRS COMPETITION

Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner

Simply put, there was Tai and Randy... and everyone else. Having won the last three U.S. titles and finished third at both the 1977 and 1978 World Championships, Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner were practically shoo-in's to defend their title in Cincinnati. The eighteen and twenty-year-old students of Mr. John Nicks outdid themselves, nailing a throw triple Salchow, throw double Axel, split double twist and side-by-side double flips on their way to their fourth consecutive U.S. senior pairs title.

After Gail Hamula and Frank Sweiding turned professional, many thought it would be Sheryl Franks and Michael Botticelli's turn to move up to the silver medal position. Their free skate to "The Firebird" was well skated and included a novel move where Botticelli performed a double Axel while she did a spiral, but it wasn't enough to overcome another pair of young students of Nicks, seventeen-year-old Vicki Diane Heasley and eighteen-year-old Robert Wagenhoffer, who set the crowd on fire with a dazzling free skate to "Fogelberg - 2001" and "Other Side Of The Mountain" that ended in a series of pull Arabians. A young Kitty and Peter Carruthers placed seventh.

THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION

As in the pairs event, there was a definite favourite in the women's event that was going to be next to impossible to beat. Eighteen-year-old Frank Carroll student Linda Fratianne of Northridge, California had succeeded Dorothy Hamill and established herself as the next great American star of women's skating, claiming the 1977 and 1978 U.S. titles and the gold medal at the 1977 World Championships in Tokyo, Japan.

With a firm lead after the school figures and the compulsory short program, all Linda Fratianne really had to do was stay on her feet in the free skate to take home the gold... especially since Priscilla Hill had withdrawn due to a sprained ankle. Like Tai and Randy, she most certainly didn't just phone it in. With a challenging free skate that included two double Axels, a triple toe-loop and a triple Salchow, she earned marks ranging from 5.6 to 5.9 and successfully defended her title. Lisa-Marie Allen, who repeated as the U.S. Silver Medallist, performed an almost equally challenging free skate that included a fine triple Salchow. Many thought she was lowballed on her artistic impression marks. Sixteen-year-old Carrie Rugh, who had placed fourth the year previous at the Nationals in Portland, moved up a spot to take the bronze ahead of Alicia Risberg.

THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION

Stacey Smith and John Summers. Photo courtesy "St. Louis Jewish Light" Archives.

An impressive roster of eleven teams vied for the senior ice dance title in Cincinnati. After defeating defending U.S. Champions Stacey Smith and John Summers at both the 1978 World Championships in Ottawa and the U.S. National Sports Festival at the Broadmoor Skating Club the previous July, Carol Fox and Richard Dalley found themselves chasing their rivals after the compulsories in Cincinnati. Both teams delivered outstanding free dances - Smith and Summers to a medley that included Russian folk music, "Summertime" and "It Ain't Necessarily So" and Fox and Dalley to a Latin and flamenco theme. The judges had their work cut out for them but ultimately decided to give Smith and Summers the nod. Michael Seibert, skating with partner Judy Blumberg, took the bronze ahead of Kim Krohn and Barry Hagan and Dee Oseroff and Craig Bond and was hailed in "Skating" magazine as "the best male dancer in the U.S.". After their win, Summers told a "Cincinnati Enquirer" reporter, "There are all kinds of dance. There is serious and light. We're out to entertain."

THE MEN'S COMPETITION

Scott Hamilton

Defending World and two-time U.S. Champion Charlie Tickner had both a strong lead after the school figures and short program and reputation on his side when the judges overlooked a shaky triple toe-loop, doubled triple Lutz attempt and a step out on a triple Salchow and handed him his third U.S. title.

Left: Charlie Tickner. Right: Allen Schramm. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

To Charlie Tickner's credit, he landed a triple toe-loop and triple loop late in his free skate to a medley of selections by Borodin, Beethoven, Khatchaturian and Tchaikovsky but it certainly wasn't his finest performance of all time. Still, he beat silver medallist Scott Cramer by seven points and ten places and bronze medallist David Santee by seven points and thirteen places. Robert Wagenhoffer was fifth. Without a doubt, the audience favourites were Santee, Scott Hamilton and San Diego's Allen Schramm.

In seventh entering the free skate, Schramm blew the crowd away with his unique style, earned a standing ovation and marks as low as 4.8 that were booed loudly by the crowd. Hamilton landed all of his triples, including the Lutz and was particularly disappointed with his result. In his 1999 book "Landing It: My Life On And Off The Ice", he recalled, "I had skated well in the long, and Scott [Cramer] had not. Still, the judges held him up. Did I think that Carlo [Fassi] may have had something to do with the results? I'm always going to wonder. But I'm not going to hold him responsible... I was bitter but I did learn something. You can skate great and lose, and you can skate lousy and win... All you can control is what you do, not what anyone else does." It was shortly after those Nationals that Hamilton parted ways with Fassi and went to train with Don Laws in Philadelphia. The rest, as they say, is history.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Bluesky, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering one of six fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating: https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Marching On: The Ralph McCreath Story

"His presence was felt the moment he walked into a room. He had a way about him that made people take notice." - Jim McCreath, December 15, 2008, "Memoir For My Father"

The son of Bert and Margaret McCreath, Ralph Scott McCreath was born on April 27, 1919, in Toronto, Ontario. The McCreath's, a Presbyterian family, maintained a home in the affluent Moore Park district of Toronto and Ralph, his sisters June and Louise and younger brother Ross were doted on by their parents Bert and Margaret and a live-in Danish servant, growing up during the roaring twenties wanting for very little.

Sandy McKechnie, Dudley Reburn, James Bain, Ralph McCreath, Billy Brown and Gordon Gilchrist in the 1931 Toronto Skating Club carnival

As a teenager, Ralph attended the North Toronto Collegiate School where his excellence at athletics overshadowed his considerable scholastic skill. He participated in a wide range of high school sports, but the sports he showed the most passion for were hockey and figure skating.

Photo courtesy Archives Of Ontario, Herbert Nott fonds

One hockey coach had him jump over benches to practice leaping over fallen defencemen on his way to the net, a skill which aided him in his early lessons in free skating. Six-foot-tall Ralph's high-flying jumps soon caught the attention of the coaches at the Toronto Skating Club and in 1935, after he had won four medals in the junior men's and pairs events at the Canadian Championships, he gave up hockey entirely to focus on figure skating under coach Walter Arian.

Left: Ralph McCreath, Veronica Clarke, Constance and Bud Wilson. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine. Right: Veronica Clarke and Ralph McCreath. Photo courtesy Hilary Bruun.

In the years that followed, Ralph's success in singles, pairs, fours and ice dancing was nothing short of remarkable. From 1936 to 1941, he won an incredible twenty-four medals at the Canadian and North American Championships, including gold medals in singles, pairs, the fourteenstep, tenstep and fours at the Canadian Championships.

Norah McCarthy and Ralph McCreath. Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine (left) and "Skating Through The Years" (right).

Ralph's skating pushed the athletic boundaries of the time. He and his partners performed particularly novel lifts and his winning free skating performance at the 1940 Canadian Championships in Ottawa included an Axel, double Salchow and double loop.

Top: Ralph McCreath, Bud Wilson and the Caley sisters, 1939 North American fours champions. Bottom: Mary Rose Thacker, Ralph McCreath and Eleanor O'Meara. Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine.

With partners Veronica Clarke, Norah McCarthy and Eleanor O'Meara, Ralph was one of the most in-demand skaters for carnivals throughout Ontario and the Eastern United States. He performed in a charity ice gala at Madison Square Garden, hitchhiked to Lake Placid every summer to train, competed in forty-below temperatures and even earned a much-coveted spot on the Canadian team set to attend the 1940 Winter Olympic Games that were ultimately cancelled after the outbreak of World War II.

Eleanor O'Meara and Ralph McCreath

In October of 1940, Ralph put his studies at the University Of Toronto on hold and bid adieu to his buddies at the Theta Delta Chi fraternity when he and his younger brother Ross enlisted in the 48th Highlanders Of Canada. Continuing to train and compete that winter despite his military obligations, the twenty-one-year-old Lance Corporal had perhaps his finest hour at the 1941 North American Championships in Philadelphia.

Left: Mary Rose Thacker, Ralph McCreath and Eleanor O'Meara. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine. Right: Norah McCarthy and Ralph McCreath in act.

After defeating Donna Atwood and Eugene Turner to win the pairs event with Eleanor O'Meara, Ralph managed an incredible come-from-behind win in the men's event after being over thirty points behind Turner in the figures. His exciting free skating performance was set to music specially orchestrated by the Toronto Skating Club's musical director Jack Jardine that stopped when he jumped, adding to the dramatic effect of his performance. Even more dramatic was the judging of the competition. The six judges - three from Canada and three from America - split their votes down the middle, with only an eighth of a point ultimately determining the final result. Associated Press reporters called it "one of the most dramatic finishes in the history of the competition." In his book "Dick Button On Skates", Dick Button recalled, "Out of the six judges, the three Canadians voted first places to the Canadian McCreath and three American judges voted first to the American Turner. Each judge placed the skater from the other country second, thereby giving both of the skaters a total of ordinals... The decision was decided on the fact that the Canadian judges had marked the American slightly slower in second place than the Americans had marked the Canadian skater in second place." The results of this event were a textbook example of why having an even number of judges at the North American Championships was a terrible, terrible idea. Interestingly, his narrow win in Philadelphia was followed up by a narrow loss to sculler Theo DuBois in the quest for that year's Lou Marsh Trophy, one of Canada's top sporting honours.

Left: Ralph's brother Ross. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library, from Toronto Star Photographic Archive. Reproduced for educational purposes under license permission. Right: Ralph in uniform. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

That summer, Ralph sailed for Europe. During the War, he served in England, France and North Africa and rose to the rank of Major in the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps. While in London, he did some skating and went to visit an injured friend in the hospital. He found Stewart Reburn in the next bed.
In 2008, his son Jim recalled, "As a curious youngster I would often ask him questions about his time in the army. He would always talk about the wonderful people he had met and the amazing places he had seen, but there was a different look in his eyes when he spoke of these things. He would try to change the subject as quickly as possible. I am sure he must have felt that after living through those hellish times, some memories are best left untold."

Ralph and Myrtle McCreath on their wedding day. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library, from Toronto Star Photographic Archive. Reproduced for educational purposes under license permission.

Returning to Canada, Ralph won his third and final Canadian senior men's title in 1946 ahead of Norris Bowden and Roger Wickson. He wore his military uniform for his free skating performance. He later teamed up with Gloria Lillico to perform a pair in carnivals.

Eleanor O'Meara and Ralph McCreath. Photo courtesy Archives of Ontario. 

After obtaining his law degree at Osgoode Law School in 1949, Ralph settled on Kingsway Crescent in Toronto with his wife Myrtle [Franceschini] and raised three sons and a daughter. He practiced corporate law and served as a CFSA judge, referee and team leader. He judged at three Olympic Games and several World Championships, notably voting for Petra Burka when she won the 1965 World title and for Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden when they settled for silver in 1956. Even though Ralph had voted for him and Dafoe at the 1956 World Championships, Bowden was vocal about his former competitor's appointment as Canada's judge and team leader that season before the team even left for Europe to participate in the Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo. In Bowden's famous letter to the CFSA that got him banned, he questioned "whether the best interests of the team were considered in selecting a judge who, by his own admission, had not been too interested in skating as of late as witnessed by not having seen the Canadian world champion pair skate for three years though they were members of the same club and gave numerous exhibitions."

Barbara Ann Scott and Ralph McCreath. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

Despite serving as a member of the CFSA's executive, a founding member of the Olympic Trust and a trustee of the Canadian Olympic Endowment Fund, the perception that Ralph was a lawyer first and a judge second led some to question where his loyalties lay at a time when North American skaters were frequently at the mercy of panels heavily stacked with European judges. Ralph was also criticized for being a tough cookie. Kenny Moir recalled, "I remember being a demonstrator at a judges seminar being presented by Ralph McCreath back in the late sixties in Vancouver. He was one of Canada's top judges so there was a huge turnout of notable judges which was scary in itself. But he was terrifying. He'd whisper the figure error to make in your ear which is tough to pull off and if you were to do it correctly and you made errors he'd go to town on you in front of the crowd. I did have one high note though, when he asked me to do a series jump combination and no one could break it down, I made his day so he could yell at them!"

Ralph McCreath, Chuck Rathgeb and Imre Szabo

Ralph may have been a tough judge, but he was also a benevolent one. He accepted Bruce Hyland's invitation to come take a look at the training sessions of his students. In those days, skaters and coaches were very much in one camp and judges in another. Monitoring sessions simply weren't a thing yet, and there was always the worry on both sides that a judge offering constructive feedback to a skater might be perceived as untoward. Debbi Wilkes recalled, "You could never talk about it and you never admitted it because it was totally inappropriate as things were defined in those days."

Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library, from Toronto Star Photographic Archive. Reproduced for educational purposes under license permission.

Tragically, Ralph's wife Myrtle passed away at the age of forty-six in 1968. Many years later he remarried. He devoted much of his free time to his farm and travel and was a lifelong fan of football and hockey. Later in life, he played the piano in a musical trio with two of his good friends, performing at special events and parties. In 1994, he was inducted into the CFSA (Skate Canada) Hall Of Fame. After suffering a stroke only months before, Ralph passed away at his Toronto home on May 2, 1997, at the age of seventy-eight. In the "Toronto Star" that year, his son Jim recalled, "He never wanted to admit he was slowing down. He was in great shape until the time of his stroke... The funny thing about him throughout his life, he would never brag about what he could do. He just knew what he could do... and [would] go out and do it."

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