Reginald Wilkie, The Father of Modern Ice Dancing

Photo courtesy "Ice & Roller Skate" magazine

"Mr. Wilkie was without a doubt one of the greatest authorities on skating and the title 'Mr. Ice Dancing' was surely his. His vast knowledge was deeply respected, and he gave freely of his time to help beginner and champion alike." - Lawrence Demmy

Born in 1907 in the London borough of Wandsworth, Reginald Joseph Wilkie grew up in Clapham, North Yorkshire. Instead of gravitating to the ice in his youth, he studied the violin and without a doubt, his early musical education helped him once he took up the sport in 1930 at the age of twenty-three at the Hammersmith Ice Drome. While other skaters focused on singles and pairs skating, ice dancing was Reginald's first love. It was at Hammersmith that he met his first ice dance partner, Daphne (Wallis) Ward and invited her to be his partner, saying, "There is quite a lot in this dancing business. I think we could really make something of it if we try."

Photo courtesy BIS Archives, Daphne Ward Collection

Daphne and Reginald's partnership was a success from the start. A feature in "Skating World" magazine in 1951 noted, "In March, 1931, they won he first competition they entered, and went on to win no less than fourteen dance events off the reel in the following season. In 1932, they joined the Ice Club, Westminster and Park Lane Ice Club (Grosvenor House). Their success continued - in 1935 they took up pair skating - and by the time war came they had more than eighty firsts to their credit, including the following challenge cups won outright after three or more consecutive first places - Vivian Cup, Courtauld Trophy, Argenti Cups, Brilliant Cup, Ice Club Dance Cups, also "Skating Times" Cup (twice), Count de la Feld Trophy, Cannan Prize, Lillywhite Cups (four times), Manchester Ice Dance Trophy (four times), Queen's "End Of Season" Cup, Nicholson Rhumba Cups and many others." 

Photo courtesy BIS Archives, Daphne Ward Collection

In November 1934, Reginald and Daphne Wallis were the first to take (and pass) the Association's Third Class Dance Test. Two years later, Reginald and Daphne again made history as the first to take (and pass) the Association's Second Class Dance Test. After both of these tests, Reginald judged the next candidates in line. Reginald also had the unique distinction of judging the first First Class Dance Test in 1939.

After diagramming dances for Skating magazine's book "Ice Dances" in 1936, Reginald and Daphne entered the first British Ice Dance Championships in Richmond in April 1937 and won. They repeated their feat the following two years at Westminster and in addition, held the British pairs silver medal behind Violet and Leslie Cliff those three years as well. BIS historian Elaine Hooper clarified, "This was because there were more pairs competitions than dance and the dancers all skated in pairs as well. I am told they did not skate different programmes for the two."

Facing great opposition from 'the powers that be' at the National Skating Association, Reginald, judge John Blaver a group of ice dancers led a movement aimed at influencing the Association to officially recognize the discipline by introducing a testing system. Reginald and his like-minded friends were successful and went on to form the first National Skating Association Dance Committee in 1933. Reginald served on this very committee in one capacity or another continuously for the rest of his life.

Photo courtesy BIS Archives, Daphne Ward Collection

Reginald and Daphne's most significant contribution to the sport during their competitive career was their invention of three compulsory dances at the British New Dance Competition in 1938 at Westminster. The dances, as we've mentioned before on the blog, were the Argentine Tango, Paso Doble and Quickstep... so if you didn't know before who to thank/blame for those Argentine twizzles, you now have your man. He was the person who came up with the word twizzle in the first place. Anecdotally speaking of one of his creations, Reginald noted that the Paso is "quite an easy dance to do badly".

Photo courtesy BIS Archives, Daphne Ward Collection

Although Reginald and Daphne received many invitations to exhibit their dances in other countries in the late thirties, the onset of World War II kept the duo's skates firmly planted on British ice. The Van den Bergh trophies they won in 1939 would remain in their name for almost a decade, as another British Dance Championship wouldn't be held until the War; they were undefeated until Pauline Barrajo and Albert 'Sonny' Edmonds claimed the title in 1947. During the War, Reginald helped keep the passion for ice dance alive in England and by 1940, all three of Reginald and Daphne's new dances had been added to the finalized structure of the National Skating Association's Gold Dance Test.

Reginald Wilkie and Daphne Wallis in Celerina, Switzerland in 1939

After World War II, Reginald teamed up with Muriel Kay and continued to compete in smaller competitions for a time, until a serious fall that resulted in a skull fracture at the Manchester Skating Club forced him to the sidelines. When the International Skating Union formed an ad hoc committee to standardize the forms of ice dancing being practiced in Europe and North America at its first post-war Congress in Oslo in 1947,  Reginald's attention turned primarily to organizational work. He was appointed to this committee with American Bill O. Hickok IV and Belgian Marcel Nicaise and arranged an ice dance exhibition at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland. That same year, he married Elsie Summers in Manchester. The couple had two daughters, Vanessa and Stephanie. With his on-ice partner Muriel Kay, he hosted a week-long International Ice Dance Conference at Wembley where - according to her 1958 book "The Key To Rhythmic Ice Dancing" - American and European skaters convened "to seek international agreement on ice dancing". Off the ice, he worked as a bank manager.

Photo courtesy BIS Archives, Daphne Ward Collection

In May 1949, Reginald, Bill Hickok and Marcel Nicaise gave a presentation with a proposed competitive structure for ice dancing to the delegates at the twenty-third ISU Congress in Paris. In her book "Figure Skating History: The Evolution Of Dance On Ice", Lynn Copley-Graves noted that "their proposal included the standard descriptions and diagrams for the 12 chosen international dances (later increased to 18) and complete rules for conducting international competitions and tests. In a sweeping move, the Congress voted to accept their proposal without amendment and agreed to try out the rules at an international dance competition in London under the direct auspices of the ISU. These three men had drafted such comprehensive rules that ice dancing could at least achieve a separate identity on par with the established branches of competitive skating." T.D. Richardson believed that it was "entirely owing to [Reginald's] study, knowledge, and persistence that ice dancing [came] to be recognized by the International Skating Union." As a result of that meeting, the three men were appointed to the ISU's first official Technical Committee for ice dance, chaired by Marcel Nicaise until 1953, when Reginald took over.

Photo courtesy BIS Archives

That first ISU-organized international competition referred to by Copley-Graves was of course held in conjunction with the 1950 World Championships at Wembley Pool. Reginald's Paso Doble was one of the four compulsory dances skated. Wearing one of his many hats, he served as the British judge and placed silver medallists Sybil Cooke and Robert Hudson of Great Britain first and champions Lois Waring and Michael McGean of America fifth. His decision was a glaring example of national bias, as the other four judges (two from Belgium, one from the United States and one from Czechoslovakia) all had the Americans in first.

Throughout the fifties, Reginald continued his pioneering work with the ISU and National Skating Association, wrote extensively about ice dance technique for the magazine "Skating World", championed further tweaks to the rules of both compulsory dances and the free dance and served as a World and European referee and judge and judged many tests in England, including those of World Champions Jean Westwood and Lawrence Demmy. He also served as a Vice-President of the Harringay Ice Dance Club, Liverpool Skating Club and Wembley Ice Dance and Figure Club.

Reginald also advocated for skaters who were taking tests practicing more with their test partners and the importance of timing and expression in compulsory dances. Alex D.C. Gordon, who later chaired the National Skating Association's Ice Dance Committee aptly noted, "It is safe to say that every nation, directly or indirectly, has benefited in some way from Mr. Wilkie's great knowledge and experience - a knowledge he was always happy to impart to those in need." Gordon further praised Reginald in a foreword to the 1976 book "Ice Dancing: A Manual For Judges And Skaters" by saying that "the success of ice dance has been fully established and has completely justified the confidence in it by that original group of enthusiasts, perhaps the most leading one of whom was the late R.J. Wilkie, who in conjunction with his colleagues did so much to achieve for the sport the recognition it now receives."

Reginald sadly passed away on August 9, 1962, at the age of fifty-five. Lynn Copley-Graves noted, "On vacation with his wife Elsie and their two daughters in Bournemouth, Reg Wilkie went to London for an NSA Ice Dance Committee meeting. He planned to return to Bournemouth to be with his family, but after the meeting, he suffered a stroke. Reg collapsed on the street and died 11 days later after never fully regaining consciousness. Only 55, Reg had devoted his adult life to developing, standardizing, and improving ice dancing and to achieving international acceptance of this branch of skating." 

Although he never lived to see his dream of ice dancing being included in the Olympic Games, Reginald was posthumously given honorary memberships to the National Skating Association and ISU in 1963 and inducted to the World Figure Skating Hall Of Fame in 1976, the same year ice dance was first contested at the Winter Olympics. The dedication he showed to developing ice dancing not only in England but internationally is quite frankly mind-boggling. If you ask me, I think his former partner Daphne (Wallis) Ward said it best in 1962: "If anyone can truly be said to be the father of ice dancing, then I think it is Reg."

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 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.

Where To Watch Classic Sonja Henie & Belita Films

When I recently posted a picture of Sonja Henie on Skate Guard's Facebook and Instagram pages, I received comments and messages asking where you could watch her movies. I thought it might be helpful to put together a list of links to watch Sonja Henie and Belita's films online. So, if you're on the lookout for a film to enjoy on your next movie night, why not grab a bowl of popcorn and lose yourself in one of these classics?

SONJA HENIE'S FILMS*

Happy Landing

Hello London

Iceland

It's A Pleasure (colourized)

My Lucky Star

One In A Million

Second Fiddle

Sun Valley Serenade

The Countess of Monte Cristo

Thin Ice

Unavailable: Everything Happens At Night (available to order on DVD on Amazon), Wintertime

*This list of links was put together in April of 2024. If you notice that any of these videos are unavailable or find a new link to watch any of these films in their entirety for free online, don't hesitate to reach out and let me know!

BELITA'S FILMS*

Ice-Capades

Lady Let's Dance

Suspense

The Gangster

Unavailable: Silver Skates (available in the U.S. with a subscription to MGM+), The Hunted (available to order on DVD on Amazon)

*This list of links was put together in April of 2024. If you notice that any of these videos are unavailable or find a new link to watch any of these films in their entirety for free online, don't hesitate to reach out and let me know!

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 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 The Engelmann Rink To The Eisrevue: The Emmy Puzinger Story

Photo courtesy Bildarchiv Austria

"I prefer skating over compulsory figures... In the freestyle, you can jump a lot if you want and I like to jump... A waltz is too long for me. [I prefer] a foxtrot." - Emmy Puzinger, "Tiroler Anzeiger", January 14, 1937

Emmy Puzinger was born on February 8, 1921, in Vienna, Austria. Her parents came from Hernals, a quiet district in the city's northwest, and her father Leopold was a taxi driver. At the age of four, she was taken to the doctor because she looked pale. The doctor recommended she take up skating at the nearby Engelmann rink for health and exercise and even on her first trips to the rink, it was clear that she was a natural. The rink's director Rudolf Kutzer told her, "Little one... if you take good care of what I show you, and if you practice diligently, then you will become something great."

Photo courtesy Bildarchiv Austria

At the age of ten, Emmy was sent to Katowice to compete in a figure skating competition for youngsters. "The little Viennese girl in a Polish national dress" didn't win, but she made a strong impression on the Silesian audience. The following year, she was entered into a figure skating competition for school children at the Engelmann rink. She placed second, sandwiched between Olly Holzmann and Hedy Stenuf. That autumn, she was one of ten thousand school children who were sent by the City School Council to the sixtieth anniversary of the Engelmann rink, where she got to see Karl Schäfer and Fritzi Burger perform. Seeing two of the greatest skating stars of the day inspired her to pursue the sport seriously.

Photos courtesy Bildarchiv Austria

In 1932, Emmy won the "newcomers" class in a skating competition held at the Engelmann rink  during "uncomfortable, hurricane-like storm" conditions. The next month, she finished second in the "newcomers" class in a similar event in Innsbruck. The following year, she defeated Hedy Stenuf in a contest at the Engelmann rink and won an international competition for junior skaters in Seefeld. At her first ISU Championship as a senior, the 1935 European Championships in St. Moritz, she placed an unlucky thirteenth.

Top: Emmy Puzinger. Photo courtesy Bildarchiv Austria. Bottom: Emmy Puzinger kicking a ball to Karl Schäfer.

Hours of practice on figures with Rudolf Kutzer and free skating with Willy Petter paid off in 1936 when Emmy won her first of two consecutive Austrian titles. She was sent to compete at the Winter Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where she placed an impressive fourth in free skating and seventh overall. At the World Championships that followed in Paris, she placed fourth. Two judges had her second in free skating, right behind Sonja Henie. The downside of Emmy's overnight success was the considerable pressure that came with it. The talented teenager was praised by reporters for her "tremendous speed and feminine charm" and was hailed as the next 'big thing' in Austrian skating circles. If the likes of Herma Szabo, Fritzi Burger and Hilde Holovsky had given the great Sonja Henie a run for her money, surely a young Austrian skating queen would finally win with the Norwegian skating queen turning professional, sports officials figured.

Maxi Herber and Ernst Baier, Emmy Puzinger and Freddie Tomlins. Photo courtesy National Archives Of Poland.

In 1937, Emmy claimed the bronze medal at the European Championships in Prague and finished fifth at the World Championships in London. Though she performed very well in both competitions, not everyone was wowed. 

Emmy Puzinger at the 1937 European Championships. Photo courtesy Národní muzeum.

Of Emmy's performance in Prague, French journalist Robert Perrier wrote, "The young Austrian Emmy Puzinger, thanks to the excellence of her imposed figures, is classified in third place. Her free skating seemed a bit bland, compared to that of Cecilia [Colledge] and Megan [Taylor]. On an easy theme - too easy - she knew how to put on a slightly cutesy dance, but made not mistakes. Emmy was able to adapt the adage: 'Do not force your talent, you will do nothing with art.' She did only what she could do and she did it well."

Top: Karl Schäfer, Erich and Ilse Pausin, Dr. Pollatschek, Emmy Puzinger and Edi Rada. Bottom: Eduard Engelmann Jr., Ilse and Erich Pausin, Hedy Stenuf, Karl Schäfer, Emmy Puzinger and Rudolf Kutzer. Photos courtesy Bildarchiv Austria.

The following year, Emmy won her first of two 'Ostmark' titles - a combined national championship for German and Austrian skaters under the Nazi regime - and again finished third at the European Championships behind Cecilia Colledge and Megan Taylor. She was forced to withdraw after the figures at the World Championships due to illness. The rise of a new wave of young 'Ostmark' skating queens in 1939 dropped Emmy to fifth at the European Championships and sixth at the World Championships. On December 1 of that year, she married Josef 'Peppi' Wurm, a talented hockey player with the Eishockey Klub Engelmann Wien and Wiener Eissport-Gemeinschaft who represented Austria at two World Championships.

Emmy Puzinger and Josef Wurm

The outbreak of World War II and the cancellation of the 1940 Olympic Games played the backdrop to the downfall of Emmy's struggling amateur career. She lost her national title to Hanne Niernberger in 1940 and the following year, only managed to finish fourth. An invitation from Karl Schäfer to perform in his new Karl-Schäfer-Eisrevue presented itself, but there was a catch. Dr. Roman Seeliger recalled, "From the present point of view it sounds a bit strange but at the time a married woman needed her husband's consent if she wanted to work. So Emmy asked her husband to agree to her decision to become a professional skater. It went without saying that Josef, who was an ice-hockey player, agreed to Emmy's first step to become a show star on the ice. [Josef] had already had to go to War but the couple had the opportunity to write letters to one another."

Photos courtesy Bildarchiv Austria (left) and Dr. Roman Seeliger (right)

In 1943, Emmy appeared in "Der weiße Traum" - one of the highest-grossing German films of the Nazi era. The musical comedy, was classed as a 'Durchhaltefilm' or endurance film - something lighter to inspire Germans to persevere during the War. Dr. Roman Seeliger noted, "One has to point out that the story had nothing to do with the political goals and ideology of Adolf Hitler. On the contrary: In some parts of the movie music in an American style was played which was forbidden by the Nazis elsewhere. In addition to that, the choreographer Willy Petter (who was destined to become the 'creator' of the Vienna Ice Revue) was said to be 'half Jewish' (a term of the terrible regime). The Karl-Schäfer-Eisrevue may have saved Petter's life in a certain way. Some say it was difficult to persuade the officials to produce the film because skating was a sport that did not fit into the ideological background of the Nazi Regime as skating did not contribute to 'toughening up for War'. As a matter of fact 'Der weiße Traum' is said to have been the most successful German-language black and white movie of all time. Famous Austrian actors such as Lotte Lang, Olly Holzmann and Wolf Albach-Retty (Romy Schneider's father) were playing in the frame-story. On the ice, Karl Schäfer was Albach-Retty's double and Emmy Puzinger was Olly Holzmann's double. It is worth mentioning that actress Olly Holzmann was a rather good figure skater and therefore skated some parts of the vaudeville numbers in the movie by herself. But Puzinger‘s skills on the ice were necessary in the more difficult parts of the show."

After the War, Emmy toured for over a decade with the Wiener Eisrevue alongside talented skaters like Eva Pawlik, Rudi Seeliger, Dr. Hellmut May and Fernand Leemans. She also skated in several German and Austrian revue films in the fifties including "Frühling auf dem Eis", "Traumrevue", "Guten Rutsch!", "Die große Kür" and "Symphonie in Gold". She performed all over Europe and even took to the ice in the Soviet Union and Algeria. Dr. Roman Seeliger recalled, "Due to the post-war economic shortages in Austria, the Vienna Ice Revue could not organize enough lightbulbs to illuminate the frozen Grazer Hilmteich, a pond in the Styrian provincial capital city where some of the first performances took place. So the spectators were asked to deliver bulbs for the show. When Emmy Puzinger danced while it was snowing, the fascinated audience was led into a dream world of a fairy who seemed to glide weightlessly through the snowflakes. Her husband Peppi Wurm was the head of the technical workers of the Vienna Ice Revue. So Emmy had the privilege to be together with her partner in private life though touring through the world."

Emmy Puzinger and Helmut Löfke. Right photo courtesy Dr. Roman Seeliger.

Emmy was the only original member of the Wiener Eisrevue's cast remaining when the company was sold to Morris Chalfen, the owner of Holiday On Ice, in 1971. She retired not long after but remained interested in skating for the rest of her life. Dr. Roman Seeliger remembered, "Emmy loved to go skating even as an old lady. She watched the shows of Holiday on Ice but did not like the new style. She criticized that in some vaudeville numbers the attention of the spectators was not focused on one or two skaters. 'You don’t know where to look,' she said, 'At the skater, at the acrobatic pair in the air or at the dancing singer? Is it an ice show or a circus? When they all show their skills at the same time, you can’t concentrate on any of them. So you don’t realize if the skaters are able to keep the tension upright from the beginning of a vaudeville number to the end', she used to say, posing like a ballerina as if she were under the klieg lights. As far as the new international champions were concerned, however, she did not criticize them but appreciated their achievements. She only would have chosen different tunes for the free in many cases as she loved operettas and the music by Robert Stolz. The creator of many Viennese Waltzes and songs had composed nineteen ice operettas for the Vienna Ice Revue. I had the honor to celebrate Christmas with Emmy and other skaters in the last years of Emmy’s life: Erni Zlam (who had performed as an acrobatic duo together with Willy Petter's wife Edith) and Helmut Löfke (the skating partner of many outstanding stars such as European Champions Hanna Eigel, Ingrid Wendl, Regine Heitzer and Eva Pawlik) were among Emmy's dearest friends of her skating past."

Photo courtesy Dr. Roman Seeliger

Emmy passed away on June 19, 2001, at the age of eighty, twenty years after her hockey player husband. She is remembered today as one of the great queens of Austrian figure skating.

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 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.

The 1977 Skate Canada International Competition

History had just been made, when complete proceedings from the House of Commons were nationally televised for the very first time. Margaret Atwood released the critically acclaimed short story collection "Dancing Girls and Other Stories" featuring the brilliant piece "The War in the Bathroom". Women from Cranbrook to Cornerbrook copied Farrah Fawcett's feathered hairdo. Cool cats of all ages got down to K.C. and The Sunshine Band's "Keep It Comin' Love".

The year was 1977 and from October 27 to 29, fifty-four skaters from Austria, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, Sweden, America, the Soviet Union, and Canada gathered at the Moncton Coliseum in New Brunswick for the first international figure skating competition ever held in the Maritimes.

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

The 1977 event was a breakout year for Skate Canada - but not really in a good way for the event's host country. In the competition's first four years, all but one of the eight singles titles had gone to Canadian skaters. With big names like Toller Cranston, Lynn Nightingale and Ron Shaver all turning professional, the general consensus prior to the event was that, for the first time, it was highly likely that all of the gold medals would go to foreign skaters. How did it all play out? Let's hop in the time machine and take a look back!

THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION

The dance event in Moncton was to have been a showdown between Janet Thompson and Warren Maxwell of Great Britain, the silver medallists at the 1977 World Championships, and Krisztina Regőczy and András Sallay, the silver medallists at the 1977 European Championships. The Hungarians withdrew their entry at the last minute, paving the way for a rather easy victory for England's top dance duo.

Janet Thompson and Warren Maxwell had trained at Queen's with Miss Gladys Hogg since 1971.
Janet was a cabinet maker's daughter who worked as a sales assistant at a department store; Warren was a bookmaker's assistant who was born in New Zealand. The couple dominated the event in Moncton from start to finish, unanimously winning the compulsories, OSP and free dance. Unanimously second were the Soviet couple ranked fifth in the World, Marina Zueva and Andrei Vitman. The bronze went to Toronto's Lorna Wighton and John Dowding, who had placed tenth at the 1977 Worlds. Nova Scotia's Marie McNeil and Rob McCall finished eighth; Ontario's Joanne French and John Thomas tenth; British Columbia's Debbie and Randy Burke thirteenth and last. Following the free dance, Warren Maxwell told reporters, "It was a new program and it was the first time we did it in public so it was an unknown quantity." Though 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery', more than one team in Moncton was criticized for copying the style of Irina Moiseeva and Andrei Minenkov to an obvious degree.

THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION

Robin Cousins

Northridge, California's Linda Fratianne made history in Moncton as the first reigning World Champion to ever compete at Skate Canada. It was her first competition since striking gold in Tokyo, she took a convincing lead in the school figures over Claudia Kristofics-Binder, Emi Watanabe, Lisa-Marie Allen and Heather Kemkaran.

Strong performances had Linda Fratianne, Heather Kemkaran and Lisa-Marie Allen in the top three spots in the short program but a couple of small but noticeable errors in the free skate dropped nineteen year old Kemkaran down to third overall behind the two Californians. Eighteen year-old Deborah-Lynn Paul of Edmonton dropped from seventh after figures and the short to eleventh overall. Canada's third entry, Susan MacDonald of Vancouver, had withdrawn due to injury at the eleventh hour and was not replaced by the CFSA.

Despite low marks from the Soviet judge and admitted nerves, Linda Fratianne's unanimous win was one of the most convincing in the event's history. That said, not everyone was impressed by the women's event in Moncton. Reviewing the event in "Skating" magazine, Frank Loeser complained, "The top three ladies all chose music from Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Scheherazade' for their long programs. One could evaluate the women in terms of technique quite easily, and, that is how the astute Linda Fratianne emerged as the champion. (Who can question that she is a jumping wonder?) But, in the area of 'artistic impression' there were no distinctions save perhaps for the near incidental allusion to exoticism by Fratianne's costume? That the ladies skated to the same piece of music was not objectionable - that they all displayed an equal lack of insight into this musical Arabian fantasy was. Any other sound in 4/4 or 3/4 time could have been spilling forth and it would have been as appropriate as 'Scheherazade'. I am not entirely sure how the artistic aspects of women's figure skating have reached the sorry state they are in. The emphasis on the triple jump and technical accomplishment is only part of the problem. Uninformed coaching and judging are additional significant factors. The current system selects the fabulous technicians and, for the sake of making objective decisions, the individual and the personality are sacrificed."

THE MEN'S COMPETITION

In a five-four split, Littleton, Colorado's Charlie Tickner narrowly defeated Great Britain's Robin Cousins in the men's school figures. Cousins credited his move to the U.S. to work with the Fassi's for his good showing in Moncton: "Back home I always had problems getting ice. I could usually only work on my figures for a couple hours at a time and I really had to push myself. Now that I train in Denver, I can have all the ice time I want and put in as much as five hours a day on my figures. This has helped me a tremendous amount."

Twenty year old Robin Cousins won the short over Charlie Tickner, Japan's Mitsuru Matsumura and seventeen year old Calgarian Brian Pockar. Neither Cousins or Tickner had their best skate in the long, but Cousins pulled off the win over Tickner in what was his fourth trip to the event. America's Scott Cramer, who had been third in figures, took the bronze. Brian Pockar finished fifth; Coquitlam, British Columbia's Jimmy Szabo sixth and Toronto's Vern Taylor eighth.

Perhaps most notable was a valiant triple Axel attempt in the long by Mitsuru Matsumura. The Japanese skater may have missed the jump, but he didn't miss the memo - he skated to "Scheherazade" too. Following his win, Cousins told British reporters, "I'm unhappy with the way I skated. For the first time I went into a final in first place - and it felt strange. I'm going to have to learn, if it happens again, to cope with it." As we all know, that's exactly what he managed to do on the way to winning the Olympic gold medal three years later.

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.

Skate Guard Tackles Skate Guard History

Eileen Seigh holding a pair of wooden skate guards at the 1947 World Championships

"It was raining in torrents and the ice was covered with nearly an inch and a half of water," recalled World Champion Jacqueline du Bief. "The loud speaker having announced me, I sprang forward with all my force. Alas! I had forgotten to take off my rubber skate guards and I made my entrance flat on my stomach, shooting across the rink from one end to the other and leaving in a wake a big wash and a multitude of little waves. I sat up, calmly took off the guards responsible for my unorthodox entrance and, after placing them on the edge of the rink, I wrung out my skirt to get rid of the water. The public, which had been silent until that moment, gave a great shout of laughter and began to applaud madly... and before I had taken my first step on the Vienna rink, we were good friends." On December 17, 1939, a member of the Ice Club of Chicago named Jeannette (Lay) Le Mar wasn't so lucky. She stepped on the ice without removing her skate guards and died suddenly as a result of her subsequent fall. Fortunately, Jeannette's tragic death was an isolated incident. As it turns out, the largely ignored history of one item in a skater's bag that is often overlooked - the skate guard - is quite interesting.

The image that we conjure up of a nineteenth century skater slinging their skate blades over their shoulder and trudging through the snow before attaching them to their boots and skating outdoors on a pond is pretty accurate. Skaters of the early Victorian era weren't hauling rolly bags out of their carriages and walking out to the ice on rubber mats wearing skate guards. The only 'skate protection' that really existed until late in the nineteenth century were smart carrying bags.

Frederick Whit-Gould's Patent Skate Protector. Photo courtesy "The Weekly Telegraph", 1896.

The first known 'skate blade protector' was patented by an inventor from Regent's Park in London, England, named Frederick Whit-Gould in the year 1895. An article that appeared in the "Field" on December 28 of that year noted, "The protector consists of a sheath made of india-rubber, which is easily slipped onto the skate blade, and so protects it from injury when be carried and swung about. It will be invaluable to those who have occasionally to walk with their skates from one piece of ice to another; and to obviate slipping the bottom of the sheath is corrugated... They will be... extremely usual to the figure skater, who nowadays invariably has his skates fixed permanently to his boots; as they enable him to stamp the foot well into the boot before lacing. As most skaters use vaseline to preserve their skate blades from rust, we thought that this would render the rubber sticky, but the manufacturers (Messrs Purser and Co., 92 Hatton garden) informs us that the rubber used is specifically made to resist the action of grease. The protectors are obtainable at all india-rubber dealers and skate vendors and the price per pair is 2s." Unfortunately, he died only thirteen years later, at the age of fifty, never having seen his clever idea achieve great popularity. During the Edwardian era, a sporting goods store in Manchester called Mitchell & Co., which specialized in lawn tennis, fishing, and cricket gear, began selling Skate Blade Guards made of leather. In the years that followed, a company called Fagan made quite a trade out of selling leather guards in England.

Top: Advertisement for Mitchell's Skate Blade Guards. Bottom: Diagram from Alfred K. Johnson's 1920 'skate guard improvement' patent.

In 1920 and 1925, Alfred K. Johnson of Chicago patented two improvements on Frederick Whit-Gould's design. Skate guards began to be widely marketed by his brother Nestor's Manufacturing Company, already well-known for designing their own line of skates called 'Johnsons'. In one of his patent applications, Alfred K. Johnson noted, "These guards are commonly made of leather so they will not dull the skate when the user walks around. The guards are commonly a foot or more in length, and hence it is desirable to fold them when not in use so they may be put in the users pocket. This folding or bending has, however, been difficult heretofore because the leather of which the guard is composed is necessarily thick and consequently rather stiff; hence the guard does not bend readily and if forced to bend is apt to crack. The purpose of my invention is to increase the flexibility of the guard so that it may be readily bent double with very little effort and without danger of damaging the article." Johnson faced some competition locally from Harry H. Kaskey, who patented a similar 'skate scabbard' in 1928 which was sold by F.W. Planert & Sons.

1929 advertisement from Planert catalog showing Harry H. Kaskey's 'skate scabbards'

In July 1930, Charles I. Johnson of Chicago filed for a patent for a 'guard for skate runners' on behalf of the Nestor Johnson Manufacturing Company. Interestingly, by this time, Alfred K. Johnson had left his brother Nestor's company and formed the rival Alfred Johnson Skate Company. The Nestor Johnson Manufacturing Company's 'guard for skate runners' proposed using rubber or "other suitable elastic material... in one piece [to simplify] the construction, enabling the guard to be readily and easily put on and taken off the runner, and also permitting the guard by reason of its resilient character to snugly grip the runner when applied thereto, and moreover permit stretching of the guard to fit different lengths of runners and adjust itself thereto."

Diagram from Thomas R. Barnard's 1939 patent application.

Nestor Johnson died in 1950, and the next year Alfred K. Johnson's company went under. But by that point, neither of the Johnson brothers' stakes in the skate guard trade really mattered. In November of 1939, Thomas W. Barnard of St. Paul, Minnesota patented his own unique brand of skate guards, fashioned of wood.

Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine

Thomas W. Barnard's timing was perfect, owing to large-scale World War II shortages of natural rubber when the Japanese quickly conquered the rubber-producing regions in Southeast Asia. Barnard's wooden "skate guards" were a huge hit with figure skaters, who would get their name and skating club engraved in them so as not to mix them up in the dressing rooms. The cost in 1942 was two dollars and seventy-five cents and they sold like hot cakes. Also popular during wartime were the Cryst-O-Guards designed by Betty and Bill Wade. Manufactured by the NuLine Manufacturing Company in Chicago, these adjustable guards were made of lucite, an acrylic resin often used in shoe manufacturing.

Skate guards from Olympiad Skate Company in St. Paul, Minnesota

In the years that followed, countless patents were filed for skate guards made of everything from wood and rawhide to rubber to plastic, with numerous variations in designs. Some had collapsible hinges; others had notches and adjustable plastic straps. 

Photo courtesy "Ice Skating" magazine

By 1946, the "National Skating Guide" listed over twenty American companies that manufactured skate guards. The popular Walkon Guards, distributed by Grove Hardware in Kansas, were made of plastic and 'strong fiber' with an aluminum core. A novel DIY project even appeared in the Junior Hobby Club column of the "Buffalo Evening News" in January of 1957, instructing young people on how to sew their own 'soakers' out of old blankets.

Photo courtesy "Skating World" magazine

Though wooden, rubber, and leather skate guards may seem foreign to the skaters of today, they were all the rage at one point in time. Such has always been the case in skating. Trends wax and wane, but the general underlying concept of 'what works' will evolve but retain its original character.

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 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.

Sweden's Syers: The Elna Montgomery Story

Photo courtesy Sveriges Centralförening för Idrottens Främjande Archive

Born on October 23, 1885, in Stockholm, Sweden, Elna Charlotta Elvira Montgomery was the daughter of Frans Otto Vilhelm Fabian Montgomery, a bookkeeper and office manager for a machine company, and his second wife, Lydia Wilhelmina Lamberg. 

Right off the bat, I know what you're probably thinking. Montgomery? That doesn't sound very Swedish. The last name Montgommerie was actually adopted by Elna's father's ancestors in the early eighteenth century. Over the years, it got anglicized. 

At any rate, Elna was the youngest of Frans and Lydia's five children. She had one brother, named Bertil Wilhelm, and three sisters: Ellen Maria, Edith Hilbur Wilhelmina and Willy Helena Leonora. The family had ties to the Finnish nobility and was well-off enough to employ a live-in servant.

Elna joined the Stockholms Allmänna Skridskoklubb at the age of fourteen in 1900, studying both school figures and free skating under the watchful eye of coach Henrik Petersson. That same year, she placed second in her very first competition. Like Madge Syers, Lili Kronberger, Muriel Harrison, Dorothy Greenhough-Smith and several other prominent female skaters of the early twentieth century, Elna found herself in the position of being forced to compete against men - or not at all. She did just that, winning a youth competition in 1901 and going up against male skaters in the 1905 Nordiska Spelen (Nordic Games) held in her home city. She also skated pairs with a man named Erik Amundson.

Elna Montgomery at the 1908 Swedish Championships. Photo courtesy Sveriges Centralförening för Idrottens Främjande Archive.

In 1906, when the Swedish Championships were held in Gothenburg, Sweden, a separate competition for women was held for the first time in the country. With little competition, Elna easily won. However, the event wasn't recognized as an official part of the competition. She had to wait until 1908, the year women were first allowed to officially compete in the event, to be recognized as Sweden's first women's champion. In actuality, she won the 1908 event in Karlstad by default, because she was the only woman brave enough to enter. Her win set in motion a long standing tradition: women from SASK dominated the women's event at the Swedish Championships every single year until 1936. 

Following the 1906 Swedish Championships, Elna travelled to St. Petersburg, where she won a bronze medal in an international competition held in the Russian city. She did all of this while holding down a job as a stenographer.

Later that year, at the age of twenty-two, Elna once again made history when she entered the women's figure skating competition at the 1908 Summer Olympic Games at Prince's Skating Club in London, England. Along with tennis players Anna Märtha Vilhelmina Adlerstråhle and Elsa Wallenberg, she became one of the first three women in history from Sweden to ever compete at the Olympic Games. She was the very first female figure skater, or athlete in any winter sport, for that matter. 

Elna just missed the medal podium at the 1908 Olympics, placing fourth behind Madge Syers, Elsa Rendschmidt and Dorothy Greenhough-Smith. Commentary from "The Fourth Olympiad, the Official Report of the Olympic Games 1908" by Theodore Andrea Cook noted that Montgomery struggled on the third compulsory figure, the change loop, and in the free skate, "skated first, and, save for a slight fall owing to a slip when attempting a toe-step, she skated steadily and well, though her programme did not contain any items of difficulty."

Elna Montgomery and Zsófia Méray-Horváth. Photo courtesy Sveriges Centralförening för Idrottens Främjande Archive.

Although she never competed in any official events at the World Championships, Elna remained active as a skater after her Olympic appearance. She finished third in her second appearance at the Nordic Games in 1909, behind Elsa Rendschmidt and Zsófia Méray-Horváth. That same year, a figure skating exhibition was held in conjunction with the Swedish Speed Skating Championships. She performed alongside Ulrich Salchow and British pairs skaters Phyllis and James Johnson for a visiting class of physical education students, imploring them to recognize the beauty and athleticism of the sport.

In Gothenburg in 1912, Elna won her second and final women's title, decisively beating two future Olympic Medallists: Magda Mauroy (Julin) and Svea Norén. She made history for a third time that year when a pairs competition was first included in the competition. Surprise, surprise... she won that too. Her partner was none other than Olympic and World Medallist Per Thorén. She took one final stab at the Swedish title in 1916, but by that point, Mauroy and Norén were establishing themselves as her successors. She won the silver medal and retired from competition.

Anna Hübler, Elsa Rendschmidt, Elna Montgomery and Lili Kronberger

As quietly as she made history that has been all but forgotten, Elna got married to Copenhagen-born Allan Bäckman, moved to Malmö, and continued to skate for pleasure. Swedish skating historian Lennart Månsson informed me that she even once staged a comeback of sorts: "As late as 1924, at the age of 38, she entered the Danish National Championships as a guest skater, outside of the official competition. Her result would have earned her second place."

Widowed on August 28, 1956, Elna passed away in Båstad, Skåne, a small village in the south of Sweden, on June 13, 1981, at the age of ninety-five. At the time of her death, she was the oldest surviving figure skater who competed at the 1908 Summer Olympic Games in London.

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.

Another Jumble Of Judging Tales

Figure skating wouldn't be figure skating without its judges. From the encouraging judges who guide us through our Preliminary Dance tests to the crooked 'tap-dancing judges' and Marie-Reine Le Gougne in Salt Lake City, these volunteers certainly do run the gamut. 

In 2020 and 2022, the blog looked back at fascinating stories of judges from years past. It's been a couple of years but here's a third installment!

A JUDGE WHO STOOD BEHIND HIS MARKS

In 1964, British judge Harry Lawrence earned himself a one-year suspension from the ISU for 'inexperience'. Serving as a judge at the World Championships for the first time, Lawrence placed the number three British couple (Diane Towler and Bernard Ford) in a tie for fourth in the compulsories, eleventh in the free dance, and seventh overall. They had finished an unlucky thirteenth. Lawrence's suspension was considered quite controversial at the time, as he was an experienced N.S.A. judge who had done a fine job judging at the European Championships in Berlin in 1961. If anything, the ISU could have accused him of national bias. Lawrence stood by his scores, believing that the other judges hadn't known what to do with the virtually unknown young team. Two years later, Towler and Ford were World Champions. Lawrence never judged at the World Championships again. 

ONE TOUGH COOKIE

Harry N. Keighley. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

Chicago's Harry N. Keighley served as the USFSA's President from 1949 to 1952. A prominent USFSA judge, referee and accountant, he devoted over thirty years to the sport of figure skating. Two years before his death in 1983, seventy-nine year-old Keighley suffered a heart attack and lost consciousness while judging Larry Holliday's Novice 4th Test figures at the Evanston Figure Skating Club in Illinois. Holliday recalled, "After he passed out, I got off the ice and waited a few minutes for him to come to. We waited thirty minutes, and after he recovered, he insisted on finishing the test. He would not allow the ambulance to take him away. Tough man! Club officials gave him a chair to sit as he judged. Back then, the judges stood on the ice right in front of the skater to terrorize us! He passed me and the running joke was always, 'Wow, Larry your figures were so bad, Harry couldn't take it.'"

GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN

Distinguished Canadian judge Flora Jean (Gilchrist) Matthews' first trip to the World Championships in Tokyo in 1985 was certainly memorable. When she gave American Debi Thomas (a newcomer on the World stage) high marks of 5.8 and 5.6 in the free skate, a Canadian fan in the stands loudly yelled out, "Fire the Canadian judge!" It didn't seem to matter that Matthews had Thomas fourth in the free skate, the same as the majority of the other judges. The fact that she was simply a high marker was apparently grounds for dismissal. Matthews had the last laugh the following year when she was in Geneva judging the men's event at the World Championships and Thomas took the women's gold. 

Not afraid to go against the grain, Matthews memorably served as a judge in the men's events at both the 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympic Games. In Calgary, she was one of four judges who had Brian Orser ahead of winner Brian Boitano. In Albertville, she was one of two judges to place Paul Wylie ahead of winner Viktor Petrenko in the free skate.

NOT YOUR EVERY DAY AMERICAN JUDGES

Left: Virginia Vale. Right: Mabel Lamborn Graham.

Virginia Vale (born Dorothy Howe) made all of her own clothes and had roles in over a dozen B-movies during World War II. In one, she played a race car driver. Elisabeth Daub Hickox rode her own racing pony in Shanghai and played the violin. Katherine Miller Sackett enjoyed canoeing in remote areas along the Minnesota-Canada border. Mary Natwick Meredith was a housewife by day; trapeze enthusiast by night. Minerva Burke tap-danced and played hockey. Mabel Lamborn Graham gave piano lessons, sang, and booked theatrical productions. Nellie Matson Jensen was a talented photographer who enjoyed fishing and skiing. All of these women had one thing in common: they were active figure skating judges in America in the fifties!

THE 1957 AUSTRIAN JUDGING SCANDAL

A smiling Adolf Rosdol (seated right) with Canadians F. Herbert Crispo (seated left) and Sandy McKechnie (standing) at the 1957 World Championships. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

At its meeting prior to the 1957 Congress in Salzburg, the ISU voted to "permanently" suspend two Austrian officials, Hans Grünauer and Adolf Rosdol, for "improper conduct at international skating events." ISU historian Benjamin T. Wright recalled, "Mr. Grünauer had established a 'calculation office', to ascertain throughout a competition the exact position of each competitor with each judge, by means of which the Austrian judge serving on the panel was informed of the current standings and instructed (by signals) as to the marks to be awarded... The so-called calculation office had operated over many years since the advent of open marking, right up to the 1957 World Championships... The case of Mr. Rosdol was perhaps a more difficult one, since he was at the time of his suspension the Chairman of the Figure Skating Committee... Mr. Rosdol had been previously suspended for two years in 1951 for attempting to influence another judge to place an Austrian competitor higher. His engaging in comparable activities, first observed in 1949, had continued at various Championships thereafter and even during the period of his first suspension, as well as after he became an ISU officeholder." The Austrian federation opposed both men's suspensions vehemently, to no use. Grünauer's suspension from the ISU continued until his death in 1976, but Rosdol's suspension was lifted in 1977 by Jacques Favart. Incredibly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, he was soon reappointed as an international judge by the Austrian federation.

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 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.