Here's To You, Mr. Nick: The Howard Nicholson Story

Photo courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de France

"A trainer and a prospective champion have to understand the interpretation of music. You often hear contestants at a championship tell the official to 'put on a record.' It does not seem to matter to them which one. But that won't do for my pupils. I have all their music arranged to their steps. Jack Hylton made the records which Sonja Henie used at the Olympic Games." - Howard Nicholson, 1938

"I would think that three revolutions in the air is a limit for the figure skater. I can't see any figure skater doing more than three revolutions. In ballet, the limit has been five turns. But the ballet dancer jumps off two feet and the body is close to vertical at the start; a figure skater starts off one foot and the body can never be as vertical as the ballet dancer's body." - Howard Nicholson, "The Boston Globe", April 27, 1969

The son of Thomas and Anna (Cross) Nicholson, Howard Ernest Nicholson was born December 30, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Nicholson family lived on Topping Street and Howard's father worked as a carpenter and car builder to support Howard, his mother and older brother Robert. The Nicholson's were Methodists. Howard put on his first pair of skates when he was two.

Howard started pursuing figure skating seriously around the age of twelve when his neighbour Carl Gandy returned from a European trip and taught him what he'd learned about Continental Style skating. Howard caught so quickly that soon friends and teachers were asking him for lessons. As his brother had taken up a job as a clerk to help support the family, Howard's income from giving these lessons was more than appreciated.

Figure skating wasn't Howard's only talent. Five foot six, black-haired and brown-eyed Howard was an athletic young man who excelled at speed skating, hockey and running. While attending Mechanic Arts High School, he held his school's record for running the quarter mile and the Minnesota high school record for the half mile. 

Howard was drafted to serve in the Great War but was fortunate enough not to be called on to serve. At the age of nineteen, he married a young woman named Myrtle Marie Newquist and travelled the Eastern Seaboard, performing in ice revues at the College Inn and Hotel Morrison in Illinois and the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio. The ice conditions were horrendous at times, as he recalled in 1976: "You really had to push on that stuff and you had to carry the floor and the 'ice' with you." By 1921, Howard and Myrtle's marriage had dissolved and he was appearing in Charles Dillingham's production "Get Together" at the Hippodrome in New York City with Charlotte Oelschlägel. The following year, he starred in a revue at the Ice Palace at 45th and Market Streets in Philadelphia.

Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine

In 1923, Howard sailed for Europe in search of new professional skating opportunities. The first rink he visited was the Manchester Ice Palace in England, where he got a taste of the English Style club figures which were still practiced routinely there. Friends got him a job performing in an ice revue at the Grand Hotel in St. Moritz. In one performance, he almost broke his neck when his leg got caught on a bench he was trying to jump over. However, his performances were a huge hit. Soon he was giving two thousand lessons each skating season, on top of his already daunting performance schedule that saw him travelling to give exhibitions all over the Continent - Paris, Milan, Antwerp and Berlin. 

Top: Howard Nicholson, Katie Schmidt and Paul Kreckow. Middle: Katie Schmidt and Howard Nicholson. Photos courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de France. Bottom: Howard Nicholson jumping over thirteen people. Photo courtesy Dawn Birchler French.

During the Roaring Twenties, Howard was widely recognized as one of the top professional skaters in the world. Mentored by Bernard Adams, he earned the Gold Medal in Figures of the ISU, National Association and Schweizer Eislauf-Verband. He also formed highly successful on-ice partnerships with Hilda Rückert, Katie Schmidt and Freda Whitaker. 

Top: Katie Schmidt and Howard Nicholson. Photo courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de France. Middle: Hilda Rückert  and Howard Nicholson. Bottom: Howard Nicholson and Hans Witte.

Howard and his partners performed some of the earliest known exhibitions of adagio pairs skating, performing tricks that were adapted from roller skating shows. They were doing the neck spin and the 'whirligig' - a precursor to the bounce spin - long before these tricks were seen in touring American ice shows. In 1924, Howard and Freda Whitaker gave exhibitions of pairs skating and ice dancing atop Selfridge's flagship store in London. In 1925, Howard went to Australia with Hans Witte, giving exhibitions at the Melbourne and Sydney Glaciariums. One of Howard and Hans' big tricks involved Howard jumping over Henry's head while he was performing a sit spin. In 1926, Howard - a professional skater - passed the ISU's Bronze, Silver and Gold Tests in two weeks. When he had a spare afternoon, he could be found golfing or playing ice tennis.

Karl Schäfer, Sonja Henie and Howard Nicholson

By 1931, Howard had relocated from St. Moritz to London to teach his most famous pupil... Sonja Henie. At the Hammersmith Ice Drome, a large framed portrait of Sonja hung in the lobby with the inscription: "To Howard Nicholson, the best trainer in the world. Sonja." When that rink closed in 1934, Howard and Sonja worked together at the Westminster Ice Club.

Sonja Henie and Howard Nicholson in Berlin in 1936. Photo courtesy National Archives Of Poland.

There was a fierce rivalry between Howard and Cecilia Colledge's coach Jacques Gerschwiler at the time. Both skaters were training in London - Sonja at Hammersmith and Westminster and Cecilia at Queen's, Bayswater. In her book "Wings On My Feet", Sonja recalled her coach thusly: "He made invaluable contributions to my progress. His training methods had the remarkable double-barreled power to spur on not only one's technical development but also one's attitude. He stirred his pupils to greater competitiveness. Each day he had a new program of work to offer, an integral part of the whole training but an important bit in itself. At the end of several days one could see the separate new additions to one's packet of specialties and at the same time feel a lift in one's whole skating level. He gave me a better understanding of my work. He taught me how to use my arms to keep the attention of the public, and what freshness means, and how to sustain verve throughout a program." It was under Howard's tutelage that Sonja won two of her three Olympic gold medals, as well as many European and World titles.

In the early thirties, Howard won the Open Professional Championships of Great Britain three times and invented the La Rumba Tango at Hammersmith, a compulsory dance that was published in "The Times". Though the dance caught on with both elite and social skaters at the time, it was unfortunately not adopted by the National Skating Association's Dance Committee. 

Nate Walley, Dunbar Poole and Howard Nicholson at the 1934 World and British Open Professional Championships at the Hammersmith Ice-Drome. Photo courtesy "Skating World" magazine.

Howard's 1933 instructional book "Nicholson On Figure Skating", published by The Bodley Head, was a huge success. The same year his book came out, he remarried to Yvonne Christine Smith. The couple settled in a three-room oak-furnished 'doll's house' in Kensington that was so novel it drew the attention of reporters. A writer with "The Evening News" remarked, "Mrs. Howard Nicholson seems to suit her house. She is small, dark, vivid, good company and a good housewife - in miniature."

In 1936, Howard had the misfortune of meeting Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring backstage in the dressing room at an exhibition Sonja Henie was giving. In 1956, he recalled, "Hitler had the look of a madman in his eyes and Göring had the largest head and neck of any man I have ever seen in my life." Little did he know at the time that World War II was on the horizon.

Left: Howard Nicholson performing a spread eagle. Right: Gillis Grafström and Howard Nicholson. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

By the time many of London's ice rinks began closing due to the War, Howard was already on a steamer back to America with his Bournemouth protégé Hazel Franklin... whom many hailed as 'Sonja 2.0'. In the decades that followed, he established himself as one of America's most prestigious elite coaches. Students at the Skating Club of New York, St. Moritz Ice Skating Club, Detroit Skating Club and Granite Club in Toronto all clamoured for a fifteen-minute lesson with 'Mr. Nick'. He was a fixture in Lake Placid and even had his own private studio rink called  'Nick's Nook' at Skateland in New Hyde Park, Long Island. In 1956, he released a 'road map' style chart of diagrams and descriptions of school figures, the result of a five-year collaboration with his good friend T.D. Richardson. In later years, Howard preferred teaching figures over free skating and was sought out by other coaches as a 'fixer' to their students' problems with figures.

An important contribution to the sport made by Howard was his organization of the 1964 World's Professional Invitational Figure Skating Championships in Lake Placid. This event, which featured competitions in singles, pairs and ice dancing, was one of the first professional competitions of note to be held on North American soil. It was an important predecessor to the World Professional Championships that Dick Button would present years later in Landover, Maryland.

In his later days coaching in America, Howard earned a reputation as something of a character. He wore blue suede skates and had a favourite 'hat of the week'. A tall stool always marked his patch. He developed a rivalry with Gustave Lussi almost as famous as the one he'd had with Jacques Gerschwiler years prior. A cigar was always on the go when he was teaching and it wasn't uncommon for his patch to be littered with ashes. As they say, where there's smoke, there's fire... a late-night blaze gutted his five-room cottage on Placid Heights in 1953.

Mollie Phillips, Howard Nicholson and Jackie Dunn at the 1935 European Championships. Photo courtesy BIS Archive.

The list of skaters that Howard worked with at one point or another over the course of his career reads like a who's who of figure skating: Vivi-Anne Hultén, Yvonne de Ligne, Freddie Tomlins, Jackie Dunn, Horst Faber, Mollie Phillips, Daphne Walker, Mary Rose Thacker, Sonya (Klopfer) Dunfield, Edi Scholdan, Carlo Fassi, Slavka Kohout, Sheldon Galbraith, Miggs Dean, Ginny Baxter, Ramona Allen, Yvonne Sherman Tutt, Dudley Richards, Priscilla Hill, Lorraine Hanlon, Bobbi Shire, Andra McLaughlin Kelly, Kazuo Ohashi, Per Cock-Clausen and Mabel Fairbanks. He worked on figures with Maribel Vinson, Barbara Ann Scott, Dorothy Hamill, Gundi Busch, Cecilia Colledge, Scotty Allen, Audrey Peppe and Toller Cranston. More than a dozen of the competitors at the 1936 Winter Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen were his pupils.

Howard also taught Dukes and Duchesses, Princesses, British Members of Parliament, Sir Samuel Hoare, Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, Elisabeth of Bavaria and the Queens of Spain and Belgium. He even taught Jack Dempsey, the famous World Heavyweight Champion in boxing, how to skate. For part of the 1948/1949 season, he was in the enviable position of supporting himself by teaching only one pupil: the daughter of the wealthy Vice-President of the General Electric Corporation in Great Britain.

Howard Nicholson with student Michelle Webber. Photo courtesy Christie Sausa's book "Lake Placid Figure Skating: A History". Used with permission.

In 1931, Howard said of his most famous pupil Sonja Henie, "Not only have I never had a pupil like Sonja, but I have never seen or imagined there could be a girl so wonderful and so brilliant. I am astounded at her ability to grasp almost immediately my suggestions, however new they may be to her. Difficult and complicated new steps which one would expect to spend months on, even with what it is the fashion to call a first-class skater (I mean anyone who has at least passed the gold medal standard) are performed after only a few lessons with an ease and grace which only an exceptional artist could possibly attain."

Howard was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall Of Fame in 1976 and passed away on Christmas Day in Lake Placid in 1978. He was eighty-two years old, had been suffering from cancer and only stopped coaching five weeks before his death.

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, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Werner Rittberger, The Inventor of The Loop Jump

The son of Meta (Bradtke) and Max Rittberger, Werner Hans Carl Rittberger was born on July 13, 1891, in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany. His father was an engineer by trade, who co-founded the Union Flugzeugwerke Gesellschaft and Schmidthässler Film companies.

Werner's skill for skating was discovered when he won a school speed skating race in his youth. He learned to figure skate on natural ice and soon moved indoors to train at the Admiralspalast, later training at the artificial ice rink at the College of Physical Culture in Berlin. He represented the Berliner Schlittschuhclub when he practically came out of nowhere to win the silver medal at both the 1910 European and World Championships behind Sweden's Ulrich Salchow. At the latter competition in Davos, the two Austrian judges on the panel placed him first, ahead of Salchow. 

It was the beginning of a competitive career that lasted over a decade, ending in embarrassment at the 1928 Winter Olympic Games in St. Moritz, when he placed outside of the top ten in the school figures and withdrew from the event in disgust. Along the way, he won ten German titles, the Hugo Ehrentraut Memorial in Berlin, four medals at the European Championships and three medals at the World Championships. While he was still competing, he served as the German Federation's Secretary for two years. 

Photos courtesy State Archives of Freiburg

Photo courtesy Julia C. Schulze

At only 5'5", Werner was a compact but striking skater of considerable power. Swedish skating historian Gunnar Bang recalled, "He had an undeniable talent and natural ability to skate on the rapid and oily 'indoor ice' and also to skate [outdoors] smoothly, untroubled by the weather... His strength is in the figure tracing. His [free skating] leaves something to be desired." His competitor Per Thorén was less complimentary. "He was a master skater, but completely copied Salchow's programs," Thorén remarked. "With the exception of a few special figures, such as the jump from the pirouette, it is precisely Salchow's admirable combinations that he copied. He is not an artist, but merely a craftsman."

Werner Rittberger, Artur Vieregg and Paul Franke

Werner's grandson Michael Rittberger claimed that a story his grandfather always told implied that the invention of the loop - or Rittberger - jump was nothing more than a happy accident. While skating to the music of German operetta composer Walter Kollo at the Berlin Eispalast, Werner claimed to have encountered a bump on the ice which caught him off guard and frightened him so much that he jumped in the air, rotated and landed on his backward outside edge. It went over well enough that he chose to keep the element in his free skating program... and the rest, as they say, is history. But that's the thing... there's a lot more to this man's story than just that one (accidental) jump.

Any account of Werner's story that didn't touch upon his role in the World Wars would be quite remiss. For starters, he wasn't allowed to compete at the 1920 and 1924 Winter Olympics because the International Olympic Committee instituted a ban on German athletes after the first World War. During the War, Werner served as a pilot in the German Air Force. The Union Flugzeugwerke Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, which was co-founded by his father, was responsible for the design of German bomber aircrafts flown by the Axis during the War.

Letter from Werner Rittberger to Veronica Clarke. Photo courtesy Hilary Bonnycastle.

In between the two Wars, he made frequent trips via steamship between Europe and North America, teaching skating in London, Lake Placid and Toronto. He returned to Germany in the mid-1930s and co-founded the Düsseldorfer EG skating club. When World War II broke out, Werner served as a Major with the Luftwaffe. During the War, he was the commander responsible for overseeing the operations at Nazi airfields in both Germany and Africa. 

Werner Rittberger working with students in Krefeld. Photo courtesy Westdeutsche Zeitung.

After World War II, Werner, his wife Babette and four children settled in Krefeld, where he took a permanent job as a figure skating coach. Among his many students were Ria Baran and Paul Falk, Ulrich Kuhn, Ruth Hütter and Ina Bauer. Bauer described him as "a man of uncanny energy." He also managed the rink at Brehmstraße and worked with the Düsseldorfer EG hockey team.

Werner was reinstated by the ISU in 1952 and began dabbling in judging both singles and pairs. He chaired the ISU's Figure Skating Committee from 1953 to 1955 and famously, he was one of the referees of the controversial pairs event at the 1956 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo, where Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden placed second behind Austrians Sissy Schwarz and Kurt Oppelt. He penned an instructional book on the sport, dabbled in journalism and lent his name to a model of ice blades that briefly enjoyed popularity in Germany.

Photo courtesy Matthias Hampe

Werner passed away on August 12, 1975, in Krefeld at the age of eighty-four, after suffering from dementia for several years. 

So there you have it folks... the man who invented the loop jump was a Nazi Major who served in both World Wars and allegedly copied Ulrich Salchow's programs. I don't know about you... but when I started researching this blog several years ago, I did not see that coming. Yikes.

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 five fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating: https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Cover Reveal - Barbara Ann Scott: Queen of the Ice

The first Canadian woman to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympic Games, Barbara Ann Scott transcended her sport, becoming a symbol of hope and inspiration. In Canada, she became a cultural icon, rivaling the most celebrated stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. Her stunning victory at the 1948 Olympics uplifted a nation grappling with the aftermath of World War II, inspiring thousands of Canadians to dream big and strive for excellence in their own lives. 

Barbara Ann Scott: Queen of the Ice is a significant new biography that will delight knowledgeable and passionate fans of figure skating. This well-researched narrative presents a revealing portrait of a Canadian figure skating legend, offering new insights and information about Scott's career that will both surprise and enlighten readers.

Coming in March during the 2025 World Figure Skating Championships in Boston

Join the ARC Team or pre-order your copy from select retailers today!

They Skated Away

December 1 is World AIDS Day. The day brings attention to the value of education, the importance of ensuring access to life-saving drugs, and the need to eliminate stigma and prejudice against people living with HIV. It is also a day of reflection, where we remember those we have lost to HIV/AIDS-related illnesses. 

In observance of World AIDS Day, Skate Guard Blog is launching a major new feature that has been four years in development. They Skated Away is an online memorial and educational resource that pays tribute to the skaters, coaches, and choreographers we have lost, featuring biographies, photographs, obituaries, newspaper articles, and oral history interviews. This project will be continuously updated as contributions come in from the figure skating community. You can explore They Skated Away here.

The Convention Hall Ice Palace

"If the immortal G. Washington could enter the city he first laid out into town lots, and should see the way genius has baffled nature and an ice skating rink now coquets with frolicking skaters whether old Bareas comes with his chilly whiz or the gentle zephyrs from the Southland bring palmetto odors almost to our gates, he would doubtless twitch nervously in his tomb and inquire what the world is coming to." - "The Morning Times", January 19, 1896

During the late Victorian era, interest in skating flourished in many of North America and Europe's capitals with the construction of lavish new covered rinks. It might surprise you to know that one of the largest indoor rinks of this period opened in Washington, D.C. - a city without a particularly rich skating tradition.

The Convention Hall Ice Palace opened its doors on January 6, 1896, on the top floor of a massive market house with a thousand stalls for vendors. The Convention Hall took up an entire block between K and L and 5th and 6th Streets in what is now known as the Mount Vernon Triangle neighbourhood. At the time, it was hailed as "the largest rink ever built". It was also one of the quickest rinks ever constructed. 

Less than a week before Christmas of 1895, the city's Choral Society had held a Messiah concert in the space. Sixteen miles of piping distributed ammonia over the three-inch ice floor, which measured two hundred and five by one hundred and fifteen feet. The January 5, 1896 issue of "The Morning Times" noted, "The ice surface is the largest of any similar place of amusement in the world... The fittings of the reception rooms, retiring rooms, smoking rooms, and cafe are such as to excite the admiration and wonder of everyone who has inspected the rink. The large general reception room is situated in the front of the building on L Street. The reception room and retiring room for ladies are located on the right hand side of the hall while those for gentlemen are placed on the opposite side of the structure. A smoking room has also been provided for the gentlemen. These rooms are all furnished in Oriental style with hangings of Persian goods. The effect thus made is gorgeous and elegant beyond description. Thousands of incandescent lights will illuminate the rooms and furnish just the right quality of light to fit the surroundings. Everything for comfort, convenience and pleasure will be found here and the management has spared no expense to make this part of the ice palace go ahead of any in the world. The cafe will be located in the gallery of the hall and here the patrons of the rink may eat an excellent meal and be regaled mentally as well as physically by the music which will be rendered by the orchestra... The hall will present a most attractive appearance on the opening night. The roof as usual will be studded with thousands of lights but the addition will be in the glistening ice surface, which will reflect the light and make it even more brilliant than ever. Around the ice basin have been placed several rows of seats for those who do not wish to join in the skating but who like to come and see others enjoy themselves. A promenade will be made of the space which comes in between the ice basin and the doors leading to the hall proper. Inside the railing and just outside the ice surface is a strip on which the skaters may stand while putting on their skates."

Over two thousand skaters and spectators attended the Convention Hall Ice Palace's opening night. For the admission price of twenty-five cents, patrons could rent a pair of skates and marvel at exhibitions by visiting skaters from Baltimore and Canada - that is, if you were white. A crew of twenty-five young men of colour was relegated to the menial task of tying the patron's skates.

The Convention Hall Ice Palace was run by theatrical manager David Towers and actor Lee Hutchins. Hutchins was the son of Stilson Hutchins, the founder of "The Washington Past". It was owned by the newly incorporated Purity Ice Co., which manufactured and distributed ice for cold storage.

The Convention Hall Ice Palace was open six days a week and offered two sessions a day. The first session was for women only and on Saturday children had the rink to themselves. A group of instructors, the first being E.T. Leonard, was hired to give free lessons to those who had never skated before.

To attract patrons, the Convention Hall Ice Palace spared no expense. They brought in hockey teams from Quebec and staged a speed skating race, which was won by World Champion Joe Donoghue of Manhattan. Harry Park was invited to give displays of bicycle riding on ice. As D.C. had "few, if any, expert skaters", Canadian skaters were invited to give exhibitions of fancy skating. Among those who wowed crowds were Mabel and Fanny Davidson and George Meagher. The management organized a series of Souvenir Days, where women who attended an afternoon session were gifted a pair of Barney and Berry skates. At a fancy dress carnival held in March of 1897, those wearing "the handsomest costumes" were gifted with a gold watch.

In the height of its popularity in 1897, the Convention Ice Palace closed its doors for the season... and for good. Several factors contributed to its demise. The rink's management spent more money than it took in and the Purity Ice Co. which owned the rink faced serious financial difficulties. Two months after the Ice Palace's closure, they were placing ads to sell off ice-making apparatuses in the newspapers and over the next two years, they were in and out of court over solvency issues. On top of all this, one of the Ice Palace's managers, David Towers, was seriously injured in a bicycle accident.

The upper floor of the Convention Hall where the Ice Palace was housed was converted into a bicycle track and later, a bowling alley. In March of 1946, the roof and bowling alley at the Hall were badly damaged in a serious fire. After extensive repairs, the market on the Hall's bottom floor re-opened in 1955, only to close less than a decade later. The National Historical Wax Museum was housed there from 1965 to 1974. The building sat unused for over a decade and was demolished in 1985.

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 five fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating:

https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

The 1961 Canadian Figure Skating Championships

Members of the Canadian World team enroute to the 1961 World Championships in Prague

South of the border, John F. Kennedy had just been sworn in as the thirty-fifth President of the United States. Canada's Prime Minister was John Diefenbaker. Canadians who could afford the hefty price tag of a new RCA colour television set cackled at the antics of Fred Flinstone and those who couldn't hummed along to the Connie Francis' hit "Where The Boys Are" on their record players. The year was 1961. 

With the loss of the entire U.S. figure skating team along with coaches, judges and family members in Sabena Flight 548 on February 15, 1961, the year 1961 is rightfully remembered as the darkest one figure skating has ever seen. However, less than a month before the tragedy, the future couldn't have seemed brighter for the seventy-four competitors at the 1961 Canadian Figure Skating Championships. Yet, the three-day event, held from January 25 to 27, 1961 at the Lachine Arena and Montreal Forum, was linked to a disaster of its own. 

Exactly one month after Canada's best figure skaters catapulted themselves over the ice in the Québec city of Montreal, the ice fell from the sky in what was dubbed the Ice Storm Of '61. Power and telephone lines were down for almost a week and many homes went without heat, lights, water and cooking facilities for nearly a week in the dead of winter. 

Only a month before the ice storm struck residents of Lachine and Montreal were sitting in the freezing cold by choice, entranced by the phenomenal figure skating being performed in their very own backyard. Let's take a trip back in time to 1961 and see what all of the talk was about!

THE JUNIOR EVENTS

Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine

To the disappointment of the sparse crowd hoping for a Québec win (only four hundred of the two thousand seats were filled for the earliest events) all four of the junior titles went to skaters from Ontario. The event with the fewest competitors was the junior men's event, won by Donald Knight of the Dundas Figure Skating Club. The shortest of the three contestants at 4'9", Knight was described in the January 27, 1961 issue of "The Ottawa Citizen" as "a freckle-faced 13-year old who likes to read detective stories". He outskated Bill Neale of the Stamford Skating Club and Nelson Belmore of the Burlington Figure Skating Club for the title. Four teams competed in the junior pairs event. Seventeen-year-old Elinor Flack and sixteen-year-old Philip McCordic of Toronto emerged the victors, defeating Wendy Warne and Jim Watters, Susan Herriott and Michael Hart and Linda Ann Ward and Neil Carpenter. Ten teams started the junior dance event; four skated in the final round. The winners hailed from the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club, seventeen-year-old Paulette Doan and eighteen-year-old Ken Ormsby. They soundly defeated fifteen-year-old Marilyn Crawford and sixteen-year-old Blair Armitage of the Minto Skating Club, as well as Carole Holliday and Brian Baillie and Linda Pallett and Gregory Folk with polished compulsory dances, a credit to their coach Geraldine Fenton. In contrast to the low numbers in the junior men's and pairs events, over a dozen young Canadians vied for the junior women's title. Fifteen-year-old Norma Sedlar of Vancouver won the school figures, but in the free skate, a young upstart from Toronto you may have heard of named Petra Burka turned the tide and earned the gold medal with her athletic performance. Sedlar settled for silver ahead of Winnipeg's Darlene Turk and Fort William's Jennifer Jean Wilkin.

THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION

Virginia Thompson and Bill McLachlan

Already the defending Canadian Champions and World Silver Medallists at fifteen and twenty-two, Virginia Thompson and Bill McLachlan were considered shoe-ins to defend their national title in 1961. However, a sibling team from the Connaught Skating Club, Donna Lee and John (J.D.) Mitchell was nipping at their heels.

Donna Lee and J.D. Mitchell. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

The Mitchells were coached by four-time World Champion Jean Westwood, who had previously coached Thompson and his former partner Geraldine Fenton, who was coaching Paulette Doan and Ken Ormsby, junior champions 'skating up' in the senior ranks. Confused yet? Drink your juice, Shelby. In the compulsories, to no one's surprise Thompson and McLachlan took a healthy lead. However, when Doan and Ormsby managed to outskate the Mitchells it became clear that the silver medal was going to be a two-team race. In front of a packed crowd at the Forum, Thompson and McLachlan defended their national title with an effortless, rhythmic free dance and the Mitchells rebounded to claim the silver medal over Doan and Ormsby in an extremely close contest, with more ordinals but fewer points.

THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION

Wendy Griner

At sixteen, Wendy Griner was already the defending Canadian Champion, an Olympian and ranked seventh in the world. Both Toronto's Sonia Snelling and Vancouver's Shirra Kenworthy had gained valuable experience from competing in the 1960 World Championships in Vancouver, but it was clear to many that barring a meltdown, Griner was quite likely to defend her title... and that's exactly what she did!

Shirra Kenworthy. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

First, on every judge's scorecard, Griner won both the school figures and free skating, ending up with the gold medal and a total of 942.42 points. She actually had over thirty-five points more than Kenworthy and Snelling, who found themselves in an identical situation to the Mitchells and Doan and Ormsby in the ice dance event. The judging system that was in place at the time gave second place to Kenworthy with a score of 873.57 and the bronze to Snelling with a score of 875.16, the result determined by the ordinals and not only the points the skaters received. Otto Gold's daughter Frances placed fourth ahead of Winnipeg's Jocelyn Davidson, Lachine's Joy Ann Moyer, Vancouver's Maralee Rutley, Owen Sound's Rose Bilyk and Ottawa's Lorinda Farrell.

THE MEN'S COMPETITION

Like Thompson and McLachlan and Griner, twenty-year-old Donald Jackson was really in a class by himself at the 1961 Canadian Championships. He was already an Olympic Bronze Medallist, two-time World Champion, North American Champion and two-time Canadian Champion, and competing at the event was in many ways a mere formality before heading to Prague to compete in the 1961 World Championships. Ever humble, Jackson was quoted in "The Montreal Gazette" on January 25, 1961 thusly: "No matter what happens I still have to get by the Canadian Championships here and this fellow Don McPherson from Stratford could give me a tough time." Perhaps in the free skate, but certainly not in the school figures. Jackson won the initial phase of the event by over thirty points points and only expanded his lead in the free skate. He earned the first 6.0 of his career with his dazzling performance, executing the first crossover Axel ever attempted at the Canadian Championships and attempting the first split double Lutz, though faltering slightly on the landing. Donald McPherson finished almost seventy-five points back in second and Bradley Black of the Winter Club of St. Catharine's earned the bronze with a score that was one hundred points less than McPherson's.

THE PAIRS AND FOURS COMPETITION

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

With the retirement of Olympic Gold Medallists and four-time World Champions Barbara Wagner and Bob Paul, 1961 was supposed to be Maria and Otto Jelinek's year. The siblings, mired in red tape, had been promised exit Visas from Prague, but they still hadn't received a reply to their request for release from Czechoslovakian citizenship less than two weeks before leaving for the 1961 Canadian Championships. George Hasler had said that if the Reds didn't acquiesce the International Skating Union would "contact all members of the ISU and decide on a new site for the 1961 World Championship." The ISU even had sites in mind: Dortmund and Cortina d'Ampezzo. When the Jelineks arrived in Montreal, they met with the consul who provided them with documents releasing them from citizenship, signed by the Czechoslovakian Minister Of The Interior himself. Unfortunately, the Jelineks fell early in their performance in Montreal when Otto got his skate caught in the cuff of his pants. However, the rest of their performance went very well and they managed to win their first Canadian title with a score of 57.6. Gertrude Desjardins and Maurice LaFrance placed second with 51.8; Debbi Wilkes and Guy Revell third with 50.1. In her book "Ice Time", Debbi Wilkes recalled, "We went to Lachine for the Canadians, expecting to stay one lock behind the Jelineks as they moved up the ranks to become champions. But a pair from the Toronto Cricket Club, Gertie Desjardins and Maurice LaFrance, beat us to come in second. This was a little shock to the system. We suspected that some muscle-flexing by the Cricket Club was involved, seeing as how we were sure our performance was better, but we soon off to the North American Championships and we didn't think the reach of the Cricket Club could extend to Philadelphia." A fours competition was scheduled to be held, but when only one entry - Susan Herriott, Nancy Brooks, Michael Hart and Bradley Black - showed up from the Winter Club of St. Catharine's, the discipline was not officially contested.

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, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Sensations From St. Paul: The Oscar Johnson And Eddie Shipstad Story

Photo courtesy Hennepin County Library

Born November 13, 1898, and February 16, 1907, respectively, Oscar Fabian Johnson and Eddie Shipstad both grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, the sons of working-class Swedish immigrants with many mouths to feed. As boys, they met wearing double runners on Lake Como and became fast friends as they both taught themselves how to 'really skate' at the popular St. Paul skating spot, enduring temperatures that sometimes dipped to minus thirty below. It was on that lake, through trial and error, that they developed an act that later became known as their 'Bowery' number. So many locals flocked to the lake to watch the comedy stylings of the boys that more than once, the police showed up to disperse the crowds out of concern that the ice wouldn't bear with so many folks gathering in one area.

Photo courtesy the Minnesota Historical Society. Used with permission.

By the twenties, Oscar and Eddie were working as a chemist's apprentice at a coke plant and typewriter salesman, taking odd jobs like cutting hot dog buns and squeezing lemons at a ballpark to earn extra money. When they weren't toiling away at their low-paying jobs, they were sweeping the ice at the local rink in exchange for time to practice their popular comedic skating acts. They gave their first performance at the St. Paul Hippodrome in 1924 and were regulars during the intermissions of Duluth and St. Paul hockey games, earning five or ten dollars a show.

Eddie's younger brother Roy - also an extremely talented skater - set off for New York City to take on a half-time hockey game skating exhibition gig of his own at Madison Square Garden. In the November 23, 1986 issue of "The Chicago Tribune", Eddie recalled, "From the reaction he got, he thought we could make a go of it with a full-scale show." 

Soon thereafter, Eddie and Oscar headed east to join him and became huge hits with their icy equestrian antics as Sparkplug, a comedic skating horse. Oscar took the head; Eddie the rear. After their five-year engagement ended, Oscar, Eddie and Roy set to work laying the foundation for their own production.

Photo courtesy the Minnesota Historical Society. Used with permission.

Photos courtesy the Minnesota Historical Society, Hennepin County Library. Used with permission.

In the winter of 1933, Eddie and Oscar staged their first production, which proved a financial flop as it was held on a bank holiday when funds were unavailable. Their next effort, the first annual Midsummer Ice Carnival at the St. Paul Auditorium, proved far more successful. In the year that followed, they successfully staged several hospital fundraisers on ice and organized a tank ice show at the College Inn at the Hotel Sherman in Chicago.

Photo courtesy the Minnesota Historical Society. Used with permission.

Soon, Eddie and Oscar developed a little tour you might have heard of... Shipstad and Johnson's Ice Follies. Although the Ice Follies went on to become one of the most recognized and celebrated skating tours in North America, its beginnings were humble at best. Including Oscar, Eddie and Roy, the initial cast only included twenty-eight skaters, including Bess Ehrhardt, Lois Dworshak, Ruth Mack and Everett McGowan and Heinie Brock.

Janet Champion, Ginger Clayton, Oscar Johnson, Roy Shipstad and Betty Schalow at the Ice Follies 20th Anniversary Party. Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society.

The costumes for the entire cast during year one of Ice Follies only cost five hundred dollars. Eddie's brother Roy made his own, stitching sequins to a pair of long underwear dyed black. On the show's opening night in Omaha in 1936, there were more cast than audience members. Eddie called the skeptical cast together for a pre-show pep talk and joked, "Don't worry! We've got 'em outnumbered!"

For over a decade, Oscar and Eddie doubled as producers and stars of the Ice Follies. Some of their routines were legendary. "A Bicycle Built For Two", "On And Off The Beat" and "The Bloody Buccaneers", with Oscar as Spike McDuff and Eddie as Gashouse Annie, set the bar for skating comedy acts to follow.

Top: Eddie Shipstad, Harris Legg and Oscar Johnson. Photo courtesy Hennepin County Library. Bottom: Eddie Shipstad and Oscar Johnson with Dorothy Lamour and Bill Howard. Photo courtesy Los Angeles Public Library.

To this day, many of the themes Eddie and Oscar and their contemporaries - Frick and Frack - developed have been liberally borrowed from. A film inspired by the tour, "Ice Follies Of 1939", featured no less a star than Mommie Dearest herself... Joan Crawford.

Eddie and Roy Shipstad with Oscar Johnson. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

After thrilling audiences from St. Paul to Seattle for decades, Oscar and Eddie hung up their skates in 1947 to focus on the management of their tour. They later sold Ice Follies for a cool three point five million dollars. Both men married. Eddie had children; Oscar didn't. They were both inducted into the Ice Skating Institute Hall Of Fame in 1965, alongside Eddie's brother Roy, Dick Button and Frank J. Zamboni.

Oscar Johnson, Eddie and Roy Shipstad. Photos courtesy "World Ice Skating Guide".

Sadly, Oscar Johnson died in Rochester, Minnesota in 1970 after an eight year battle with cancer at the age of seventy-one. Eddie's brother Roy passed away in 1975 and in 1976, both Oscar and Eddie were among the initial group of inductees to the U.S. Figure Skating Hall Of Fame. Eddie Shipstad passed away at the age of ninety-one on August 20, 1998, in Los Angeles, California.

The legacy of Oscar and Eddie lives on in the incredible roles that their family members, friends and former employees have done to keep professional figure skating alive and flourishing in North America. They were - simply put - legends.

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, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering one of five fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating:

https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.