The Luminous Lottie Dod

Pioneering female skating stars are no stranger to Skate Guard if the glimpses at the contributions to the art of Madge Syers and Mabel Davidson were any example. This particular blog looks at the story of an equally unconventional pioneer in skating, whose contributions to sports in general are quite frankly nothing short of mind blowing.

Charlotte "Lottie" Dod was born September 24, 1871 in Bebington, Merseyside, England and was the youngest of Joseph and Margaret Dod's four children. Joseph Dod was originally from Liverpool and had amassed a fortune in the cotton trade, and this wealth afforded Lottie and her siblings the luxury of never having to work a day in their lives. Privately educated by tutors and governesses, the Dod children all found time to pursue their mutual interest in recreation and sports. Annie Dod, Lottie's sister excelled in tennis, golf, billiards and like her sister, skating. Tony Dod was an archer, golfer and chess player. William Dod won the gold medal at the 1908 Summer Olympics in archery (Men's double York round) in a field of twenty seven. However, it was Lottie who would become known as "The Little Wonder" and be recognized by The Guinness Book Of World Records which once named her the all-time most versatile female athlete, a distinction she now shares with Babe Didrickson Zaharias.

What earned Lottie this honor? Before I get to her skating accomplishments, I want to start with a look at everything else. In 1887, she won her first of five Wimbledon tennis tournaments on her first try at the age of fifteen. She founded a field hockey team and soon became captain of that too. She later found herself on England's national team, beating Ireland in an 1899 game. Who scored the winning goals? You guessed it - Lottie! She helped establish a golf club and won the British Ladies Amateur Golf title in 1904. In 1908, she joined her brother in competing in archery at the Summer Olympics, taking home the silver medal in the women's double National round. She also enjoyed horseback riding. Oh, I'm just getting started! Those were just the summer sports.

Women's Double National Round competition in Archery at the 1908 Summer Olympics

Lottie made her way to St. Moritz, Switzerland, the winter sport (and skating) mecca during that era. While there, she became the first woman to complete the toboggan course on St. Moritz's world famous Cresta Run. Harry Stone's book "Ski Joy: The Story Of Winter Sports" explains "there was even an attempt in 1896 at playing cricket on skates. St. Moritz, always seeking out rivals, challenged Davos. Ladies included at the St. Moritz team starred Lottie Dod, a five times winner at Wimbledon. She more than proved her worth by taking five wickets for four runs." She also competed in curling. Okay, this woman is Wonder Woman, is she not? I'm telling you! This is insane!

Her accomplishments as a skater were in themselves pretty damn impressive. In 1896, she passed the St. Moritz Ladies' Skating Test in the Continental Style and then returned the next year and took the St. Moritz Men's Skating Test and passed that with flying colors too. Jean Williams' book "A Contemporary History of Women's Sport, Part One: Sporting Women, 1850-1960" tells us a tiny bit more about her skating achievement (which would have been HUGE and probably quite controversial at that time): "Dod was coached by Harold Topham to pass the men's St. Moritz skating test, training for at least two hours a day over two months in the winter of 1886-1887". Although that doesn't tell us a lot about her interest in skating, it does give us an important clue.

Lottie Dod taking the St. Moritz Men's Skating Test in 1887

Who was Harold Topham? Not "any old skating coach". He was a British mountaineer. Guess what Lottie started doing while she was in St. Moritz and wasn't skating? Mountaineering. In February 1896, she ascended Piz Zupo (four thousand and two metres), a mountain in the Bernina Range in Switzerland and Italy with Elizabeth Main (another female mountaineer and photographer) and a Swiss guide. After a long family cycling trip in Italy that took in three cities, Lottie and brother Tony headed to Norway and climbed several mountains. Watch out Julie Andrews... I think Lottie looked into the future and took that advice about "climbing every mountain" quite literally.

Lottie's non-sporting accomplishments are also absolutely worth mention. She was an accomplished contralto singer who performed with the London Oriana Madrigal Society, a piano and banjo player and during World War I received a Red Cross Gold Medal for her service at a military hospital in Speen. She also worked with youth clubs in Great Britain, including the Girl Guides, whom she taught piano and part singing.

Interestingly, Dod wasn't the only athlete to make considerable strides in multiple sports. New Zealand's Corinne Gilkison not only won national titles in ladies, pairs skating and ice dancing in her country in 1947 and 1948, but she also won several national speed skating titles, the 1948 New Zealand Women's Skiing Championships, was runner-up in her country's Nationals in doubles tennis and won two Otago Bronze Golf Championships.

Attending every Wimbledon tennis event until she was in her late eighties, Dod died at eighty eight in a nursing home in Sway, Hampshire, never having married. Amy Nutt's Sports Illustrated article "Wimbledon's First Wunderkind" purports a tale surrounding her death that I was absolutely unable to substantiate but if true makes for quite a movie-worthy ending to a life well lived: "It is said that at the time of her death, on June 27, 1960, 88-year-old Charlotte Dod was listening to the 83rd Wimbledon Championships on her radio in a nursing home in Sway, near England's southern coast. Only 70 miles away the hydrangeas were in bloom outside the All England Club, and the grass courts inside were worn from nearly a week of constant play. In just a few days the women's final would be played. At the end of the match the crowd would stand and cheer just as they had 73 years earlier for Dod..."

This piece originally appeared as part of a six-part podcast series called Axels In The Attic. You can listen to Allison Manley of The Manleywoman SkateCast and Ryan Stevens of Skate Guard's audio version on Podbean or iTunes.

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.

The Kolonnade Shopping Mall Rink Collapse

I remember how absolutely heart wrenching it was to write about The Hallowe'en Holocaust 1963 explosion and I certainly can only imagine how painful researching and writing about the 1961 Sabena Plane Crash must have been for Patricia Shelley Bushman when she penned "Indelible Tracings" and "Indelible Images". When you write about tragedy - even when it's something that has happened years ago - the human element of the story tends you reach out and grip you. Here's the thing about every tragedy though. The indomitable spirit of those who do survive and are involved in the rescue efforts always seems to remind us of the fact that no matter what cards life deals us or how much bad there is in the world, there are GOOD people out there.

On December 20, 2001, the Kolonnade Shopping Mall in a suburb of Pretoria called Montana in South Africa was packed with people doing their last minute holiday shopping. The mall's ice rink was teaming with young skaters and their parents celebrating their Christmas break with a much needed skate when seemingly seemingly inexplicably, there was a huge boom that sounded to many eyewitnesses like an earthquake. The two hundred and seventy square foot section of the mall's second floor and roof directly over the rink collapsed. Initially, fifty people were trapped in the rubble... including a nine-month old baby. The power failed and icy water made conditions even more unbearable for those trapped.

I want to give you a sense of just how scary things were for the skaters and their families that day. The December 21, 2001 edition of The Star-News explained that "Twenty-one people were seriously injured... 'It was much like the World Trade Center, dense dust and people running,' said Dr. George Michael Scharfs, who was near the rink with his wife and children when the second floor of the Kolonnade Shopping Center dropped onto the lower-level ice rink. Police said three people were hospitalized with critical injuries and eighteen others with serious injuries, including concussions and lacerations. Many more were cut by shards of glass from a shattered rink wall... Dr. Scharfs said he helped rescue a 2-year old girl pinned beneath a steel post... Parents frantically tried to dig their children out of the rubble. They were joined by about three hundred police and soldiers."

However horrific the scene at that South African day just months after the September 11 attacks in New York, the stories of everyday people to risked their own safety to help strangers on that day were every bit as awe inspiring. The December 21 edition of The Guardian shared some of those stories of bravery: "One 68-year-old man, Aubrey Welcan, who was playing bingo nearby when the roof caved in, helped pull two children out of the rubble. He told the South African Press Association (Sapa) the water was bitterly cold, and he could not see anything. 'It felt as if my feet would fall off,' he said. 'It was all dust. One could not see in front of you.' Marius Du Plessis rushed to the scene after hearing of the collapse on the radio. His 21-year-old son Morne was working in a clothing store near the ice rink. 'I have been trying to contact my son on his mobile phone, but there is only voice mail,' Mr Du Plessis told Reuters. Shiraaz Osman, who owned a shop above the rink, said he pulled his eight-year-old son Yusuf out moments before the roof collapsed. 'My son was on his way to the store. I saw the floor cracking and I rushed him outside. If it had been two minutes later we would have been in there,' said Osman. 'Outside, I hear a mega-loud bang and saw people running.' He said there was nothing left of his store. 'There is only water.' Dries Strydom said his two-year-old daughter and mother-in-law were sitting next to the rink when the roof fell on them. 'They did not know what happened. They just heard a loud bang.' The young girl was trapped for about an hour-and-a-half. Mary Kekane said her mother, sons, sister and niece were Christmas shopping when the roof collapsed on them. 'As result of the impact, they told me, they fell to the bottom floor.'" The Kekane's were freed by emergency personnel although Mary Kekane's young daughter had a nasty gash on her forehead and her mother suffered a back injury. The injury toll by the end of it all climbed to between forty five and fifty, depending on which accounts you read.

Although miraculously no one died in the Kolonnade Shopping Mall rink collapse, it was later revealed by the Tshwane City Council that an occupational permit had not been issued for that section of the mall but they had it up opened two months before the disaster anyway. The fact that the wrong steel was used and the rink's main supporting girder gave way was the determined as the ultimate cause of the accident. In eProp Commercial Property News, South African Institution Of Civil Engineers President Ron Watermeyer reflected on the bigger picture of the 2001 disaster (which ironically wasn't the ONLY similar incident at that time): "I would venture to suggest that South Africa's buildings are only as safe as is the competence and integrity of the engineers entrusted to certify compliance with the national building regulations. In South Africa, the tendency has been to confuse competence with professional registration. Professional registration is intended to manage integrity and to recognise the attainment of minimum standards of education and training and an ability to work independently. It does not assess competence to verify that a building complies with performance-based building regulations."

Regardless of who or what was to blame, the fact that everyone managed to make it out of that rink that day alive is really nothing short of incredible. Freak things happen in this world and we never know when they will... but how we respond and how we fight back when we are faced with the most horrific of challenges shows us just what we are made of. In Pretoria, they REBUILT that Olympic size rink and got back out there and skated on it until the rink was relocated to The Grove Mall in 2013. No matter how bad things get in life, there's one thing you can count on: you just can't keep a skater from the ice.

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.

The First Figure Skating Competitions In Africa

When I started learning a little about the very first international figure skating competition held in Africa, I was just dying to learn more and more about this historic milestone... and believe me, the story of this event did not disappoint. I want to start by saying that owe a huge thanks to Irvine Green and the South African Ice Skating Association for their invaluable assistance in helping me bring this particular blog to you!

Okay, let's start with the basics. Although the 1947 South African Championships in Africa were the first official figure skating competition to be held in Africa, they of course were not an international affair. It wasn't until three decades later, when the South African Ice Skating Association organized an international event in 1973 that skaters from outside of South Africa would travel to the country to compete. This was huge stuff. Due to the political situation in the country, the ISU had as of the late sixties stopped accepting entries from the country at the World Championships and Olympics and this of course was in response to the apartheid in the country. That didn't stop South Africa from bringing the world to Johannesburg to compete at this small international meet that featured nineteen skaters from South Africa, the U.S., Luxembourg, West Germany, Austria and Great Britain.

Carlton Sky Rink, December 1974 (Irvine Green photo)

The success of the 1973 event led to the first Skate Safari competition, which was first held from April 2-4, 1975. In an effort to forge ties with the ISU, the guest of honour was the organization's then First Vice President John Shoemaker. The event also marked the first visit to the country by esteemed London sportswriter Howard Bass. Two other factors contributed greatly to making the event a success, the first being the introduction of television to the country that year and the second being the fact that 1975 was the first year that the South African federation employed a public relations director. The event got significant publicity and media attention... but the real question was to whether the skaters would succeed or were be haunted by past failures. I forgot to mention where in Johannesburg this competition was held! Remember the haunted Carlton Hotel Sky Rink from last year's Skate Guard Hallowe'en Spooktacular? You got it!

Courtesy South African Ice Skating Association Archives

Over twenty skaters from Austria, Great Britain, South Africa the U.S. and West Germany participated in Skate Safari in 1975. Unsurprisingly, the largest contingent came from the host country. The event was presided over by ISU referees Pierette Devine and Max Staub and judges were Ludwig Gassner of Austria, Mollie Phillips of Great Britain, Estelle Daniel, Gerald Hansmeyer and Sylvia Strasheim of South Africa, Elaine DeMore of the U.S. and Erika Schiechtl of West Germany. No ice dance competition was held but the other three disciplines were hotly contested.

The pairs event was compromised of five teams: Austria's Michael and Ursula Nemec, Great Britain's Ruth Lindsey and Alan Beckwith, South Africa's Jane Howard and Peter Swemmer, America's Emily Benenson and Jack Courtney and West Germany's Sylvia Jaeckle and Axel Teschemacher. The gold medal went to the only one of the five teams who had competed at the 1975 World Championships in Colorado Springs, the brother/sister team of Ursula and Michael Nemec of Austria, leaving the American and West German teams to finish second and third. It appeared early on that the Commonwealth countries were out of luck. 

In the ladies event, there were eight entries. West Germany was represented by Vera Burding and Petra Wagner, the U.S. by Barbie Smith, South Africa by Lynne Rayner and Marijke Swierstra, Great Britain by Yvonne Kavanagh and Gail Keddie and Austria by Sabine Winkler. The winner was future U.S. Silver Medallist Barbie Smith and the silver medallist West Germany's Petra Wagner. The Commonwealth's luck turned around when British Silver Medallist Yvonne Kavanagh was able to best Gail Keddie, who had defeated her at that year's British Championships and earned the sole British ladies spot at Worlds.

The men's field was comprised of Austrian Gerhard Hubmann, West Germany's Gert-Walter Graebner, South Africa's David Dobbie, Danny Dreyyer and Johannes Potgieter and two incredible men's skaters who would both go on to win medals at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid... none other than Robin Cousins and Charlie Tickner. The event was a memorable early face-off between the future rivals. In the school figures, Tickner gained an edge he was able to maintain when Cousins faltered on a double axel/double loop combination in the short program. Although Cousins bounced back and won the long program with a triple salchow, triple toe and double axels in one of the best free skating performances he'd ever given to that point, he ultimately lost overall to Tickner in a 3-2 split. The bronze went to West Germany's Gert-Walter Graebner, who would go on to win his only West German title the next year and later become an orthopedic surgeon in Cologne.

Courtesy South African Ice Skating Association Archives

In his book "Skating For Gold", Cousins reflected on his 1975 Skate Safari experience: "Almost immediately after arriving home from Colorado Springs, I found myself being put on a South African Airways plane to Johannesburg, to compete in that city's second international competition and the first to be called Skate Safari. Various national associations had been invited to send teams, to compete in Johannesburg and then, after a safari tour around the Kruger National Park, to go on a tour of other South African cities. I was thrilled at being asked to go such a long way from home and to such a beautiful place as South Africa. It seems such a tragedy that the people should be troubled by so much political controversy. The competition was very well organized, and for the second time, I came up against Charlie, the eventual winner. I was placed second, but had the satisfaction of winning both the short and long free skating programmes. Thus, I collected one gold and two silver medals - for winning the free, coming second in the figures and second overall. It was my first senior international medal for figures and my first international free skating gold. So what started out as a competition which I was expected just to go and enjoy, without any expectations, ended up as a very rewarding international medal 'picker-upper'. The tour afterward took us to some beautiful places. We had four days in Durban to spend on the beach before our first exhibition show at the local rink, followed by similarly fascinating visits to Port Elizabeth, Pretoria and Cape Town." 

Although none of the South African skaters who competed in the 1973 or 1975 events were able to really keep up with the high standard of skating put out there by their international guests, for the vast majority this event would prove to be their Olympics as the opportunities for these skaters to go elsewhere and compete was just not a possibility in the political climate at the time.

1977 South African Champion Lynne Rayner at the Sky Rink holding the trophy for the Highest Free Mark

Skate Safari would continue to be held sporadically over the years and even be, in its eighth time being held, included as an ISU Junior Grand Prix event during the 2008/2009 season, when two of my past Skate Guard interview victims (Ricky Dornbush and Alexe Gilles) won gold medals. I've had a chance to interview some wonderful skaters from South Africa in the past but I've never visited, even though that's one place on my 'bucket list' I'd just love to go. I will unashamedly admit I'm a big fan of The Amazing Race and I'll never forget when the teams visited Victoria Falls on the show's very first season just being amazed with the beauty and diversity of southern African countries. Hopefully someday I can coordinate that bucket list visit with a Skate Safari competition. A sister can dream!

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.

Zebras, Diamonds And Melting Ice Rinks In South Africa

In the next three Skate Guard blogs, we will be taking a trip through South Africa's unique figure skating history! We'll get the party started by meeting a very unique figure in that sport's history: Josephine Dale Lace.

Back in times of yore, to call someone eccentric was often a disparaging way of saying "they have more money than they know what to do with and they aren't spendng in in a way that's socially acceptable" but sometimes the other implication of the word - that the person is a little outrageous - was also true... and I love outrageous personally. There are a lot of stories about Josephine because she wore a lot of hats during her life. A Johannesburg socialite who was married three times (twice to the same man), Josephine was at one time a would-be actress who went to London, England and was purported to be a mistress to King Edward VII! When she wasn't romantically linked to members of both British and South African high society (as she often was), she was devoted to a lavish life in South Africa afforded by her husband Captain John Dale Lace, who was a gold and diamond mining magnate. The Dale Lace's lived in a ostentatious Parktown mansion called Northwards and Josephine would have servants blow a bugle when she left the house, take milk baths in a marble tub and was often seen travelling in a cart pulled by four zebras. Yes, you read that right... zebras. Later in life when De Beers affected its monopoly over the diamond trade, things started to take a downhill turn for the power couple. The entire west wing of Northwards mansion burned in a fire believed to have started in the kitchen and the Dale Lace's lost their fortune. They moved first to England and then, later to Boschkop, north of Johannesburg. When Josephine died in 1937, she left mysterious instructions that "her body should be cremated at night and her ashes cast upon the wind". Now that you have a brief synopsis of Josephine Dale Lace's story, I want to explain her fascinating and historic connection to skating.

During the winters, Mrs. Dale Lace would travel to the resort town of Engelberg, Switzerland and study the Continental Style of skating. She also often travelled to Great Britain and would skate at the Prince's Skating Club with Winston Churchill's mother Lady Randolph Churchill. Although I doubt she brought her zebra drawn carriage on the road with her, I don't doubt for a second that she just adored skating. She actually loved it so much she was dead set on introducing the sport to the upper crust of South African society. She financed the building of a rink that was situated on Eloff Street in Johannesburg at the South African Party's club. It was so big it apparently took up an entire city block but only lasted for less than a year because without proper ice refrigeration, the ice was constantly melting and it proved to be a huge money drain... especially in a time period where the Dale Lace's vast fortune was melting as fast as the ice at their 'Niagara' rink.  

It would be over two decades until the novelty of ice skating would return to South Africa. In the uncharacteristically chilly January 1937, an ice rink was set up during The Empire Exhibition. A newspaper account of the rink at The Empire Exhibition reads: "The present Hall Of Transport has been selected as the site of this installation. The Rink will have several entrances of its own, nearly a quarter of an acre will be actually under ice, apart from a very large space, which will accommodate 2,500 spectators. An up-to-date restaurant will be run in conjunction with it. Many thrills will be here; no less than three visiting hockey teams will be competing for premier honours on the ice-field. In addition to this, Scotland is sending over a team to teach us the ancient game of Curling - I can assure you great things await all visitors, who are lucky enough to gain admission to the ice rink; many thrills and incidentally many falls will be witnessed." Ultimately, unlike the Niagara this rink proved so successful and popular that the whole setup was moved to Springfield, Johannesburg under the name 'the Wembley Ice Rink' and that same year the South African Ice Skating Association was born. Ready for more South African skating history? Stay tuned to the next Skate Guard blog! We're just get started, sweetie.

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.

The Third Annual Skate Guard Hallowe'en Spooktacular

It's the ghost wonderful time of the year! Hallowe'en has once again fallen upon us and all of you loyal Skate Guard readers know that means. It's time for a yearly Skate Guard tradition... The Annual Skate Guard Hallowe'en Spooktacular! Dim the lights enjoy this creepy collection of darker stories that have peppered skating's history through the years!

THE SKATING SCENE FROM "CURTAINS"

The 1983 Canadian slasher flick "Curtains" was a cult classic for longtime "General Hospital" writer Bob Guza. The film's iconic skating murder scene remains one of the most unique attack scenes visually in that genre. Seriously... can you imagine going out by yourself for a midday skate and ending up getting chased by a masked homicidal skater with a scythe? That's some downright terrifying stuff right there. In a 2004 interview with The Terror Trap, director/producer Peter Simpson explained the back story of the "Curtains" skating scene: "I brought in a real figure skater. I don't remember the girl's name... it was actually one of the few times I was ever embarrassed in interviewing someone. We brought her in to do the stunt double. She was the right height and everything. But she had this big parka on because it was the wintertime. So she came into my office at Simcom and she sat down. And she had the parka off her shoulders. I said, 'I can't look at you with that parka on, would you take it off so we could see what you look like and what the camera's gonna see?' I assumed she had something on underneath it... but she just had... panties on. I'm standing there saying, "You'll look good on camera, you can put that parka back on!" The skater who apparently auditioned in the nude was named Jo-anne Hannah, and she played both the part of Lesleh (the skater being chased) AND her masked attacker. Talk about a pairs team... from hell.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SUZY LAMPLUGH

The 1986 disappearance of London real estate agent Suzy Lamplugh in broad daylight made headlines in the eighties and rocked a nation's sense of security. Declared dead and presumed murdered in 1994, her body still hasn't been found. It has been widely speculated in the media that convicted killer and rapist John Cannan might have been involved in Lamplugh's disappearance and it was a skater who actually brought a major break in the cold case in 2000. Cannan's former girlfriend, a former ice dancer named Gilly Paige, told police that Cannan had suggested that Suzie was buried at Norton Barracks in Worcestershire (yes, like the sauce!), a former army barracks. Ultimately, that seemed to prove to be another dead end... however a new investigation began in the Worcestershire area in 2010. This August 2010 article from "The Daily Mail" suggests a whole new twist in the case. Whatever the case may be, Paige is very lucky she escaped the relationship she was in unscathed.

AIN'T THAT A SKATE IN THE HEAD

In October 2014, a twenty year old British woman named Jemma Fitzgerald ended up with a depressed skull after bone fragments shot into her brain and no less than twenty stitches. Why? She was attacked by an assailant whose weapon of choice was an ice skate. Certainly puts the famous screams of "why?" into perspective doesn't it? Things could have indeed been much worse. Fitzgerald was walking on foot to a boxing club to arrange a meeting about organizing a charity event for cancer research when a twenty seven year old woman brutally attacked her. In an interview with the Chester Chronicle, Fitzgerald told reporters "I was hit in the head with an ice skate completely out of the blue. I actually didn't feel anything and only realized what had happened when I felt blood running down my face. I wasn't really sure what to do and didn't realise how serious it was at the time to be honest. Apparently I was in intensive care up until my operation where doctors found I had a depressed skull and fragments of bone in my brain which they had to remove. The surgeon told me that realistically I shouldn't be alive." The attack happened close to the Deeside Ice Rink and news sources never really followed up on the story to report as to whether or not the attacker was known to the victim or had any connection to the rink but at any rate, scary stuff.

THE FIGURE SKATER ON THE MILK CARTON

Ilene Beth Misheloff was an accomplished young figure skater from Dublin, California in the mid eighties. She competed against 1992 Olympic Gold Medallist Kristi Yamaguchi and had finished first in competitions all over the Bay Area of California. On the afternoon of January 30, 1989, the thirteen year old left Wells Middle School and was walking to Dublin Iceland rink for an afternoon skating lesson when she vanished into thin air. Twenty five years after her disappearance, Ilene's parents Maddi and Michael Misheloff remain positive and hopeful for their daughter's return home someday. Over the years, Ilene's family and community have held several vigils marking the anniversary of her disappearance in hopes to not only celebrate her life but to remind the community she is still missing. In a 2012 interview with the Pleasanton Patch Maddi said that "if Jaycee [Dugard] can come back, so can she". Over the years, suspicions have remained that Ilene's disappearance was linked to two other child abductions around the same time in the area. According to Dublin Police Lieutenant Herb Walters, when Dugard was found alive eighteen years after her disappearance, Dublin Police and the Hayward Police Department (who were handling the case of missing Michaela Garecht as well) obtained a search warrant for the residence of Dugard's captor Phillip Garrido. No evidence in the search linked Misheloff's disappearance to Garrido but he has not been ruled out as a suspect. The Charley Project, a website that shares the stories of over nine thousand 'cold case' missing people in the United States, talks in depth about Ilene's case and several suspects including Timothy Bindner, James Daveggio and Curtis Dean Anderson. In reading the information about all three men provided, it doesn't take Jessica Fletcher to deduce that the subject who allegedly sent a letter to one young girl printed backwards, that could only be read in a mirror, drove around trying to lure young girls into a van wallpapered with pictures of children and wrote letters to the FBI about how he thought the victims might have acted stands out like a sore thumb. It's enough to make you sick to your stomach. To this day, no one has been charged with Ilene's disappearance but her parents maintain hope the case will somehow be solved, as well as a website to keep her story in the public eye. There's something so simply heartwearming about her parents continued hope and obvious love for their daughter. We may never get to see Ilene Misheloff compete against Kristi Yamaguchi again, but if we keep sharing her story, there's always the glimmer of real hope that like in the shocking case of Jaycee Dugard, Ilene will one day resurface.

JACK FROM TITANIC GOES SKATING

"You're heeeere... theeeeere's nothing I fear..." Engrained in us when we think of one of the world's biggest tragedies are of course the James Cameron film and the Celine Dion song "My Heart Will Go On" but what really stays in our souls when we think of the "Titanic" is the sense of foreboding that comes from the thought of an unsinkable ship sinking with such a high death toll - between 1,490 and 1,635 people - a ship full of people who, without enough lifeboats didn't stand a chance.  It resonates with us to this day. Remember Rose and Jack from the movie? Well this story is about a real life Jack who survived the Titanic sinking - and it's a sad one with - you guessed it - a skating connection. Jack Thayer was travelling first class with his parents on the Titanic. The seventeen year old's mother Marian joined the "women and children first" in a lifeboat but the teenaged Thayer was left with his father to fend for himself. Thayer's father died in the tragedy but Thayer was one of relatively few who survived the exposure after jumping in the water. In the 2011 The Independent article "Curse of the Titanic: What happened to those who survived?", Thayer's daughter recounts her father taking her skating, "One year, when the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia was frozen over, he took us down to skate. I remember being quite scared, in case the ice would give way and I would fall in and get trapped beneath it, but he said, 'Don't worry, I've got my rope with me.' It was a kind of pole with a rope wrapped around it that he said he could use to pull us out of the water if we fell in. Looking back, it is curious that he should want to go on frozen water after what he had been through with the Titanic. Of course, at the time I thought nothing of this, as he never, ever mentioned the disaster. He was not afraid of water, and loved to swim, but he never sailed and would never go on an ocean liner." Thayer, like most survivors, never liked to talk about what happened on the Titanic and lived by all accounts quite a successful life. However in 1943, his twenty two year old son was killed in action while serving in World War II, his plane shot down into the Pacific Ocean. His mother and fellow Titanic survivor Marian died six months later. Whether it was the fact he lost two people so close to him or that his son's death in the ocean stirred up repressed feelings, we'll never know... but it was too much for Thayer for bear. The 2011 Independent article explains that "on the morning of 18 September 1945, 50-year-old Jack Thayer left his office at the University of Pennsylvania and drove through the streets of Philadelphia. At the city's trolley loop, near 48th Street and Parkside Avenue, he slowed down, pulled over, then proceeded to slash his wrists and throat." Tormented by the water perhaps but afraid not of the ice, Thayer's shocking and tragic death serves the reminder that pain can haunt someone for a lifetime.

PAGING SONJA HENIE

"In order to form a chain, the twelve persons each place their right hand on the table and their left hand on that of their neighbour, thus making a circle around the table. Observe that the medium or mediums, if there be more than one, are entirely isolated from those who form the chain." - Baron de Goldenstubbe

Lewis Spence's "Encyclopedia Of The Occult" describes a séance as "a sitting held for the purpose of communicating with the dead, an essential requirement being that at least one member of the company be possessed of mediumistic powers." From the Fox Sisters to the birth of The Spiritualist Movement to the famed séances of Madame Helena Blavatsky, I could easily write a whole blog on the history of the séance... but this is a figure skating history blog and with Hallowe'en looming, I couldn't resist sharing one of my favourite Tollerism's of all time, the story of his Sonja Henie Séance. In his 2002 book "Ice Cream", Toller Cranston told the story of how he moved the late Olympic Gold Medallist Lyudmila Pakhomova to tears: "Once, after skating in Graz, Austria, a stop on the exhibition tour, I informed the entire cast of skating luminaries that I had decided to conduct a séance in my hotel room that evening. Many skaters arrived for the event, even some who didn't speak English. [Lyudmila] and Alexander [Gorshkov] sat front-row center. I dimmed the lights and pretended to enter a somnambulistic trance. I confess that my nerves nearly failed me, because I didn't possess any psychic ability that I knew of. However, the lark somehow became high theater and ultimately terrified many of the spectators. I called upon Sonja Henie's spirit for assistance. Then, in what I passed off as Sonja Henie's voice, I expressed exactly what I thought of each person in the wrong. Ken Shelley, American champion, was so enamoured of my performance, that when I requested that Sonja give a sign of her presence, Ken released one of the most enormous farts in history. With that, the rabble cracked up. I assured everyone that Sonja was truly with us, though the channels had been temporarily blocked. An aura of serious purpose redescended on the room. Finally I addressed [Lyudmila] and asked her, in 'Sonja's' voice if she was aware of the important revolution in ice dance she had inspired. Did she understand the importance of her role in the sport's history? [Lyudmila] was one of the victims who bought my schtick. The séance ended with her running out of the room in a flood of tears of awe, followed by 'the waiter'. In those days,, my lack of credentials placed me at the bottom of the international pecking order. After the séance, however, my profile rose to such a level that I was treated with great deference until the end of the tour." Okay... so is that not the best séance story ever? This story got me thinking... and ironically, if I ever participated in a séance, Toller would probably be the skater I tried to contact. The beautiful thing is that through his books, many interviews and a treasure trove of archival material at my disposal as I sift through stories from skating history, I come across Toller's opinions of skaters constantly... and like him, lump him, take him with a grain of salt, you can't get any more entertaining. Speaking of quotes and Toller Cranston's Séance, I found just the perfect one to leave you with. A February 13, 1987 article from "The Globe And Mail" quoted him as saying, "If you allow yourself to become the victim of superstition, every single thing is a sign indicating a positive or negative result." Ever quizzical and ever mysterious... it seems the spirit world and Toller have a lot in common.

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.

The 1980 Skate Canada International Competition

There was no Cold War on ice in Calgary in late October of 1980. Skate Canada International was held in Alberta fresh on the heels of the U.S. led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, a protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Canadian Figure Skating Association invited Soviet skaters to compete at Skate Canada International and were told "thanks but no thanks". In turn, Canadians were not invited to Moscow Skate in December of that year. Despite the off-ice politics, the battle at that year's fall invitational did turn out to be every bit as heated even without the presence of the ever-dominant Soviet contingent. Let's hop back in the time machine and take an in depth look at how it all played out back in 1980!

THE MEN'S COMPETITION

Prior to the competition at The Stampede Corral, the obvious favourites on paper in the men's event were Americans David Santee and Scott Hamilton, ranked fourth and fifth in the world at the time, though twenty one year old three time Canadian Champion Brian Pockar, skating in front of a hometown crowd, was considered a not so outside shot at the title as he'd beaten Hamilton earlier that season at the St. Ivel competition in Great Britain.

Brian Pockar. Photo courtesy "Canadian Skater" magazine.

In the school figures, twenty two year old Scott Hamilton lead the way with a total of 31.8 points and 11 ordinals but was followed closely by Calgarian Brian Pockar, who earned a score of 31.36 and 11 ordinals. France's Jean-Christophe Simond, a specialist in figures, was closely behind in third place, followed by David Santee and a young Brian Orser in fourth and fifth places. The Globe And Mail on October 31, 1980 noted that "a major disappointment for Canada was the performance by Gordon Forbes of Brockville, Ont. Forbes, who was second at the 1980 Canadian Championships, was expected to take a run at one of the top five positions. However, he was 12th after the compulsories. 'Today, I just wasn't into it,' Forbes said. 'I know I didn't do my best. I just made some stupid mistakes.' There were few spectators at the Stampede Corral yesterday, but Pockar said he will get a lift from the home-town crowd when he competes in the men's short program tonight. 'It's just like a hockey team having the home-ice advantage,' he said."

In the short program, Scott Hamilton continued his dominance, nailing a gorgeous triple lutz/double loop combination, double axel and double lutz to maintain his lead. Mandatory for both men and women in the short program that season were a jump combination including a double or triple loop, an axel type jump and a double lutz, and Brian Pockar, too, skated very well in the short, performing a double lutz, triple toe/double loop and double axel in his stylish "Caravan" program to maintain his second place position. A botched combination in Brian Orser's "Fame" short program hurt any chances of him making a big move in the standings and after the figures and short program, he was in seventh place.

Scott Hamilton held on to his lead after the short program with an excellent free skate that featured six triple jumps. Silver medallist Pockar and Santee, who finished third, also both gave very strong performances. The November 3, 1980 edition of The Globe And Mail noted that "Santee and Hamilton take an athletic approach to free skating, concentrating on difficult jumps. Pockar, on the other hand, says he is working toward a 'smooth, elegant, sophisticated and classic' style. 'I want the audience to feel that, 'to see him, is to love him,' Pockar said. 'I want to reach out to the audience, to be a performer, not a skater.'" Brian Orser was the only skater to attempt and complete a triple axel in the men's free skate and despite falling on a triple salchow, he was able to move up to sixth overall. Fellow Canadians Gary Beacom and Gordon Forbes were ninth and tenth.

THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION

Predictably, Austria's Claudia Kristofics-Binder led the way after the school figures. Ranked fifth in the world, the previous season Kristofics-Binder had even outranked Olympic Silver Medallist Linda Fratianne at the World Championships in the figures. Her score of 32.08 and seven ordinals, however, was not par with her usual level of dominance in this category and much of that probably had to do with the fact that she was recovering from illness at the time. In second place  with 30.56 points and 15 ordinals was plucky thirteen year old Tracey Wainman of Willowdale, Ontario, ranked fourteenth in the world to Kristofics-Binder's fifth. This was an a HUGE improvement for the young pupil of Ellen Burka, especially considered that she ranked twenty first in the figures at the 1980 World Championships in Dortmund, West Germany. Third with 29.76 points and 21 ordinals was Yugoslavia's Sanda Dubravčić.

Wainman's strong showing in the figures only fuelled the omnipresent Canadian media. Despite suffering an injury in practice, they didn't seem to want to give the youngster a break. The Globe And Mail on November 3, 1980 noted that "beginning last Wednesday, Burka would not allow any interviews with her protege until the competition was over Saturday night. She accused the press of making the extroverted Wainman tense and nervous and causing her to lose her concentration. 'If she had talked to you, she might have ended up in fifth place,' Burka said."

In the short program, Ellen Burka's strategy of secluding Wainman from the media didn't seem effective. She fell on her first of two double axel attempts and failing to turn her second clean one into a combination didn't help her case any either. She wasn't the only one to miss their combination though. Kristofics-Binder faltered on the back half of her double flip/double loop combination as well and was barely able to hang on to her lead after fifteen year old Elaine Zayak of Paramus, New Jersey moved up from fourth to second with a winning short program that included a triple toe/double loop combination, double axel and double lutz. Her American teammates Rosalynn Sumners (who was actually second in the short program) and Sandy Lenz also turned in fine programs to overshadow the performances of the three leaders in the figures.

Building on her superb short program, Elaine Zayak killed it in the free skate, performing six triple jumps to catapult to the top of the podium with mostly 5.7's and 5.8's. Despite one fall, Tracey Wainman moved up from third after the short program to second overall. She finally spoke to the media lying in wait, saying to The Globe And Mail "I could have done better but I'm quite pleased with my marks." Nineteen year old Claudia Kristofics-Binder dropped to a disappointing third after falling on her opening double axel and doubling two triple salchow attempts. A tenth place finish in compulsories eliminated any chance of Rosalynn Sumners making up enough ground to medal. Wainman's Canadian teammates, fifteen year old Kathryn Osterberg of Calgary and eighteen year old Sandra Matiussi of Cambridge, Ontario were ninth and fifteenth.

THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION

In the absence of a pairs competition, which wouldn't be added to the Skate Canada roster until 1984, there was an immense amount of focus on the ice dancers. Canada was well represented by two Nova Scotian teams, Marie McNeil and Rob McCall and Gina Aucoin and Hans-Peter Ponikau (the silver and bronze medallists at the 1980 Canadian Championships) as well as Kelly Johnson and Kris Barber and Joanne French and John Thomas.

Lynn Copley-Graves' book "Figure Skating History: The Evolution Of Dance On Ice" recalled that "this early competition already indicated that the cha-cha OSP would be hard to interpret. Judy Blumberg and Michael Seibert used British technique to defeat the Brits, Karen Barber and Nicky Slater, in Calgary's Stampede Corral. Karen and Nicky contrasted with their futuristic program. The success of the Canadian couples bode well for the renewed development of dance in Canada." Blumberg and Seibert actually kept the same high energy free dance that they'd used to take the silver medal at the U.S. Championships the previous season, earning a standing ovation and marks ranging from 5.5 from 5.9 and winning over Barber and Slater in quite the convincing fashion. McNeil and McCall finished third, ahead of Americans Elisa Spitz and Scott Gregory, Johnson and Barber, French and Thomas and Aucoin and Ponikau. In eighth through twelfth places were France's Nathalie Nathalie Hervé and Pierre Béchu, West Germany's Birgit Goller and Peter Klisch, Japan's Noriko Sato and Tadayuki Takahashi, West Germany's Maria Kniffer and Manfred Huebler and Italy's Paola Casalotti and Sergio Cesarani. To put things in perspective in terms of upsets, Aucoin and Ponikau were the second ranked of the four Canadian ice dance teams participating but even more surprisingly, the French team in eighth place had actually bested the TOP ranked Canadian team at this event in the previous year's World Championships. How's that for a non-assisted jump in the standings?

Judy Blumberg and Michael Seibert. Photo courtesy "Canadian Skater" magazine.

Science historian James Burke once famously said "if you don't know how you got somewhere, you don't know where you are." With Skate Canada International returning to Alberta thirty five years later this weekend, new edges in skating history will be carved out on the frozen stage and it couldn't be any more exciting.

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.

Joseph Späh: Hindenburg Survivor And Ice Comedian

As a child, I remember watching Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade with my family and being absolutely fascinated by the scene where Indy and his father (played by the legendary Sean Connery) boarded a Greek bound zeppelin to escape Germany. There was something about the zeppelin that completely piqued my curiosity. It was completely fantastical and foreign to me - something I could draw absolutely no comparison of anything to. Little did I know that a good twenty years later, I would be writing about a figure skating connection to the world's most (in)famous zeppelin, the Hindenburg. It's funny how things like that work out.

For those who aren't familiar, Dean Nicholas offers an excellent primer on the Hindenburg air disaster in "The Hindenburg Disaster and the End of the Airship Era", his 2011 History Today article on the subject: "On May 6th 1937, the German airship LZ 129 Hindenburg was destroyed in a fire whilst attempting to dock at a station in New Jersey. Theories about what exactly happened differ: at the time, the accident was thought to be an act of sabotage, but it is now generally understood that a spark, possibly caused by static build-up, ignited a fire that blazed through the hydrogen-filled craft. The ensuing inferno, which took the lives of 13 passengers, 22 crew, and 1 person on the ground, was captured on cine film and memorably commented on by an emotional newsreader, Herbert Morrison: This is the worst of the worst catastrophes in the world! [...] There's smoke, and there's flames, now, and the frame is crashing to the ground [...] Oh, the humanity, and all the passengers screaming around here!" For more information beyond Dean Nicholas' article, I definitely recommend giving Stuff You Missed In History Class' 2013 podcast on the subject. I know being a smoker myself I was shocked to learn that smoking on an airship filled with seven million cubic feet of highly flammable hydrogen gas wasn't only possible but all the rage.

Highly combustible smoking rooms aside, the Hindenburg air disaster marked the end of an era of luxurious zeppelin and dirigible air travel and I was blown away (pardon the absolutely inappropriate and unintended pun) by the number of people that somehow survived this horrific accident. One of those who did manage against all odds to survive was Joseph Späh, a vaudeville comic acrobat who emigrated as a young child from Strasbourg to Douglaston, Long Island, New York. At the time of the disaster, Späh was in the portside dining salon. When trouble began, he smashed the window with his movie camera which he had been using to film the landing of the zeppelin. As the ship neared the ground, Späh lowered himself out of the window and hung onto the window ledge. When the airship was approximately twenty feet from the ground, Späh let go. He kept his feet under him and attempted to do a safety roll when he landed. He did injure his ankle but incredibly survived the fall. He was attempting to crawl to safety when a U.S. sailor slung him over his shoulder and ran him out of arm's way. Let's stop and think about this for a minute. That's simply incredible... like seriously, that's insane!

After making his way away from the fire, Späh spoke briefly to Chicago radio announcer Herb Morrison and reunited with his wife and family who had been on hand to meet the ship. His wife noticed his ankle injury and suggested that they go to the air station's infirmary to have it looked at. The Faces Of Hindenburg blog explains the grim turn of events that followed: "a doctor informed him that he had broken his ankle, then bandaged his foot for him. As they were leaving the dispensary, a nurse called for anyone who could speak German. Späh said that he could, and the nurse led him into a nearby room where a terribly burned young crew member lay in a bed. He said his name was Erich Spehl, and he wanted to send a telegram to his girlfriend back in Germany. Späh wrote down the woman's name and address, and then asked Spehl what he wanted to say to her. Spehl replied with a simple two-word message: 'Ich lebe.' (I live.) Späh told the young man that he would go and send the telegram right away. As Späh turned to leave the room, however, Erich Spehl died."

The Faces Of Hindenburg blog also discusses a shocking after the fact allegation that Späh himself was responsible for the Hindenburg disaster: "Several Hindenburg crew members, including Chief Steward Heinrich Kubis and Captain Max Pruss, were convinced that Späh had sabotaged the ship. These suspicions were raised, at least by implication, in no less than two books on the Hindenburg crash. The 'evidence' of Späh's involvement in a sabotage plot was that he was caught several times walking unaccompanied back to the aft freight room to feed his dog, Ulla (who, sadly, ended up being killed in the crash.). This was against the ship's rules and Späh got some fairly sharp words from the chief steward about it on at least one occasion. Since the cargo room in which the dog was stored was not far from the spot in the aft portion of the ship where the fire started, some took this as evidence that Späh had used his visits to his dog as cover to climb up into the interior of the ship and plant a bomb. Several of the Hindenburg's stewards also claimed to have noticed odd behaviour on Späh's part during the flight, particularly his impatience to land when the ship's mooring was delayed for several hours by thunderstorms. This impatience was, of course, understandable, as Späh had been away from his family for months, and was in all likelihood merely anxious to get home. In the end, there was no solid evidence whatsoever to support these accusations. The FBI investigated Späh fairly extensively before concluding that he had nothing to do with the Hindenburg fire. His wife Evelyn would later recall that when word of the FBI's interest in her husband as a potential saboteur first appeared in the press and she read about it in the newspaper, she went outside to tell Joseph about it. He was cleaning windows at the time, and when she told him that he was suspected of having destroyed the Hindenburg, he was so shocked and upset at the news that he almost fell off the ladder on which he'd been standing. In fact, most of the suspicion of Späh having intentionally destroyed the ship was likely psychological in nature, particularly on the part of Captain Pruss who, for the rest of his life, would insist that his last command had been sabotaged by 'the man with the dog.' If the ship wasn't destroyed by sabotage, then it of course stands to reason that it may well have been an operational failure, and it is understandable that the ship's crew wouldn't exactly be anxious to believe that the disaster had been due to a flaw in either their handling of the ship, or in its design. In other words, those who believed that Joseph Späh had sabotaged the Hindenburg seem to have done so primarily because they needed to believe it." Modern research largely dismisses the sabotage theory and instead purports that static electricity was the culprit in causing fire that ignited the highly flammable and explosive hydrogen gas aboard the zeppelin.

Now... what is Joseph Späh's connection to skating you wonder? After recovering from his broken ankle, Späh returned to his life of vaudeville entertainment under the stage name Ben Dova. His shtick involved staggering onstage in a rumbled top hat and tails, searching in his pockets for a cigarette which was in his mouth the entire time then shimmying up the pole of a gas street lamp to light his cigarette. At that point, the lamp would begin to way wildly and he would perform acrobatic tricks while holding on to the lamp. He performed his act atop New York City's Chanin building and even appeared on the silver screen acting alongside Laurence Olivier in the 1976 film Marathon Man. Following the Hindenburg disaster, Späh revised his Ben Dova act and performed it on ice. According to a March 25, 1957 article in the Long Island Star-Journal "the broken ankle he suffered turned out to be a lucky break, after all. He took up ice skating to help regain its strength, on advice of the family doctor, Dr. Joseph Mooney of Jackson Heights. Naturally, the whole family took it up with him. And today, the talents of the Spahs are almost all 'on ice'. The youngest of the brood, Evelyn, 17, will join her father's act next fall, in a sketch called The Lady And The Tramp. Richard, 21, is a hand at pro skating, as was Marilyn, 22, who met her husband on the rink and has retired to play the role of a landlubbing wife". The article may have been a little backwards - Späh's wife was named Evelyn and likewise his daughter named Evelyn - but it did give some insight as to why Joseph decided to translate his popular 'drunken vaudeville' act to the ice. Following in his father's footsteps, Richard Späh (who had been at the airfield with his mother to meet his father the day of the Hindenburg disaster) too became an ice comedian who went by the name Dick Dova and toured with Ice Follies with comedy team partner Bill Wall. Even more incredibly, Joseph Späh wasn't the only Hindenburg survivor with a skating connection. Werner Franz, one of the last Hindenburg Survivors, passed away in August 2014 at the age of ninety two. He was a member of the airship's crew that also jumped and from the zeppelin and lived to tell the tale. After taking on the role of cabin boy on the Hindenburg, he became a figure skating coach... to two time World Champion Marika Kilius. It appears in the case of the Hindenburg that having skating in blood was a lifesaver all around.

Dick Dova and Bill Wall in Ice Follies

Späh's incredible tale of survival and turn to skating as the result of an injury suffered in one of the world's most well known and horrific air disasters is simply remarkable. James Baldwin once said that "all art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up." Up until his death in 1986, Späh was constantly asked by fellow performers and strangers alike about his harrowing escape from the Hindenburg, and every time he was asked he told the whole story... and along the way, he provided a lot of laughter to the world. That's the sign of an artist.

This piece originally appeared as part of a six-part podcast series called Axels In The Attic. You can listen to Allison Manley of The Manleywoman SkateCast and Ryan Stevens of Skate Guard's audio version on Podbean or iTunes.

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.

Past Lives On The Ice: Reincarnation And Figure Skating

Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko's 1995 program to the music "Vision (O Euchari In Leta Via)" performed by Emily Van Evera, Sister Germaine Fritz, Catherine King and Richard Souther and composed by Hildegard von Bingen was aptly titled "The Psalm" and was intended to evoke the feeling of transporting you through the ages to a different life in a twelfth century cathedral. The music gives you the distinct feeling of your soul returning to a different time and place and the skating and choreography engenders the ultimate Déjà vu. Is that sense of returning to a different time through skating uncommon? Hardly.

Rahkamo and Kokko's "The Psalm"

Perhaps, just perhaps it was much bigger than that - if you have an open mind to some of the real stories shared below by real people on online message boards about past lives:

Lisa: "(My daughter) just wanted to know where her ice skates were. She was three years old when she first asked me. She grew agitated when I told her that she's never had ice skates and was very upset that it didn't snow at Christmas saying, 'how can it be Christmas if it's not snowing' and 'now I can't skate on the lake.'"  

Mimsey: "I did experience a flash from a past life when I was sixteen or seventeen. It was of ice skating from some earlier life perhaps in the 1800's in the Netherlands? Dunno exactly. But it happened to me before I was ever exposed to the concept of reincarnation or past lives. It was just a knowingness or concept or picture of having ice skated before that popped into my head, but had the particularity of containing a knowingness I had ice skated in a earlier life. Mind you, I have never skated this life nor wanted to even though being raised in snow country. It wasn't my imagination giving me the memory or impression of skating backwards with my leg raised, arms spread (that I am aware of) but, at that time, it made me aware that I had lived before. I just sort of accepted it as real that I had lived before this life and went on with being a teenager. Like realizing your mom packed an apple in with your lunch. Not astounding. Just is."

These stories shared by everyday people looking for answers on an internet message boards about reincarnation are just two of millions of past life memories shared by people around the world, and fascinatingly, more than you'd think trace back to the ice. Denise Linn's book "21 Days To Master Understanding Your Past Lives", she speaks about how many abilities and talents that come to you naturally and seemingly out of nowhere can be attributed to our aptitudes in past lives by offering a story from her very own family: "One Saturday morning my daughter, Meadow, announced that she wanted to go ice-skating. My husband, David, is usually very slow to move in the morning, so I was astounded when he immediately agreed - especially as he had never skated in his life". Linn went on to explain how though she and her daughter had skated before but not in some time were more than a little rusty, her husband who had never skated "sailed past us effortlessly with the most smooth, graceful movements. He glided around us in circles. He skated backward. He completed wondrous spins and turns. Astonishing!" Linn stated that in a past life recollection or regression her husband David had recalled a life in the Netherlands where he worked as a city official and often skated on frozen canals and ponds in the city where he lived in that life. In her book "Climbing The Spiritual Ladder", Joan Price also talks about prodigal success and relates the astonishing success of Sonja Henie at such a young age to composers like Hadyn and Mendelsohhn, who played and composed at mind blowing levels of aptitude before they even reached ten years of age... and attributes this early and easy success in life to past life talent. Price pointed out that great minds and talents - and prodigies themselves - like Goethe, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, Longfellow, Yeats and Edgar Allan Poe all believed in the plausibility of past lives.

The topic of reincarnation and figure skating has even been the subject of a 2000 made for TV movie. "Ice Angel" featured Olympic medallists Tara Lipinski, Rosalynn Sumners, Nancy Kerrigan and Peter Carruthers as well as Nicholle Tom, who played one of the daughters on the popular nineties sitcom The Nanny ("oh! Mr. Sheffield!"). The comedic film tells the story of a hockey player and figure skater who both die on the same day. The figure skater's soul passes on but the hockey player's soul is 'reborn' in the body of the skater. Although this 'immediate reincarnation' contradicts just about everything that we know about how reincarnation actually works through studies and past live regressions, the movie was comedic in nature and the reincarnation element of the plot was obviously for comedic effect and not really meant to be 'accurate'.

From the comedic to the questionable at best comes the theory of author Robert Urbanek that skating's 'bad girl' Tonya Harding was a reincarnation of Lee Harvey Oswald. His eBook "Tonya Harding Shot JFK: Dreams, Symbols & Synchronicity" purports: "Consider the evidence of reincarnation. Both Tonya Harding and Lee Harvey Oswald have the letters 'Har' in their names. Both of their victims were Irish Catholics from Massachusetts whose last names began with the letters 'Ke': John F. Kennedy and Nancy Kerrigan, and both were attacked in cities beginning with the letter 'D': Dallas and Detroit. Time magazine also saw a connection in the assaults on Kerrigan and Kennedy. Margaret Carlson wrote in the February 21, 1994 issue, 'The videocam verite of the clubbing [of Kerrigan] provides the same gritty realism that the Zapruder footage brought to Oliver Stone's JFK.' Harding and Oswald came from poor dysfunctional families and learned to use a rifle. Both were about the same age when they became infamous: Lee at 24, Tonya at 23. And they have similar facial features. Kennedy doesn't look like Kerrigan, but Kerrigan looks a bit like Jackie Kennedy. Perhaps God's joke is that JFK, the womanizer, should return in a body resembling his own wife." Although I am the first to admit that Urbanek's theories and hypotheses come off as a stretch at best; completely kooky at worst, you have to admit it's certainly QUITE the theory he has there.

That said, whatever your beliefs are on the topic of reincarnation, you have to have an open mind in life. Sects of almost every major world religion including Christianity, Islam and Judaism do refer to or believe in reincarnation and other religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Voodoo, Celtic religions, Native American religions and Gnosticism all place faith in the process. Whether you really take the time to become well read and researched on the topic by familiarizing yourself with the writings of authors like Edgar Cayce, Ruth Montgomery and Jess Stearn or simply review the stories of famous reincarnation cases like Ruth Simmons/Bridey Murphy, Imad Elawar and Parmod Sharma, there's certainly enough information and proof out there that you can't dismiss the possibility of reincarnation with a finger wave of derision. Whether or not Sonja Henie (for instance) was the reincarnation of some prodigal figure skater from many moons ago, we may never know, but who's to say the stars of today may not only be building on the talents that they learned and honed in previous lives? It's certainly something to consider with an open mind.

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.

The 1986 Skate America International Competition

Eighteen countries, sixty seven competitors... the international competition that got its start as an Olympic test event in 1979 - Norton Skate - had by 1986 already transformed itself into one of the most prestigious fall invitational amateur figure skating competitions out there. As we get ready to watch all of the action unfold in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the first stop on the ISU Grand Prix series, let's set our time machines to October 1986 and revisit an earlier edition of this event held at the Cumberland County Civic Centre in Portland, Maine and hosted by the Kennebec Skating Club of Augusta.

Record ticket sales at the time - over twenty six thousand in fact - evidenced the huge popularity of skating at the time on the Eastern seaboard. Nineteen year old Tiffany Chin of Toluca Lake, California (a last minute replacement for World Champion Debi Thomas, who withdrew) took a healthy lead in the school figures and despite winning neither the short program or free skate, coasted to victory over a young skater you might have heard of named Tonya Harding,

Agnès Gosselin of France took the bronze when Patricia Schmidt of Edmonton, Alberta dropped down from third to finish fifth overall. Another Canadian entry in the field of twelve, Pamela Giangualano of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, too dropped from seventh place to eighth overall. In the October 15, 1986 issue of the Bangor Daily News, Chin explained the challenges of competing at the event on such short notice when her long program was in fact not even complete: "We still had six seconds left on the long program when [Mr. Nicks and I] were called. Six seconds that had to be choreographed and worked out. And I thought I had three more weeks to work on stamina."

Although flawed, Ludmila Koblova and Andrey Kalitin of the Soviet Union won the pairs short program ahead of Denise Benning of Windsor, Ontario and Lyndon Johnston, of Hamiota, Manitoba. However, a brilliant free skate from Katy Keeley and Joseph Mero of Costa Mesa, California allowed the American pair to move up in the free skate and claim the gold medal ahead of the Canadians and Soviet team. Laurene Collin and John Penticost, both from Ontario, placed fourth in both phases of the competition and overall. In fifth were a young American pair with names you just might recognize: Kristi Yamaguchi and Rudy Galindo.

After finishing third at the St. Ivel competition in England (where many thought they should have won), Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay, Canadians now skating for France, made a strong statement at Skate America when (after finishing second in all three compulsory dances and the Viennese Waltz OSP) they delivered a spirited and daring free dance featuring a swing-around and an upright variation on a death spiral. Wisely, the siblings consulted with the referee in Portland regarding the legality of some of the 'tricks' in their free dance and got the nod. Their win in the free dance ahead of Americans Suzy Semanick and Scott Gregory but most importantly, the Canadian team of Jo-Anne Borlase and Scott Chalmers, gave them the gold medal in Portland and certainly made a 'your loss!' statement to the CFSA at the time. Although the audience gave them a standing ovation, the judges were (as ever) divided on the Duchesnay's at the time; their marks ranged from 5.2's and 5.3's to 5.8's and 5.9's. Another Canadian pair, Melanie Cole and Martin Smith, were eighth.

Untouchable at the top of the men's field was today's birthday boy, Brian Boitano, who confidently won the school figures and short program and landed his triple axel and triple lutz in the free skate to earn 5,8's and 5.9's and easily win ahead of Viktor Petrenko of the Soviet Union and fellow American Daniel Doran. Matthew Hall of the Minto Skating Club placed seventh in the short program in his first major international competition and moved up to sixth overall ahead of Paul Wylie with an even stronger performance in the free skate  In an interview in the October 18, 1986 issue of The Ottawa Citizen, Hall explained, "My short program went excellent ... I usually have trouble with it. In the long program, I was only a little nervous, and I put together a perfect program for me. Now that I've gotten through my long program without any flaws I can add more triple combinations into it. And I'll have to work hard on my spins as well. Artistically, I think I can improve and catch the top guys." Canadian Medallist Jaimee Eggleton of St. Bruno, Quebec dropped from twelfth after the school figures and short program to thirteenth overall.

Americans claimed the gold medals in three of four disciplines on home soil back in 1986. Will they continue to dominate in Minnesota? The history books will soon find out.

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.