The History Of Figure Skating In Harlem

Winter scene in Harlem. Photo courtesy New York Public Library.

Founded in the nineties by Sharon Cohen, Figure Skating In Harlem has enriched the lives of countless young people living in New York City... in particular, young people of colour. In December 2016, I had the pleasure of speaking with Sharon about the history of this incredible, one-of-a-kind organization and the importance of sharing the stories of skaters of colour who helped paved the way for a program like this to even exist.

It all began in 1990, when Sharon moved to New York City after graduating from Brown University and learned of the Ice Hockey In Harlem program, which had started in 1987. "It was a happy accident. I was working at CBS News at the time right after college and I heard about the after school ice hockey program in Harlem," she said.

Sharon called the organizers of Ice Hockey In Harlem up to congratulate them and learned that many young people of colour living in Harlem hadn't been exposed to ice sports and that the prohibitive costs of participating in hockey played a big factor in that. She recalled, "They said they had some girls that wanted to figure skate - would I meet them?"

A meeting between Sharon and these girls in a church basement was what set the ball in motion for a figure skating program in Harlem. "They were amazing, very embracing and we got some old used skates, we put them on and we started to skate on the north end of Central Park on Lasker Rink. I did that for about seven years. I just volunteered in my spare time and what was amazing to me was that it was like a Pied Piper effect. More and more girls wanted to do it and what I saw was that real transformation in them. Once they were given this opportunity to be introduced to figure skating, they really started to take pride in setting goals and learning to be resilient - falling down and getting back up," she said.

In 1997, when Sharon was coming out of graduate school, the after school program that was linked to the Lasker Park skating lessons was closing. Several parents, impressed by the positive changes they'd seen in the lives of their children, asked if she'd continue the program. "I took a break from my film pursuits, paired with the parents and together we launched Figure Skating In Harlem," explained Sharon. "I always believed that if you created something of value, the support would follow... The only caveat to this was that I believed if we to do a full-blown, youth development organization that education had to be the heart and skating was really the hook. We went from there and now, twenty years later, so many hundreds of girls have come through the program and gone on to colleges like Spellman, Brown, Michigan State, Williams... I could go on and on. We're just so proud of the results, because really, skating was the vehicle to teach lessons in perseverance and discipline and appreciating the arts... It's really just had a very positive effect and I'm so proud of the many people who have played such a big part in building this over the years - the parents, the students, the board and the community." Today, the program has a staff of over seventy time full-time and part-time workers... coaches, teachers, tutors, social workers and counsellors.

In a sport that has been - let's face it - extremely dominated by white people since its early roots, young skaters of colour growing up have had few role models to look up to on television. Sharon had skated with Bruno Jerry in Delaware, a skater of colour who went on to tour with the Ice Capades, but recognized her own need to learn more about the history of the community she was working with. She made educating herself on the history of Harlem, the Renaissance and African American skating history a priority. "So few African Americans had participated in the sport, let alone risen to the top. In my era it was Debi Thomas but we learned about Mabel Fairbanks, who was really an extraordinary pioneer. I have her photograph in my office and all my students learn about her history. She really broke barriers and was an unsung hero, really. She was skating in the same rink where we started at - in Lasker Rink - where they didn't allow people of colour to even get on the ice. She just defied that and got on the ice anyway. We really have great reverence for her history and the people she taught. Tai Babilonia and Atoy Wilson have been wonderful supporters of Figure Skating In Harlem because I think they see we are providing access to a sport that has historically never done any outreach to communities of colour."

For now, the biggest struggle for the program is getting ice time. "We create own culture of success and positivity but if we have more ice time I'm sure the next great skaters would be coming out of Figure Skating in Harlem. For now, our biggest focus is education," explained Sharon. However, the program has plans for expansion to Detroit, Michigan in 2017. Cohen hopes the program will continue to grow in the years to come. "I just realized that when you open the door and invite people in and you give them the same equality and access as anybody, they will fall in love with the sport. I think what makes me the most happy are the hundreds of girls who came through the program who never would have known that they loved to ice skate... And we're building leaders, young women who are educated, who have voices and are unafraid to take risks. We're really a holistic program and the support is needed, especially for young people today, with so many distractions, so many inequalities... We feel we're a second home to many young women. It's truly a village and there are so many talented, kind-hearted people out there."

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.

Making History: Three Decades Of African American Figure Skating Pioneers

In the sixties, seventies and eighties, several American figure skaters made history as the first people of colour to make a real impact in national and international level figure skating competitions. In the last Skate Guard blog, we looked at the incredible story of Edward Henderson. Today, we'll put faces to the names of several more skaters who opened the door for people of colour to be accepted into a sport that was about as white as it gets since its early history.

ATOY WILSON

Photo courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society

Atoy Wilson got his start as a figure skater at the age of seven after his parents took him to see Ice Follies at the Pan Pacific Auditorium. After taking his first lessons at The Polar Palace in Hollywood under the watchful eye of Mabel Fairbanks, he joined the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club, where he took from Peter Betts.

Photo courtesy Detroit Public Library

Atoy's first competition win was in 1963, when he claimed the Southwest Pacific juvenile men's title. In Lake Placid in 1965, he became the first skater of colour to compete and medal in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, taking the silver medal in the novice men's event. The following year at the age of fourteen, he became the first person of colour to win a U.S. title at any level, claiming the gold medal in the novice men's event at the U.S. Championships in Berkeley, California. In 1969, he became the first person of colour to pass the USFSA's Eighth Figure Test. Following in the footsteps of his famous first coach, he later joined the professional ranks, touring with Ice Follies and Holiday On Ice as the first person of colour to hold a principal role in a touring ice show. His travels often took him to cities in the deep south teeming with profound racism.  In 1973, Wilson made history yet again by becoming the first person of colour to compete in a professional competition: the 1973 World Professional Championships in Tokyo, Japan.

LESLIE ROBINSON

Like Atoy Wilson, Leslie Robinson got his start at The Polar Palace and was coached by Mabel Fairbanks. Ever supportive, Mabel helped Leslie get his first audition in the professional ranks. He went on to skate with a show in Las Vegas and in Holiday On Ice.

MICHELLE MCCLADDIE AND RICHARD EWELL III

Michelle McCladdie and Richard Ewell III's rise to prominence in the early seventies almost eerily mirrored the story of Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner. Like Tai and Randy, McCladdie and Ewell got their start at the Culver City Ice Arena, were paired by Mabel Fairbanks and went on to be coached to the medal podium at the U.S. Championships by Mr. John Nicks. While skating, Michelle studied sociology at Pepperdine University; Richard history at West Los Angeles Junior College. Both of their fathers worked for the U.S. Postal Service.

Michelle had blonde hair and green eyes and admitted that she surprised everyone but Richard when she announced her ethnicity. "My looks contradict my origins," she laughed in a November 1972 interview for "Ebony" magazine. "But then, black comes in many different shades and I'm proud of it. Maybe it'll bury a few stereotypes."

Richard, a talented singles skater who only started skating at the age of thirteen, became the first person of colour to win a U.S. junior men's title in 1970 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Together, Michelle and Richard became the first pairs team of colour to win a medal at the U.S. Championships in 1971 and the following year, the first to claim the U.S. junior title. They went on to become the first pairs team of colour to be signed as principals with the Ice Capades.

REGGIE STANLEY

The only non-Californian of the bunch, Reggie Stanley of Philadelphia got his start on the ice at the age of nine. In an interview in the February 1977 issue of "Boys' Life" magazine, he recalled, "I liked it right away, even though I was falling all over the rink. It wasn't one of those storybook things, where the guy gets out there and boom! He's jumping and spinning like a pro. But it really got to me - the feeling of the ice under my blades like I was skimming under glass... My skating improved over the next two years, and when I was 11 I started taking lessons and practicing seriously. The lessons and practice weren't much fun. I kept wishing the sport would just be skating the way you felt inside. But I saw that there was a lot more to it than I could teach myself, and I definitely wanted to get better. I also wanted to compete - and win."

Win he did. Training under Don Laws at the Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society, Stanley became an Eastern Champion in 1975 and the U.S. novice men's champion in 1975. While competing, he attended Harritton High School, rising before dawn every morning for patch sessions and then heading back to the rink every day after school.

A series of ankle injuries ended his competitive career in the late seventies. While still competing, Stanley expressed, "I've never felt any discrimination. Not from the judges, the other skaters, anyone. Some parents may be annoyed because I placed higher than their kids, but it has nothing to do with my colour. In this sport you're measured by how good you are on the ice."

JOAN CAMPBELL

Hailing from Carson, California and representing the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club, Joan Campbell became the first person of colour to win a woman's title at the U.S. Championships in 1980, when she bested another African American skater, Debi Thomas, for the novice women's crown. Joan's strength was school figures.

BOBBY BEAUCHAMP

Bobby Beauchamp of Culver City was born with clubfoot, wore braces and casts for the first nine years of his life and slept with steel bars holding his legs together in an attempt to properly align his hips. His family doctor suggested skating would be good physical therapy and he first learned to skate at Culver City Ice Arena. Following coach Mabel Fairbanks to the Santa Monica Ice Chalet, he started taking from John Nicks. After placing second in the junior men's event at the 1979 U.S. Championships at the age of sixteen, he moved up to the senior ranks, placing as high as fourth in 1983.

While competing, Bobby worked at Robinson's Department Store in Costa Mesa, selling imported Waterford crystal decanters to housewives. Quoted in the "Kansas City Star" on February 1, 1985, Beauchamp lamented, "The LA Times has never done an article on me. But I've even tried to interest 'Ebony' magazine in my story several times, but they have no interest. Sometimes it makes me want to scream in their faces, but I know it is best to keep doing the best I can and forget it. There also is no interest, no encouragement, from the black community. We get much more support from our skating family than anyplace else."

DEBI THOMAS

When Debi Thomas was growing up in San Jose, California, her mother Janice put her in flute, piano and trumpet lessons, ballet and gymnastics, but figure skating proved to be her true love. Showing promise, she eventually started working with British coach Alex McGowan at the Redwood City Ice Arena while driving ninety miles every day to attend classes at San Mateo High School. At the age of thirteen in 1980, she won the Central Pacific Regionals and placed second in the novice women's event. In the years that followed, she made history time and time again. Winning the 1983 International Sugar Criterium in Tours, France, she became the first person of colour to ever win an international figure skating competition. In the years that followed, she became the first person of colour to win a U.S. women's title, a World women's title, an Olympic medal and a World Professional women's title. Quoted in the "Kansas City Star" on February 1, 1985, her coach Alex McGowan remarked, "Debi is actually much better known internationally than at home. In France she is known as La Perle Noire, The Black Pearl. Here, we are pretty much ignored."

BRUNO JERRY

The son of Roosevelt and Gloria Jerry, Bruno Mellin Jerry was born October 6, 1957 at Holliman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico. As a boy, he was educated at a military school in Germany, where his father was stationed as an officer. The family later settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where his mother found work as a medical records librarian. He attended the Ralph Young School run by Jesuits and the Lake Clifton High School.

Bruno first skated when he was in the fourth grade after attending an Ice Follies show with his classmates but didn't take up the sport seriously until he was sixteen. He was the only skater of colour at the rink where he trained and didn't receive his first lesson until he was fourteen.  His first coach, at the Orchard Rink in Towson, was Gail Roeper. Prior to taking up skating, he was on his high school's varsity wrestling team. His wrestling coach didn't even know he skated until he read about it in the paper. Bruno later recalled, "My coach at the Baltimore Skating Club told me I had to concentrate on skating - I really wanted to be good enough to perform in a show - or I'd be wasting my time. Not many kids knew I skated, because I did it all away from school. I told the wrestling coach I was quitting the team, but I didn't tell him why. I didn't think he'd be too wild about losing one of his wrestlers to a non-school activity like figure skating. I just felt he wouldn't understand."

After graduating from high school, Bruno attended the Brandywine College in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was able to continue skating. His coaches there were Diane Agle and Ron Ludington. He passed his USFSA Gold tests in figures, free skating and dance and competed at the South Atlantic, Eastern and U.S. Championships in the mid seventies. In 1976, he won the junior men's event at the South Atlantic Regional Championships and finished eighth in junior men's at the U.S. Championships. The following season, he placed second in the Eastern Championships in New York.

In an interview with "The News Journal" on December 17, 1981, Bruno remarked, "There aren't many black figure skaters, but maybe those of us who are in it will encourage others. I know the expense of getting into skating is a discouraging factor. Prejudice? I don't think so - no more than any other sport. I know there were blacks I competed with who used prejudice as an excuse when they didn't do well. That never entered my mind. If I didn't do well, it was me, just me. Besides, win or lose, it was fun."

Bruno's love of skating led to interrupt his education and turn professional in 1978. He toured as a principal skater with the Ice Follies, Walt Disney's World On Ice and Dorothy Hamill's Fantasy On Ice in the eighties. In 1987, he appeared in a show at the Kennedy Center Opera House with Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner and Scott Hamilton. Known for his huge jumps and jazzy style, Bruno was popular with not only audiences but fellow skaters and dancers as well. Legendary choreographer, dancer and activist Alvin Ailey was a fan of his.

Bruno later returned to school, studying French at the University of Tours in France and Finance at the University of Maryland. He later coached at several clubs in the Baltimore area. Sadly passed away on January 25, 1996 at the age of thirty-eight.

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.

From Cotton Club To Camel Spins: The Edward Henderson Story

"Music and medicine are both divine disciplines. You're dealing with the human body, which is a divine creation, on one hand. And then you're dealing with the divine creation of music. The universe is made of music. Everybody's billions of cells in their bodies - those are vibrations, the vibrations of the solar system, the movement; everything's in a constant flux. And I'm dealing with both of them. They're just very different mediums through which you can see yourself." - Edward Henderson, "Jazz Times", 2001

Born October 26, 1940 in New York City, Edward Henderson (Jackson) was surrounded by music from the day he was born. His mother Vivian was one of The Brown Twins, famous dancers in the original Cotton Club who rubbed shoulders with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holliday. His father Eddie was a tenor singer with The Cherioteers, a gospel/pop group who rose to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance, signed with Columbia Records and appeared in "Hellzapoppin'" on Broadway.

Young Edward received his first trumpet lessons at the age of nine from Louis Armstrong himself and also received instruction from the legendary Miles Davis. After his father passed away, his mother remarried to Dr. Herbert Henderson, a wealthy San Francisco physician in June 1955. The family relocated to San Francisco when he was fourteen. While studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as a teenager, he watched a professional ice show and became absolutely taken with figure skating. "I had some athletic ability so I decided to take lessons," he explained in a January 1960 interview with The Associated Press. In a 2001 interview with Bill Milkowski he added, "During the summer I was on the ice at least 10 hours a day, from 5:30 in the morning until the evening. And at the same time I was going to the [San Francisco Conservatory of Music], going to high school, playing basketball, too."

The talented teenager competed in both the Pacific Coast and Midwestern Championships in the late fifties and early sixties, undaunted by the very real colour barrier that existed in the skating world at the time. Enlisting in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War period, he relocated to Colorado and was permitted entrance in the Denver Figure Skating Club, which he represented at the 1960 Midwestern Figure Skating Championships in Minneapolis. He placed sixth out of seven competitors in the school figures at that event, but made a considerable impression with his fine free skating and moved up to win the bronze.

In 1960, Edward expressed, "Amateur figure skating isn't a sport you can go into without money. Negroes as a group are not very wealthy, and I doubt whether many Negro athletes have had the opportunity that I've had in this sport, that is both the interest in it and the means... I never felt any special nervousness as the first of my race performing in this sport. I am grateful I've got the chance to lead the way. That's one of the reasons I'd like to stay in it for a while." After his stint as an airman ended in 1961 - the same year as the fateful Sabena Crash that took the lives of the entire U.S. figure skating team - Edward ultimately opted to leave the ice behind five years before the USFSA changed its by-laws to take a stand on racial prejudice within skating clubs to pursue joint careers in music and medicine. He passed the barrier breaking torch on to incredibly talented skaters of colour like Atoy Wilson, Joan Campbell, Reggie Stanley, Michelle McCladdie and Richard Ewell III, Bobby Beauchamp, Rory Flack Burghart and Debi Thomas.

Edward studied zoology and medicine at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964 and got his M.D. at Howard University in 1968, but didn't start practicing medicine until the early seventies, instead choosing to devote much of his time energy to music. He performed with Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band, Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Slide Hampton and Elvin Jones. He also endorsed Selmer trumpets and toured Great Britain. In the years since he hung up his skates, he's produced albums under Capricorn Records, Columbia, Blue Note, Steeplechase Records and Smoke Records and served as a faculty member at the Juilliard School of Music and Oberlin University.

Whether on or off the ice, figure skaters are without a doubt some of the most driven, talented people in this world and Edward Henderson's story has to be one of the most fascinating and inspiring success stories out there.

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.

Skating Puts It Skate In Its Mouth: Blackface Minstrel Shows On Ice

I was really hesitant as to how I was going to approach the subject matter of today's blog. It's definitely a touchy subject and quite honestly, one that offends me personally. However, it is still a footnote from figure skating's history that I think absolutely merits being brought up.

Postcard by William Henry Ellam depicting a highly cariacturized skater of colour

In the nineteenth century, minstrel shows were a significant and unfortunately popular part of culture. The very act of donning blackface is one that screams exploitation, expropriation and blatant racism to us today, but the fact of the matter is that 'back then' it was something that was extremely commonplace as a form of Vaudeville-style entertainment. One doesn't have to go any further than the film "Gone With The Wind" and Hattie McDaniel's Academy Award winning role of Mammy to see how characters often perpetuated tired and offensive stereotypes, but the act of blackface was a whole different and much more abhorrent caricature. I'd love to be able to tell you that blackface minstrel acts didn't make their way into the figure skating world but I'm writing a blog about the subject, aren't I?

S.H. Hook and Jocelyn Clarke as King Tut and Queen Seti in the Toronto Skating Club's 1923 Carnival

On February 18, 1946, three New England Skating Clubs (Bridgeport's Holland's Skateland, Worcester's Dance And Figure Skating Club and the Rot-Land Figure Club in Norwood, Massachusetts) got together to present a skating show for the soldiers of Fort Devens right after World War II. The star of the show was Danny Ryan, who would sadly die in the 1961 Sabena Plane Crash that killed the entire U.S. figure skating team. Ryan, a future U.S. and North American Champion with partner Carol Ann Peters, would have nothing to do with the offending act in question. An article from the March 9, 1946 issue of Billboard Magazine proclaimed that "blackface reigns" in the show's act 'Minstrel Daze', "devised by Herbert L. Wilson... featured were Vernie Bauer, George Kuzina, Jerry Nista, Carrol Bodden, Paul Bauman and Bob Norton..." The worst part? The soldiers loved it.

Canadian Figure Skating Association President H.E. McLean and six time Canadian Champion Melville Rogers in "Plantation Party"

The next month, the Minto Skating Club in Ottawa presented their annual ice show Minto Follies. One of the acts in that year's show was called 'Plantation Party' and the majority of the skaters in the act dressed as wealthy, white plantation owners. The stars in this minstrel show on ice were two men who painted themselves in blackface, one dressed as a man and the other as a woman. They weren't just any old men either. One was a highly esteemed Canadian men's, pairs and fours skater: Olympian, six time Canadian Champion and six time North American Champion in Melville Rogers. The other? Wait for it... the President of The Canadian Figure Skating Association H.E. McLean. It certainly puts Mabel Fairbanks' story into perspective considering she would have been down in California trying to establish her coaching career at the exact same time all of this insanity was going on. Simply put, minstrel acts were not uncommon in many hotel and touring skating productions during that era. At least the grand finale of the Ice Cycles Of 1953, also called 'Minstrel Daze', had the decency to skip the blackface.

When World Champions Oksana Dominina and Maxim Shabalin showed up for the 2010 Olympic season with a tone-deaf original dance where they were dressed as "Australian aboriginals" wearing "war paint", the figure skating world weren't the only ones taken aback and offended. Australian aboriginal leaders were too. Sol Bellear, a member of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation News, "We see it as stealing Aboriginal culture and it is yet another example of the Aboriginal people of Australia being exploited." Writer Patty Inglish noted, "The first 20 seconds of the routine are straight out of the 1920s and 1930s club performances of Blacks before white audiences. It smacks of the old minstrel show and discrimination new and old... The routine seems to resemble a parody or cartoon." The Russians later 'toned down' the offending performance but it is still widely regarded as one of ice dancing's biggest face palm/'Did that really just happen?' moments. Sadly, it did.

In James Baldwin's book "The Cross Of Redemption: Uncollected Writings", he offered a wonderful quote: "America sometimes resembles, at least from the point of view of a black man, an exceedingly monotonous minstrel show; the same dances, same music, same jokes. One has done (or been) the show so long that one can do it in one’s own sleep." I often think figure skating is in a way much in the same. A healthy dose of caution and creativity in exploring a whole new world of carving out stories on the ice could lead to so many wonderful adventures in expression on the ice. All it takes are more skaters and choreographers willing to take intelligent risks. The difference between risks in choreography and costuming and downright offensiveness is something that the skating world - as evidenced in this blog - hasn't always quite grasped.

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.

Racism At The Rink

"Puck" magazine political cartoon depicting a person of colour on a skating chair at the Union Skating Pond

One year after civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March On Washington, a riot broke out at a Medford, Massachusetts skating rink when a young black man asked to cut in on a young couple ice dancing together. According to the July 30, 1964 issue of "The Age", "before the brief fracas ended, at least 10 people suffered minor injuries, and the stone-throwing, club-wielding crowd damaged a bus and turned over a police car... Fifty club-swinging police from five nearby communities broke up the disturbance. Several police were pushed and punched by rioters. Others said they were hit by rocks... To prevent further fighting, the police escorted groups of youths out of Sullivan Square and made sure the crowds dispersed quickly. Police from Malden, Somerville, Boston and Cambridge and the metropolitan district commission assisted in breaking up the riot."

Flashback to almost twenty years earlier, north of the border. In 1945, a fifteen year old Toronto student named Harry Gairey Jr. made his first trip to the Icelandia indoor arena on Yonge Street with his friend Donny Jubas. Jubas was Caucasian; Gairey a person of colour. Gairey started skating at the age of eight and regularly frequented the Varsity Arena and Ryerson Park rink but when he and Jubas arrived to skate at this new rink on Yonge Street one day that winter, everything changed. "I go up to buy tickets and the guy says to me, 'We can't sell your friend a ticket,' I turn around and look behind me, then I turn back and say, 'Are you talking to me?' And he says, 'Yeah, I'm talking to you. We don't sell tickets to Negroes. We don't let them in here. So do you want only one ticket?' And I turn and say, 'Let's get out of here,'" Jubas recalled in a February 16, 2009 article in the "Toronto Star".

Like a broken record of Mabel Fairbanks' experiences in New York City, rink racism was still very much alive and well in many North American cities during that era... and like Fairbanks, Gairey didn't turn the other cheek. His father, a Pullman porter, had studied race relations and arranged a meeting with Alderman Norman Creed which alerted Mayor Robert Hood Saunders to the situation. Twenty five University Of Toronto students picketed the Icelandia rink with signs saying  "Color Prejudice Must Go" and "Racial Discrimination Should Not Be Tolerated". Two years later, as a direct result of the rink's refusal to admit Gairey, Toronto's city council passed an ordinance against discrimination based on race, colour, creed or religion. Gairey's father became a prominent activist for civil rights and the rink where Gairey, Jr. and Jubas skated as children was renamed the Harry Ralph Gairey Ice Rink. At the naming ceremony, Gairey and Jubas rekindled their childhood friendship.

In terms of breaking down colour barriers, skating has come a long, long way since the earlier decades of the twentieth century. There have been Olympic and World medallists of colour like Debi Thomas, Robin Szolkowy and Surya Bonaly. Just this past week, Vanessa James became the first woman of colour to win a medal at the European Championships in pairs skating.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks in conjunction with Black History Month, we'll be exploring the historical impact of persons of colour in the skating world on Skate Guard and I sincerely hope that these stories - some heartwarming, some heartbreaking - serve as a reminder of how far the skating world has come but how far it still has to go.

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.

Back In The USSR, Part Three: Ice Dancing's Humble Beginnings In The Soviet Union

"Perhaps the USSR will soon occupy all three rungs of the stand of honor." - Tamara (Bratus) Moskvina, "Skating" magazine, April 1970

Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, Natalia Bestemianova and Andrei Bukin, Maya Usova and Alexander Zhulin... It would really be quite easy to assume from thinking back on these legendary names that ice dancers from The Soviet Union were always dominant. However, like everything else in figure skating history, everything begins somewhere.

In 1958, Svetlana Smirnova and Leonid Gordon made history at the European Championships in Bratislava as the first Soviet ice dance team to compete in a major ISU international competition. They finished dead last. Prior to taking up ice dancing, Smirnova had been a pairs skater with partner Yuri Nevsky. Nevsky had previously skated pairs with Ludmila Belousova before she teamed up with Oleg Protopopov and when he retired from competitive skating in 1957, he took on a major role in popularizing ice dance in the Soviet Union.

In the September 1962 issue of "Skating World" magazine, Nevsky wrote, "Ice dancing had been practiced in the Soviet Union at public rinks long before the USSR Federation became affiliated with the ISU. But it was merely a pastime for those who attended the rinks after their daily work and found pleasure in skating to music. The number of ice dances in those early days did not exceed a dozen, and the patterns were rather primitive, being based on simple edges. These were mainly polka, tango and foxtrot movements, waltzes (to both slow and fast tempo) and some dances converted to the ice from the ballroom, of the Pas de Grace and Pas d'Espagne type." Aside from recreational performance, the most audience that these dances really received was at carnivals.

Lynn Copley-Graves' wonderful 1992 book "Figure Skating History: The Evolution Of Dance On Ice" noted that "while reading the USFSA magazine 'Skating' in 1955, Yuri happened upon some ISU dances. He showed them to others and sparked interest in competitions using ISU regulations. Within a year, skaters at the public rinks embraced the new dances, calling them 'sporting dances'. Poor technical ability hampered progress because knowledge of edges, cross rolls, mohawks, etc. was scanty. As the Soviet skaters fumbled through the European Waltz, Foxtrot and Fourteenstep patterns, interest waned. The highly qualified skaters - those who could handle the intricacies of these dances - snubbed them, unconsciously associating them with the old dances. To them, the dances were 'a new toy for beginners or for those who attended the rinks for fun.' Only a few of the leading figure skaters recognized the worth of the new dancing. Among them were Yuri's pair partner Svetlana Smirnova and Leonid Gordon."

Coached by Larisa Novozhilova, Smirnova and Gordon learned fourteen ISU compulsory dances in a year and gave exhibitions in St. Petersburg but perhaps discouraged by their loss in Bratislava, turned professional and joined an ice ballet. However, their brief but pioneering step to putting ice dance on the map as a bona fide sporting discipline added credibility to these new dances, and it wasn't long before the Soviet federation adapted these 'new ISU dances' into their competitive structure and developed a three-tiered testing system with four levels in each tier. Within ten years, ice dancing had became so popular in the Soviet Union that qualifying competitions were instituted to whittle down the number of senior ice dance teams at the National Championships to fifteen.

Lyudmila Pakhomova and Alexander Gorshkov

By 1969, Lyudmila Pakhomova and Alexander Gorshkov were on the European and World podium. Their secret? Choreography from The Bolshoi Ballet. As compared to the severely contrasting style of the dominant British teams of that era, it would be the Soviet ice dancer's infusion of classical dance into their ice dancing that would give them that edge for years to come. Talk about a contrast from initial resistance to innovation!

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.

Back In The USSR, Part Two: Training Behind The Iron Curtain

"We can only guess at what age human 'motor bricks' are formed. But considering hundreds of years of ballet experience in Russia and the fact that the Moscow Ballet School students start at age seven, we have to presume that at age twelve, 'motor bricks' are already rather 'firm' and it is hard, if not impossible, to get rid of incorrect 'pronunciation' in body motion. - Dr. Sergei Aleshinsky

It wasn't until the sixties that the Soviet Sports Program started taking figure skating seriously. Prior to that, as Henry W. Morton noted in his 1963 book "Soviet Sport: Mirror Of The Soviet Society" sports with low military potential like figure skating and tennis just weren't paid much credence. Initially, unless officials believed that a skater could contend for a medal they simply weren't 'good enough' to be sent to international events.

Galina Beskina of Moscow, who took from Boris Podkopaev

However, with the success of many Soviet skaters abroad as the sixties wore on, the Soviet Sports Program began to recognize the potential of competitive figure skating. They took concerted steps to get people on the ice. Morton explained that "in winter, which is usually severe and lasts from six to eight months, skating surfaces in cities are flooded to provide frozen pathways in parks and near large stadia." The whole point of this would have been to not only promote physical education, but to get people in skates and moving. It was all about hand picked talent identification sweetie. Among those who first learned to skate on a flooded sports field? None other than the legendary Tamara Moskvina herself.

A great example of the push to get more and more skaters on the ice during this period comes from Miriam Morton's 1974 book  "The Making Of Champions: Soviet Sports For Children And Teenagers". Morton writes that "there is also a countrywide movement to teach figure skating to masses of children. The 'Pionerskaya Pravda' and the figure skating schools are encouraging this. In Moscow, for instance, there are posters at every skating rink inviting children and teenagers to enroll for free instruction and practice. To give balance to the program, these figure skating centers offer calisthetics, elements of music appreciation, and ballet dancing... Marina Sanaya began her training in one of these centers. When she was thirteen, she participated in the world championship competition in Calgary, Canada. 'So far,' reported a Soviet sports journalist with a touch of humor, 'her biggest reward has been a kiss and a big hug from her parents, but she skated with champions Karen Magnussen and Janet Lynn.'"

Lynn Copley-Graves, in her wonderful book "Figure Skating History: The Evolution Of Dance On The Ice" noted that in the late sixties and early seventies "Soviet skating developed rapidly as skaters and coaches took back training techniques and ideas for competitive tiers from their interactions abroad. By 1969, Soviet competitors could work up through club, city, provincial and national meets... Ice time was no problem, because competitors could attend school in the morning or afternoon or fit training time around their work schedule. Everyone either worked or went to school. Dressmakers were paid to design costumes for the competitors to fit the music or theme, and competitors had access to the Union House of Music or Conservatory to pick out music... Most World Class skaters trained in Moscow or Leningrad, drilling the same whether for pairs or dance... At Moscow's Crystal Palace, Nancy D'Wolf watched six skaters go through drills that seemed like 100 of everything for two hours: Axels, Argentine twizzles, waltz jump split lifts, Kilian patterns. The warmup readied them for program run-throughs... There were no tests at the lower levels. Either trainers passed their students on to the next level of proficiency, or the students achieved the next level by winning a certain event. Soviet skaters were called 'sportsmen,' not athletes; those considered 'pros' skated in shows. When the sportsmen practiced, no one else could used the ice. In August, the Moscow rink closed to all other skating to let the sportsmen train for the upcoming season. As skaters progressed to higher competitive levels, they received more ice time."

Promising young skaters received free skating attire and competed against the students of other coaches. Each city's training bases held regular competitions, closed to the public. The objectives of these city competitions weren't just to offer skaters competitive opportunities but also to identify potential international competitors, the national competition in the Soviet Union not being the sole basis on which international assignments were selected. By the seventies, the Soviet Union had over fifty artificial rinks and four thousand competitive figure skaters.

Copley-Graves further explained, "Lower-level skaters trained three hours a day and world class [ones] put in four hours a day on the ice. Exercise programs - running and floor exercises imitating figure skating technique - supplemented on-ice practice in a deliberately prolonged training cycle to make skaters peak later in life. To develop instructional techniques, Soviet trainers analyzed videotapes of top World competitors... One aspect of Soviet training is to develop skaters equally in both directions, instead of just counterclockwise... While Western skating associations struggled with methods for guaranteeing accreditation of coaches, the Soviet system set up Institutes of Physical Culture. Even the best skaters had to graduate from an institute to coach. Medical doctors and scientists - many among them former competitors - researched the mechanics, physics and biology of figure skating. Skating coaches were, thus, specialists and commanded high social status; they worked independently with the less advanced skaters. Ballet choreographers helped coaches arrange [programs] and exhibition numbers for the elite competitors...  Many retired sportsmen went on to coach the youngsters. The Soviet government considered a full-time job as working 16 hours a week, and they spread the word to keep everyone employed. Thus, the many instructors worked on a rotation basis."

Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev

The Soviet Union's identification of the relationship between physics and figure skating technique understandably gave Soviet skaters an edge and interestingly, an American coach of renown who I spoke with explained that a Soviet skating manual discussing physics was indeed smuggled into the U.S. by a Russian coach and this information has indeed been disseminated and passed on through oral tradition to several American coaches over the years.

Another obvious advantage that Soviet skaters had was dance training. Elena Tchaikovskaya was one of the eminent coaches who stressed the importance of ballet training to coaches and Sergei Alechinsky, in the September-October 1988 edition of "Professional Skaters Magazine" noted that "the students of the Soviet specialized figure skating schools begin to attend ballet classes at about the same time they are selected for the school (about six years old)."

Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov at the 1986 World Championships in Geneva

Although the concept of the Soviet Union's training system may seem completely foreign to those of us living in other countries, there's no denying that many aspects of their system, in particular the study of physics and implementation of ballet training, were really ahead of their time. Like it or not, the system certainly produced more champions that you can shake a skate guard at.

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.

Back In The USSR, Part One: Propaganda And The Soviet Sports Program

"Take our warning:
If you want to keep your health,
Don't you ever,
Wait for doctors, act yourself.
Bathe in cold water every morning
If you want to keep your health."

- Soviet health and sport propaganda blasted over loudspeakers at the Central Stadium, Spartakiad, 1956

Back in April of last year, we took a look at the first skating club in Russia and some of Russia's first skaters of note. In today's blog, I want to return to the region and explore just how figure skating began its sickeningly slow rise to prominence under the Soviet state. Let's start by taking a look at some of the problems facing figure skating in the period leading up to the December 29, 1922 formation of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Prior to the formation of the Soviet Union, many athletes competing winter sports received little to no funding, which greatly impacted their ability to travel to international competitions. In fact, seeing as Nikolay Panin-Kolomenkin competed at the 1903 World Championships and Lidia Popova and A.L. Fischer at the 1908 World Championships in their home country, the only Russian skaters between 1900 and 1922 who competed abroad at a World Championships were Fedor Datlin, Ivan Malinin, Sergei Wanderfliet and Xenia Caesar. In fact, winter sports funding on the whole during this period was so bad that in 1912, European and World speed skating champion Nikolai Strunnikov left the sport when he was refused financial support for his trips to compete abroad.

Ivan Malinin

Russian Studies lecturer James Riordan explained in his 1977 book "Sport In Soviet Society: Development Of Sport And Physical Education In Russia And The USSR" that this period of scant international representation in Russia was moreso "a busy time for the organized sports movement, with tentative government backing and overall control. More and more clubs were formed, schools and courses of physical training were established in the larger cities." We also learn from Riordan that from 1917 to 1920, skating became a sport which gained more focus. "The existing Vsevobuch training programme was extended from 96 hours to 576 hours in urban areas and to 436 hours in rural localities, spread over two years... The new programme also made provision for lectures in hygiene, anatomy and physiology." As you can tell by the years, this increased focus on developing skating as a sport predated the official start of the Soviet Union. Although during the period of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Sports Program was already rearing up.

Soviet figurine of female figure skater, twentieth century

The first official championships of the Soviet Union may have been held in Moscow in 1923 and won by Yuriy Zel'dovich but why did it take so long for the Soviet Union to start pumping out champion after champion? Yuri Brokhin's book "The Big Red Machine The Rise And Fall Of Soviet Olympic Champions" may provide an important clue that held true for several decades in the Soviet Union: "To be admitted to a skating school is more difficult than to pass the entrance exams at Moscow University. First, there are few such schools. Most of these, located in Moscow and Leningrad, enjoy a cachet comparable to that of the most exclusive of Connecticut's country clubs. Even the bureaucrats admit that the mass approach seen in other Soviet sports is absent in figure skating, if only because of the limited availability of artificial ice. More important, countless hours of work with a large group of specialists are demanded for every pair of world-class youngsters."

Lynn Copley-Graves' book "Figure Skating History: The Evolution Of Dance On The Ice" noted that during the mid fifties, "Walter Powell asked the Soviet delegates why a country so interested in the arts did not send skaters to Worlds. [Nikolai] Panin, still alive in Leningrad, had been the last prominent Soviet skater half a century earlier. Walter asked to visit Moscow during the World Speed Skating Championships in February. The USSR Sports Section issued Walter, ISU President James Koch, and Secretary Georg Hasler an official invitation. Inside Russia, the three visitors witnessed a 'renaissance of figure skating'. Panin had written the Russian rulebook on skating, about 200 pages long, illustrated with photos of skaters doing some of the 41 official figures recognized by the ISU and its member associations. Three new artificial rinks were planned in Moscow, and the USSR was about to hold its first exclusive national figure skating championships. Previously the country had hosted international meets, but none just for Soviet skaters. The three visitors left with the sense that they would welcome Soviet skaters into the world figure skating community at large."

Now that we've touched somewhat on the development of figure skating as a bona fide sport under the Soviet Sports Program, I want to go back to the quote from the very beginning of today's blog and explore the role propaganda played in luring in youth athletes. The 1951 poster heading today's blog translates to "if you want to be like me - just train!" The "Pionerskaya Pravda" and "Izvestiia" newspapers were widely considered to be under the government's thumb and the Soviet Sports Program's own newspaper, "Sovetskii Sport", periodically ran pieces on its top figure skaters. "Les Nouvelles de Moscou" (The Moscow News) sponsored the annual skating competition of the same name and the propaganda machine was in full swing there too. Barukh Hazan's 1982 book "Soviet Impregnational Propaganda" noted that skaters from the Soviet Union were "asked to make public semi-political statements which are consequently amplified by Moscow's other instruments of propaganda."

Stay tuned! Part two of this three part series on Soviet skating history will venture a bit forth in time and explore what can be discerned of training conditions behind the Iron Curtain. You don't want to miss it!

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.

Bridging Borders: The Stories Of The First Two Canadian Men's Champions

In the early days of competitive 'fancy' skating in Canada, skaters from the Minto Skating Club in Ottawa were a dominant force. Today on the blog, we'll meet two fascinating pioneering men from the most wonderful country in the world's capital who paved the way for the skaters of the future. Canada's first two champions in men's figure skating, Ormonde B. Haycock and Douglas H. Nelles, may have just been names on a paper to you before but after learning their stories I think you will be as fascinated by these two 'gentlemen skaters' as I was.  

ORMONDE B. HAYCOCK

Ormonde Haycock coaching at the Olympia Skating Club in Detroit. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

Born in Ottawa on September 4, 1880, Ormonde 'Ormie' Butler Haycock was the son of of Richard Henry Haycock and Mary LaFontaine. He had one brother and four sisters, one of which grew up to be a senator's wife. Although educated in public schools and at the Lisgar Collegiate School before his father got him a job as the assistant manager of the Canada Life Assurance Company, Ormonde grew up in a skating family and throughout his colourful life, skating is always what this man seemed to turn to.

Ormonde was one of the founders of the Minto Skating Club and a long time executive member. He was also instrumental in the initial organization of the skating club's junior program. His obituary from "The Ottawa Citizen" suggested "he was eight times champion of Canada", but this is incorrect. Although Ormonde 'only' won four Canadian men's titles (in 1905, 1906, 1908 and 1911), he won five Canadian pairs titles, making that nine. One of those pairs titles was won with his sister Aimée, who also won two Canadian women's titles. Ormonde and his other sister Katherine won two pairs titles together and not to be outdone, a third sister named Oswald - who went on to marry Colonel Ivan McSloy - finished second in the now long defunct Waltz event at the Canadian Championships in 1910.

Ormonde Haycock, Lady Evelyn Grey, Eleanor Kingsford and Philip Chrysler. Photo courtesy National Archives of Canada.

Ormonde's other two national pairs titles were won with Lady Evelyn Grey, the youngest daughter of Lord and Lady Grey. Ormonde was also a member of the Connaught Four which won the North American championship in 1910. In 1911, Ormonde won the Earl Grey Cup for skating teamwork along with Lady Evelyn Grey (the second youngest daughter of Lord and Lady Grey), Eleanor Kingsford (later Mrs. John Law) and Philip Chrysler. As many Canadian skating records were lost in the 1949 Minto Skating Club Fire, it's certainly possible that records of more of Ormonde's earlier championship wins went up in flames as well. We do know he travelled to Great Britain with a group of Canadian skaters in his heyday and competed internationally against Irving Brokaw in a men's event in New York in 1905. Ormonde and Irving were good friends who both worked tirelessly to help 'establish' the International Style of skating in North America.

What many don't know about this Canadian skating pioneer is that in addition to his proficiency on the ice, he was equally as comfortable on water that wasn't frozen. As well as being a sailing enthusiast, Ormonde was an accomplished sculler. An early member of the Ottawa Rowing Club, he won rowing championships in Ottawa, St. Catharines and Washington from 1904 to 1906 and in 1906 was part of a four man crew that won an international rowing event in Detroit, Michigan. Ormonde was also musically talented and deeply fond of music. He played several instruments and even composed for piano.

On March 8, 1916 (a year after the Great War  started) Ormonde enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and went overseas to serve in anti-aircraft batteries. Unlike many, he lived to tell about the war and went back into the insurance business. That didn't last long... and the lure of his lifelong passion for skating returned. After getting married to his wife Florence, Ormonde's increasing interest in teaching skating led him to leave Ottawa to coach skating in Toronto and Lake Placid. Christie Sausa's book "Lake Placid: A Skating History" noted that Ormonde was "fabulously popular" and "performed in the three winter ice carnival skating exhibitions held each winter, in addition to his coaching duties." He later coached in Detroit and Cleveland for a time before making the trek to New York. In the early thirties, Ormonde also worked with skaters in Buffalo and Niagara Falls. He choreographed, directed and performed in the Buffalo Skating Club's 1932 club carnival which was attended by an audience of three thousand, five hundred people.

Ormonde passed away at the age of fifty eight on August 18, 1938 in Canandaigua, New York at his summer home after several months of illness. Although his name or story isn't as remembered as many Canadian skating greats who followed, his legacy is one of a lifelong dedication to the sport we all know and love. Ormonde didn't just help to build skating in one country but did it in two at a time when the competition between Canadian and American skaters was every bit as fierce as it is today. I think we all owe this long lost pioneer a tip of the hat and a big thank you!

DOUGLAS H. NELLES

Photo courtesy Library and Archives Canada

Born March 26, 1881 in Grimsby, Ontario, Douglas Henry Nelles was the son of Beverly and Louisa (Buckwell) Nelles. His father was a fruit grower and packer and it's no surprise that young Douglas spent much of his youth outdoors helping with the family business. He even did some skating on Grimsby's hockey rink. By his early twenties, Douglas had studied civil engineering and gained employment with the Dominion Land Survey. Travelling with a party of men into the harsh wilderness of Hugh Miller Inlet, Glacier Bay and Skagway and living in tents on the borders of Canada and Alaska, his job was at times quite dangerous.

Douglas H. Nelles and an orderly setting up camp in the wilderness. Photo courtesy Library and Archives Canada

Late in the first decade of the twentieth century, Douglas moved to Ottawa, studied at McGill University and found work as a civil engineer for the Geodetic Survey. It was during this period that he first truly embraced the great art of figure skating. Not long after joining the Minto Skating Club, he claimed the 1910 and 1912 Canadian senior men's titles and the 1912 national pairs title with Eleanor Kingsford.

In 1911, Douglas travelled to Europe and returned bearing news of the International Skating Union's system of compulsory figures. Working with Colonel E.T.B. Gillmore, he helped make these figures the standard at the Canadian Championships. He also had them printed in the "Minto Club Hand Book", a text that was kindly distributed to all of the other skating clubs in Canada. After taking lessons from visiting European coach Arthur Held, he passionately extolled the virtues of graceful free skating to anyone who would listen.

After marrying Marjorie Katura Stowe Wainwright in January 1914, he took a hiatus from skating and served overseas with the Canadian Forestry Corps during World War I, reaching the rank of Major. He was demobilized in 1919 and returned to Canada via Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia aboard the HMT Minnekahda.

Less than a year after he returned to Canada, Douglas was back on the ice. In 1920, he teamed up with Alden Goldwin to claim his second Canadian pairs title and capped off his competitive career with a bronze at the 1922 Canadian Championships with D.F. Secord. While working as a manufacturer, he toiled away behind the scenes as a judge and builder with the Amateur Skating Association of Canada and the Minto Skating Club. One of his great accomplishments was his work with Major Clarence E. Steeves and Melville Rogers in organizing the highly successful 1931 North American Championships in Ottawa.

Although Douglas and his wife suffered a devastating loss when a son died in childbirth in 1933, they took great pride in their daughter Muriel and son Arthur. The latter turned out to be every ounce the great skater his father was. After showing promise as a young skater at the Minto Skating Club, Arthur Douglas Nelles turned professional and appeared in the Arthur M. Wirtz show "It Happens On Ice" at the Center Theatre with Hedy Stenuf, the Ice Cycles and several small-scale international tours, Skippy Baxter and The Caley Sisters. Muriel (Nelles) Whyte was a successful skating coach who helped found the Barrie Figure Skating Club. Sadly, Douglas H. Nelles, one of Canada's first great skating champions, passed away December 7, 1960 at the age of seventy nine.

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.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Skating Hair Through The Years

Keep it under your hat... but we're going to talk about a little hair history today! Until the twentieth century, how a skater's hair looked made little difference. Whether under a top hat or a smart feathered bonnet, the length of a skater's locks was quite irrelevant until the introduction of the Continental and International Styles of skating made jumps and spins de rigueur and the sport gained more of a following as early hotel shows and ice pantomimes became popular in the first few decades of the twentieth century.

It really wasn't until the Sonja Henie era when women's figure skating became more much more glamourized that many skaters really started paying attention to creating a 'packaged look' and it was Henie herself who led the charge.

When she was in her early fifties, Sonja Henie had her hair done by a young hairdresser named Jon Peters, who went on to become a Hollywood producer. They became fast friends and she actually lent him one hundred thousand dollars towards his first salon. 

Left: Sonja Henie. Right: Advertisement for Glover's hair products featuring Věra Hrubá Ralston.

By the fifties, tiaras weren't uncommon sights in the hair of competitive skaters and especially in the popular British ice pantomimes, both men and women often wore wigs.

Photo courtesy "The National Ice Skating Guide"

Producers of touring productions led the war on errant hair-pins, which posed particular dangers to skaters performing under dim spotlights. In her 1952 book "Skate With Me", even Barbara Ann Scott warned of their dangers: "Don't use ordinary hairpins. They are too apt to fly out. Be sure that you have your hair tethered down securely, for there is nothing very appealing about a girl skating with her hair flopping all over her face. I used to wear a little bonnet which served the double purpose of keeping my hair back and my ears warm." Scott's reference to bonnets was in line to the trend to cover hair to keep it out of a skater's face when they performed jumps and spins, doubling as added warmth in the subzero temperatures during outdoor competitions. In her husband Tyke's 1959 book "Girls' Book Of Skating", Mildred Richardson noted, "Caps are never worn, as they tend to come off, but in windy or snowy weather hair is covered by a becoming pull-on hood or scarf."

Excerpt from Jacqueline du Bief's book "Thin Ice"

By the sixties, Carol Heiss had dyed her hair black for her role in "Snow White And The Three Stooges" and Sjoukje Dijkstra was jacking it up to Jesus with a beehive that contained more final net than the entire dressing room of the movie "Hairspray". In her interview with Allison Manley for "The Manleywoman SkateCast" in April 2014, she laughed, "You don’t know how much hairspray there was in there... It stayed, you see, it would be stuck. If it would be loose, I couldn’t stand it, if my hair came into my eyes or anything. But it had so much spray in it that it just stayed there. So it was good. I don’t understand now, when I see the skaters with the ponytails slinging around - that must be awful. Mine didn't move, it stayed. It took a lot of hairspray. I’m amazed that I still have hair on my head." Though Dijkstra managed to keep her hair, not everyone was so lucky. In one show, American Olympian Roy Wagelein's toupee got caught in his partner's costume during a lift and came right off his head. 

Without a doubt, the most famous skating hairdo in history was the Dorothy Hamill wedge. Achieved by lifting the hair and cutting at an inward angle, going from the longest lengths at top to the shortest at the bottom, the cut was copied by millions of women around the world after Hamill's win at the 1976 Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck. After turning professional, Hamill signed a three hundred thousand dollar contract with Clairol and did commercials for their Short & Sassy Shampoo and Conditioner. In turn, the company donated twenty five cents from every bottle to the USFSA's Memorial Fund. 

By the nineties, short hair was on its way out and ponytails and buns dominated. Josée Chouinard did commercials for Pert Plus, Clairol sponsored a pro-am competition and even Scott Hamilton skated to music from the movie "Hair" in a hippie-style wig. Copying the glorious mane of Gwendal Peizerat, male ice dancers in the early twenty first century grew out their hair in droves... with extremely mixed results.

Whether Tonya Harding's mall bang or Maria Butyrskaya's Florence Henderson bob, the way that the world's top skaters have worn their hair over the years has just been one more way that they have set themselves apart. The grades of execution might have varied, but I think most skaters have earned a 6.0 for composition and style.

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.