The Avant Garde Trend In Ice Dancing

"Dance is everything. Movements with music - all music. Dance is free. You can't lock it up or block it. Today certain rules paralyze it... Many skaters skate, few create. They have to be taught curiosity, emotion." - Christopher Dean, "Patinage" magazine, 1990

"When Torvill and Dean moved on, word went out in skating that the far-out, avant garde routines in ice dancing were taboo and the rules would be enforced strictly." - Rob McCall, "The Toronto Star", February 25, 1988

Ask even the most casual ice dancing fan and they will tell you. Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean's "Bolero"... It changed the face of ice dance. Yet in the decade between that iconic Olympic gold medal winning free dance and their comeback at the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, the discipline really struggled to come to terms with change. Perhaps one of the most interesting phenomenons in that era was a delightful shift towards a more avant garde style of ice dancing. 

Dean choreographed Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay's iconic "Savage Rites" free dance in 1988. Audiences went berserk; judges were at a loss to know what to do with them. Their effort veered so far from the traditional ballroom and fiery Soviet styles that were in vogue at the time that it was almost like showing up with a knife at a gunfight. Several North American coaches were quite vocal with their disdain. Ron Ludington remarked, "If we tried stuff like that in the U.S. we would be told to stop it at a very early level. That's why things stay traditional in the skating in our country." Roy Bradshaw said, "They broke the rules. That wasn't ice dancing, it was theatre."  As ice dancing become more avant garde, the International Skating Union pushed back... and the skaters pushed back again.

In 1987, the ISU's Ice Dance Technical Committee made some changes. Free dance regulations dropped any mention of changes of tempo in music but made clarifications about lifts, noting that the number of turns in any lift could not exceed one and a half, skaters couldn't turn on their knees or boots or perform other movements with their blades off the ice. Leg and back carries, such as when Christopher Dean flipped Jayne Torvill at the volcano in "Bolero" were out, as was balletic music that couldn't be measured by a metronome. Lying on the ice, too, was out of the question. As the rules stood that year, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean couldn't have performed their innovative "Bolero" program at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Worse still, the judges were at odds between what they were reading in their rulebooks and the skating they were seeing on the ice.

At the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, Natalia Bestemianova and Andrei Bukin won with an Igor Bobrin program that was every bit as much in the theatrical vein as the "Savage Rites" program choreographed by Dean and skated by the Duchesnay's, but when Isabelle and Paul invited the judges and referee to explain their reasoning behind placing them a lowly eighth at a press conference, not a single one showed up. Instead, in response the following year the ISU Congress introduced the costume deduction rule, calling for mandatory 0.1 to 0.2 deductions for 'inappropriate' costumes including 'bare chests' and 'sleeveless shirts'. This rule, at least partly, seemed a direct response to the Duchesnay's program. By the time Isabelle and Paul finally won a World title in 1991, the ISU was becoming more and more concerned about the interpretive direction ice dancing was taking. In a February 14, 1992 interview with the "Ottawa Citizen", former World Champion and ISU ice dance guru Lawrence Demmy said, ''We must be open minded. Just because we don't like it, we must appreciate it. That's the point I make to the judges.''

As was the case when the Duchesnay's first burst on to the scene guns glazing, there was a continued snap reflex - largely in North America actually - from those in the skating world that did not appreciate the road ice dancing was going down. "If something's not done, this sport will go tits up," worried Roy Bradshaw. Not everyone shared his sentiments. Analyzing the trend towards the avant garde in ice dance in her book "Figure Skating History: The Evolution Of Dance On Ice", Lynn Copley-Graves offered, "Those who take risks, who are willing to go out on a limb choreographically, thematically, musically, and in costuming - to stretch the rules, tread in unknown areas, or bring elements of other disciplines such as ballet, adagio, mime, gymnastics, even the circus to the medium of ice dance - achieve success, if they remain undaunted by early rejection and persistent in their view of all that ice dance can be."

As the Duchesnay's worked their way onto podiums, other ice dance teams followed that shift in consciousness. There were whistles, bells, gunshots and garden warblers schirping. There were even alien spaceship sounds. Swiss ice dancer Jörg Kienzle composed his own music for his free dances with partner Valérie Le Tensorer. Allison MacLean and Konrad Schaub showed up at the 1990 Canadian Championships in Sudbury, Ontario with a futuristic free dance set to music from "Back To The Future", "Antarctica" and "Golden Child". They wore tattered, torn costumes and stressed the importance of communicating their abstract theme to the judges. Interviewed for an article in "The Edmonton Journal" on February 1, 1990, Schaub announced, "Ice dancing is definitely going away from tradition." Fellow Canadians Jacqueline Petr and Mark Janoschak skated to the soundtrack from "Pee-Wee Herman's Big Adventure". Frank Nowosad, writing for "Tracings" magazine noted of the Canadian team's efforts, "That the choreography was credited to Ellen Burka and Toller Cranston might be an indication of how far the free dance has departed from a ballroom vocabulary." French coach Daniele Marotel remarked, "TV stations and the public no longer care for the old-fashioned ballroom style. For the free style, let creation explode."

After the 1992 season, the ISU again amended its rules, stating that "other music such as symphonic, opera and other classical music not originally written for the dance floor must be reorchestrated" to have a rhythmic beat. The allowance for innovation, applauded in the work of the Duchesnay's and in that of Finland's Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko's parody of ice dance itself and Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow's race car program, was out of favour with the ISU.

Not everyone agreed with the ISU's sentiments. I may be a bit of a contrarian with a taste for the zany but I feel the narrative that the zany was a bad thing and that the alternative was indeed progress was more exhausted than a toddler who managed to stay awake three hours past their bedtime. Toller Cranston, in his 2002 book "Ice Cream", agreed: "After the Duchesnay's left the scene, ice dance declined dramatically. Today it has become low-level schlock. Its future is in jeopardy." I don't think Toller's assessment at the time was the least bit over the top. After all, the result of these rule changes resulted in perhaps the least memorable of any Olympic gold medal winning free dances, Oksana Grishuk and Evgeny Platov's rock and roll shtick, winning in 1994 while Rahkamo and Kokko's ingenious "La Strada" free dance kept them off the podium. In turn, the Finn's - with a rich repertoire of creative work - earned their only world medal in 1995 with a Beatles medley that was every bit as unmemorable as the Duchesnay's more conformist "West Side Story" free dance in 1992. In the case of both teams, their more theatrical pieces remain the ones people remember and revisit. Perhaps most telling was the fact that in contrast to the largely forgettable amateur free dances we saw in the years that preceded the rule changes, some of the finest ice dancing the world has ever seen emerged in the professional competitions during the era that followed that rule change.

Those who took issue with the work of the Duchesnay's have historically taken great pleasure in criticizing their two footed skating and the fact that Paul was a stronger skater than Isabelle.
However, looking at the bigger picture of the inspiration that they and Torvill and Dean gave other teams to push the envelope and stretch the possibilities that ice dancing could allow, their role in the sport's development is one to be applauded. Ultimately, in the most ironic of plot twists, it was the Duchesnay's that largely put the very shift they had started to bed when they showed up at the Albertville Olympics in 1992 with a conservative free dance to - of all things - "West Side Story". If you look at how ice dancing has evolved in the years since then, we have continued to see plenty of avant garde performances and interestingly, not since that decade between "Bolero" and "Let's The Face The Music And Dance" has their ever been so much controversy about teams pushing the envelope. Someone always has to get in the pool first before everyone else is willing to get themselves a little wet. I don't know about you, but I say more avant garde performances are still what ice dancing needs. Symbolism is underrated.

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 1952 Canadian Figure Skating Championships

Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine

Who's ready to hop in the time machine? Don't all get up at once! Today we're going to take a brief look back at the 1952 Canadian Figure Skating Championships, held January 17 to 19, 1952 in Oshawa, Ontario. With berths on the line for the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway, the competition was not only fierce but controversial as well... but I'll save that part for last. Let's start by taking a quick look at that year's junior competitions!

THE JUNIOR EVENTS

Barbara Jean Jacques

Fourteen year old Charles Snelling of the Granite Club in Toronto took home top honours in the junior men's event, fending off eight other challengers. Nineteen year old Rosemary Henderson of Winnipeg narrowly defeated fifteen year old Ann Johnston of Toronto to take the junior women's title. The top three women had one first place ordinal apiece - the only skater with two was fourth place finisher Barbara Jean Jacques! In the junior pairs event, Vancouver's Patricia Spray and Norm Walker (who also competed in junior singles but placed poorly) rallied to take the win over Toronto siblings Arden Mae and Clifford Spearing.

THE PAIRS AND DANCE COMPETITIONS

Top: Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden. Bottom: Audrey Downie and Brian Power.

Winning by a landslide in the senior pairs event, Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden of the Toronto Skating Club dazzled. Their only other competitors that year were Audrey Downie and Brian Power of the Connaught Skating Club in Vancouver. Lynn Copley-Graves' book "Figure Skating History: The Evolution Of Dance On Ice" recounts that the senior "ice dancers were overshadowed by the singles and pairs on their way to the Oslo Olympics. Four couples remained after the eliminations of the three events, i.e. Silver Dance, Waltz, and Tenstep. Frannie Dafoe and Norrie Bowden's successes in all three dance finals and Senior Pairs fave them a total of four Canadian titles in one year." Joyce Komacher and William A. de Nance, Jr. of Toronto and Pierrette Paquin and Malcolm Wickson of Vancouver placed second and third in all three of the dance events. Of the entire pairs and dance flock, Dafoe and Bowden were the only ones assigned to either the Olympic or World team that year.

THE MEN'S COMPETITION

High school student and defending senior men's champion Peter Firstbrook of Toronto fended off twenty three year old, three time Canadian Medallist Bill Evan Lewis of Vancouver and nineteen year old training mate Peter Dunfield to repeat as the winner. The January 21, 1952 edition of the "Ottawa Citizen" noted that "Firstbrook, 18, a handsome six-footer, piled up a decisive 36.3 lead in the school figures and took an easy victory over two other competitors... Firstbrook, who fell after stepping onto the ice without removing one of his blade protectors, retained his crown hands down." Like Dafoe and Bowden in the pairs, Firstbrook would be the sole men's entry to the Olympics in Oslo and the World Championships in Paris.

THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION

Clipping from the January 24, 1952 issue of the "Orono Weekly Times"

Now here's where it get's juicy. After winning Olympic and World medals in 1948 with pairs partner Wally Distelmeyer, Suzanne Morrow had continued on as a singles skater, winning the Canadian senior ladies title from 1949 to 1951. The twenty one year old skater, based on experience (and fourth place finishes at the last two World Championships) was in effect given 'a bye' to the Olympic team and was overseas training in Germany when the Oshawa competition was going on. That left one ladies spot for the Oslo Olympics and ten women eager to snatch it up. In the school figures, nineteen year old Vera Virginia 'Vevi' Smith of the Toronto Skating Club rockered and countered her way to a 7.2 lead over Marlene Smith (no relation!) of the Winter Club of St. Catharine's. Both had previously been senior medallists and junior champions, both had the same last name and both were hungry for the win. In the free skate, Marlene Smith (according to the "Ottawa Citizen") "skimmed to an easy victory as she executed the different leaps and spins of her free-style skating with ease and grace. Dressed in a brief costume of cerise shiffon, her long blonde hair fluttered in the breeze as she skimmed the ice to the accompaniment of Kreisler's 'Liebesfreud'."

Marlene Smith. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

Marlene won the title ahead of Vevi and sixteen year old Elizabeth Gratton of Toronto, who moved up from seventh after the figures to take the bronze. Elizabeth's younger sister Barbara and Maureen Senior placed fourth and fifth. While Marlene celebrated her presumed Olympic ticket, the CFSA was preparing to drop a bombshell. The "Ottawa Citizen" reported that "the Canadian Figure Skating Association executive, in naming the Olympic team, explained that Vevi Smith had been selected even though she hadn't won a championship, because she had racked up a higher score in school figures than any other senior man or woman contender." Things got a little crazy for a while before the CFSA saved face by announcing that both Smith's would ultimately join Suzanne Morrow at the Olympics and Worlds that year. Ironically, it was Marlene that soundly defeated Vevi at both international events.

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.

Bruce Allan Mapes, Skating's Unknown Inventor

 

The son of Edith (Tuthill) and Lester Dunbar Mapes, Bruce Allan Mapes Sr. was born August 16, 1901 in New York City. He grew up in Brooklyn and caught the skating bug when he saw Charlotte perform when he was eleven. He learned the scales of skating - the school figures - at the Brooklyn Ice Palace yet derived far more interest in jumping, spinning and other free skating elements.

Bruce retired from competitive skating after winning the Middle Atlantic dance competition in 1924 and worked as an architect before embarking on a barnstorming professional career with his wife Evelyn Chandler. Christie Sausa's book "Lake Placid Figure Skating: A History" explained, "Evelyn Chandler and Bruce Mapes were big stars in the early 1930s, considered the best professional team in the world at the time." The duo performed in everything from club carnivals to circuses. The popular team also toured with Ice Follies for eight years and performed in Chicago's Century of Progress International Exposition in 1933 and 1934.

Bruce Mapes and Evelyn Chandler. Photo courtesy the Minnesota Historical Society. Used with permission.

After the couple's performing career slowed down, they were both hired by the Hershey Skating Club in Pennsylvania. The Mapes' were the club's very first professional coaches and were responsible for not only training young skaters but developing the club's lavish carnival. They continued to perform elsewhere while coaching. Bruce C. Cooper's historical retrospective on hockey and in turn, skating in Hershey noted: "Evelyn Chandler, who electrified the spectators last week at the First Annual Winter Sports Show and International Ski Meet in New York's Madison Square Garden, will skate between periods, giving a series of ice acrobatics with her partner, Bruce Mapes, one of the world's best known professionals. Miss Chandler and Mr. Mapes will also give their ice exhibition on Wednesday night, December 23, when the Hershey Sports Arena stages its second hockey game, between the Hershey Bears and the Atlantic City Sea Gulls."

Evelyn Chandler performing for the troops in 1938

The on and off ice couple had three children, Chandler, Bruce Jr. and Susan, and both of their sons also became professional skaters. Bruce Mapes Jr. toured alongside two time World Medallist Daphne Walker, Betty Jane Ricker, Bill Keefe and Florine Couls, Bobby Temple and Phyllis Kirby in the fifties ice show Ice Vanities.

Left: Evelyn Chandler and Bruce Mapes on roller skates. Photo courtesy "Skating Review" magazine. Right: Evelyn Chandler and Bruce Mapes in military-inspired costumes. Photo courtesy "World Ice Skating Guide".

Bruce has historically been credited with inventing the toe-loop. and by some, the flip. Whereas John Misha Petkevich's 1988 book "Figure Skating: Championship Techniques" gives full credit to Mapes for the toe-loop, the origins of the flip are a little more murky. Gustave Lussi claimed to have invented the jump with Bud Wilson in Canada. He stated that when Evelyn came up to Canada to perform, she saw the jump performed and took it down to the States where the couple performed it and it became known as a Mapes. Interestingly, in roller skating today a toe-loop jump - not a flip - is known as a Mapes.  

Evelyn Chandler and Bruce Mapes. Photos courtesy Hennepin County Library, "Skating" magazine.

Later in life, Bruce worked as a lighting director for NBC in New York and became a grandfather of two. After dedicating so much of his life to skating as an amateur and professional athlete and later, a coach, he passed away in Red Bank, New Jersey at age fifty nine on February 18, 1961 - three days after the Sabena Crash - leaving behind ties to the invention of two of skating's favourite toe jumps.

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 1936 Winter Olympic Games

In February 1936, the Bavarian resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen played host to perhaps the most controversial Winter Olympic Games in history... and yes, I'm including Salt Lake City in 2002, honey. From judging controversies to Sonja Henie schmoozing with Adolf Hitler himself, the stories from the figure skating competitions in 1936 are almost legendary, yet so many of them have been glossed over or largely forgotten. Today on Skate Guard, we're going to dust off some of these these tales and have hopefully gain a greater understanding as to the larger picture of what really went down as Nazi Germany played host to the world's best figure skaters.

THE 1936 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS

Karl Schäfer

In order to gain some perspective as the backdrop of the skating events at the 1936 Winter Olympics, it's probably helpful to start by taking a look at the 1936 European Championships, held a month prior at the Berlin Sportpalast. Nazi officials were rinkside in Berlin too; Reich Minister Of Propaganda And 'Public Enlightment' Paul Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Wilhelm Göring, Hans von Tschammer und Osten and others were all in attendance to see a twenty four year old Sonja Henie claim her sixth consecutive European title. While in Berlin, Henie announced her intention to turn professional after the Olympic Games, telling reporters from The Associated Press on January 25, 1936, "I will defend all my titles for the last time this year then withdraw from active sport to do only fancy skating for my numerous friends in the world. Preparations for competitions take too much time." Perhaps influencing Henie's decision was the challenge she faced from fifteen year old Cecilia Colledge, who made history at the event as the first woman to land a double jump (a Salchow) in international competition. Colledge's teammate, Megan Taylor, finished third with 413.9 points, but having missed that season's British Olympic Trials, she was not named to the British Olympic team. This placed Britain's hopes to unseat Henie squarely on Colledge's shoulders. Germans Maxi Herber and Ernst Baier were victorious in the pairs event in their home country, but perhaps the biggest story from those 1936 European Championships revolved around the men's champion, Karl Schäfer. According to "The Ottawa Citizen", a concern about Schäfer's amateur status (which of course would have been a huge deal at the time) had been raised in Berlin: "There has been concern in some quarters over the status of Karl Schafer, Austria's great figure skater, world and Olympic champion. Although he is registered here as an amateur, word came yesterday that the American Skating Union was investigating the conditions in which Schafer's name was used in an advertisement in a sporting goods publication." Nothing ultimately came of this accusation, and off to the Olympics Karl Schäfer went to defend his title.

Maxi Herber and Ernst Baier giving the Nazi salute

SETTING THE STAGE

The figure skating competitions in Garmisch-Partenkirchen were held at the Olympia-Kunsteistadion, a 100 X 200 rink with a 30 X 60 area sectioned off and developed for the men's, ladies and pairs event. The capacity was ten thousand and seating consisted of wooden bleachers which surrounded the ice surface. For the first time in history, Hollywood scouts were in attendance looking for professional skating talent and it was at these Games that Sonja Henie, Jack Dunn, Věra Hrubá Ralston and countless others were identified for potential recruitment. Two other notable firsts about the 1936 Games were the fact that they were the first Olympics where an open marking system was employed and the first time both men and women skated the same six school figures, which were decided upon by the host federation.

Karl Schäfer and Ernst Baier

The British figure skating team competed in a cloud of sadness over the death of King George V, who passed away on February 6, 1936, and skated the entire competition wearing black arm-bands to express their mourning.

However, as I hinted at before when mentioning the Nazi presence at the European Championships in Berlin, the political undercurrent of the Games was unmistakable from the beginning. Prolific British skating author and judge T.D. Richardson wrote, "My wife in her capacity of non-playing captain of the team went down to Garmisch-Partenkirchen from St. Moritz about ten days before the games started and there she found organisation and bureaucracy run mad. The complete dossiers of all the competitors and officials had to be in quadruplicate and sometimes more than that, with the most absurd, intimate details. To give an example of the foolish inflexibility of the authorities and the length to which the regimented German mind of that time would go, the
following will suffice. She wanted passes for the parents or persons accompanying the skaters many of whom were very young to enter the stadium, the dressing-rooms, restaurant and so on reserved for competitors and officials, during the practice time, which sometimes meant attendance there from 6.30 a.m. to late at night. Do you think this simple request could be granted? No! It was met with a blank refusal. They were told they must have tickets. But there were no tickets left. All tickets were now unobtainable. It was in vain to say that the only thing the parents wanted was to be with their children and keep an eye on them. It was only after days of argument and after I arrived, by both of us banging the table harder and shouting louder than Ritter von Halt, the organiser, a typical arrogant Nazi, and by threatening to take the whole team back to London, which in point of fact could not have been done, for wild horses could not have stopped the competitors skating, that at last my wife got six cards with 'Please admit to all parts of the stadium at all times', and then peace reigned. I think von Ribbentrop, whom I knew very well, and to whom I complained, had something to say behind the scenes, where Ritter von Halt and a rather sinister individual with a French name, a Baron le Fort, were really enjoying their temporary taste of power."

THE PAIRS COMPETITION

Maxi Herber and Ernst Baier

The first gold medal to be awarded in 1936 went to the pairs, who contested their free skate on February 13, 1936. With Hitler in the audience, a whopping eighteen pairs representing twelve countries sought the title, the only withdrawal being the Swiss pair of Ruth Hauser and Edwin Keller. It was moderately cold and the sky was described as being a "deep sky blue" as judges settled in for a four and a half hour competition.

Emilia Rotter and László Szollás

The favourites were Hungarians Emilia Rotter and László Szollás, both Jewish, who had won the three World titles preceding the 1936 Games. Considering the politics of the time, it's probably no surprise they were able to finish no higher than third. The gold medal went to Maxi Herber and Ernst Baier, the Germans. Much of their program was shadow skating and the judges seemed to appreciate their speed and rhythm. 

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Ilse and Erik Pausin

However, as we discussed in "A Pause For The Pausin's", the crowd favourites were the young Austrian pair of Ilse and Erik Pausin, who skated with youthful exuberance in their performance set to Strauss' "Tales From The Vienna Woods". Ultimately, seven of the nine judges had Herber and Baier first, the Austrians giving the Pausin's the nod and the Hungarians voting for Rotter and Szollás. A second Hungarian duo, Piroska and Attila Szekrényessy, finished fourth, followed by Americans Maribel Vinson and Geddy Hill.

Maribel Vinson and Geddy Hill

Judith A. Steeh's 1971 book "Olympiad 1936: Blaze of Glory for Hitler's Reich" recalled Vinson and Hill's program thusly: "Although the last part of their program was executed faultlessly, their opening - which consisted of difficult Lutz jumps - did not go as well as planned." Scores for Canadians Louise Bertram and Stewart Reburn were all over the place. The Swedish and Norwegian judges had them third and fourth while German and Austrian judges had them in thirteenth and fourteenth. They finished sixth.

THE MEN'S COMPETITION

One notable name missing from the men's roster at the 1936 Winter Olympics was Belgium's Robert van Zeebroeck, the 1928 Olympic Bronze Medallist. He had planned to stage a comeback and did register to compete, but did not ultimately attend. Because of heavy snowfall on February 9 and 10, 1936, the ice had to be constantly cleared to allow judges the chance to scrutinize the men's figures better. The weather was so terrible that Canadian judge John Machado contracted pneumonia after being out in the snow and freezing cold for the seventeen hours it took to judge the event and ended up having to be replaced mid-competition by a German judge, Fritz Schober. Reigning Olympic Gold Medallist Karl Schäfer took a commanding lead from the start over his closest rival from the European Championships, Henry Graham Sharp.

Karl Schäfer

He was able to maintain it in the free skate as Sharp struggled and Germany's Ernst Baier moved up from third to second to win his second medal of the 1936 Games. Felix Kaspar of Austria leaped from fifth to claim the bronze with his spectacularly high jumps. Canada's Bud Wilson settled for fourth. The February 15, 1936 issue of "The Montreal Gazette" noted that "in precision, Wilson left little to be desired, but he did not execute his program with the same dash shown by some of the other contestants. The hard ice surface on which the competition was run off caused many of the contestants to tumble. Wilson escaped such an accident, as did [Schäfer]."

Felix Kaspar and Bud Wilson

Fifteen year old Freddie Tomlins, the youngest man on Great Britain's Olympic team, placed tenth. Howard Bass recalled that "Freddie told Graham [Sharp] that he intended to get 'old Schickelgruber's autograph' and proceeded by devious means to bore his way right through Hitler's S.S. bodyguard, reputed to be impassible, and went straight up to the surprised dictator and handed him a pencil! He got the autograph, but what the S.S. guards got afterwards was, I gather, less rewarding." Freddie's teammate Belita Jepson-Turner later recalled, "I don't know what he said to one of the soldiers but they threw him out in his skates and his tights and his little badge and number and everything - threw him right out into the snow - and left him out there for about two hours, locking the door of the arena." Later, the manager of the Japanese Olympic team was so impressed by Tomlins' efforts on the ice that he showered him with gifts, praises and an invitation to come perform in Japan.

Geoff Yates, Henry Graham Sharp and Freddie Tomlins. Photo courtesy Elaine Hooper, the National Skating Association Archives.

The weather played a large factor in the results of the 'hothouse' American skaters: Judith A. Steeh recalled,"The Americans in the contest were badly bothered by the weather which was cold and windy, with a real blizzard on the second day, as well as by the fact that they were not used to performing on an outdoor rink; the best performances came from 17-year-old Robin Lee of St. Paul and Erle Reiter of Minneapolis who finished twelfth and thirteenth." There was some serious national basis going on in the case of the Hungarian judge, László von Orbán, who placed his country's skaters Elemér Terták and Dénes Pataky second and third, while none of the other judges had them higher than seventh or eighth. Perhaps less known, the skater who finished in twenty fifth and last place - receiving last place ordinals from every judge in both figures and free skating - was the oldest participant in the 1936 Winter Olympic Games and the oldest Olympian from Latvia in history. Forty six year old Verners Auls was the founder of the Rigas Ledus kluba in Riga.

THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION

The infamous 'Sonja and Hitler' photograph which was circulated widely in American newspapers during the 1936 Winter Olympic Games

Now, if you want to talk controversy... the stories surrounding Sonja Henie's third Olympic gold medal win in 1936 were nothing short of unbelievable. Before the Olympics had even started, the Henie's had visited with Hitler in Germany. During a 1936 show in Berlin, she gave him the Nazi salute and said "Heil, Hitler".

Richard D. Mandell's 1971 book "The Nazi Olympics" aptly noted, "The two durable heroes of the German Winter Olympiad were Sonja Henie and Adolf Hitler. Only the undisputed empress of winter and the increasingly secure master of the Third Reich possessed the magic required to fascinate the masses at Garmisch and had the ranks of 'stars' in the world at large. The two were demonstratively together a great deal. They fed on each other's staged smiling ('Was it his corsage?') - she in clinging white; the Fuehrer slicked hair and wrapped in massive black leather overcoat." Henie's competitors were acutely aware of the political game being played. Vivi-Anne Hultén recalled, "Everybody said she became his girlfriend." Henie was so popular with the German public that police even had to play crowd control as people without tickets fought to get into the arena to watch her skate.

Women's competitors in Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Etsuko Inada

There were other stories though! Twelve year old Etsuko Inada of Japan, the youngest and smallest competitor among the women, became an unlikely crowd favourite. Canada's sole entry, Constance Wilson of Toronto collapsed in practice and was taken to the hospital suffering from bronchitis and had to withdraw. However, predictably the attention all seemed to swirl around Sonja Henie. Quoted from "Gay Blades: Part II" in Mary Louise Adams' book "Artistic Impressions: Figure Skating, Masculinity, and the Limits of Sport", Maribel Vinson wrote of how the drama surrounding Henie unfurled during the two days of ladies school figures. She recalled that during the right back bracket change bracket, "[Sonja] had almost no speed for the second half of the figure, she came up to the second bracket right on the flat of her skate instead of on an edge, a major fault, and after the turn she had to wiggle and hitch her skating foot to keep going, and then she pushed off for the next circle a good four feet before she reached her center, another very major fault... and when she had turned her twelfth and last bracket, she was at a dead standstill. So making no pretence of trying to finish out her circle, she just put both feet down, smiled a gay camouflage smile, and walked off the ice. We gasped to see the world champion do such a thing. The figure as it stood, deserved no more than Vivi's 3.8 average, if as high as that, AND YET when the judges put down their cards, not one, not even Mr. Rotch, who indeed does know correct figures, had given her less than 5! We competitors and those on the sidelines who knew laughed in derision with a 'what can you expect'  tone - I looked at Mr. Rotch with the question 'How could you do such a thing?' in my eyes, and he just shrugged." Despite this display, Henie lead Cecilia Colledge by 3.6 points... a margin too close for her comfort. Steven J. Overman and Kelly Boyer Sagert's book "Icons Of Women's Sport, Volume 1" reported that "this unnerved Henie, who had beaten Colledge in the previous world championships on the strength of her compulsory figures; upset because of the closeness of the competition, Henie yanked down Colledge's score from the board and tore it to pieces." There have long been debates as to whether or not Sonja Henie actually ripped down the score sheet and destroyed it or just caused a scene in the dressing room but whatever the reality, she wasn't a happy camper.

Left: Sonja Henie; Right: Cecilia Colledge

I don't think anyone would have had the happiest time in the dressing room in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Between Belita Jepson-Turner's infamous stage mother Queenie, a murder of angry Henie's and a sea of Nazi officials, it can't have been a very pleasant atmosphere. In the November 13, 1949 issue of the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette", Věra Hrubá Ralston recalled: "I remember the day so well. I was in my dressing room and my roommate was there fixing her stocking. Two Storm Troopers knocked on my door. They said, 'Herr Hitler would like to see you.' I was a little scared. Because when the Czechs had marched by his box, they wouldn't give the Nazi salute. I just bowed. Once a Czech, always a Czech. I felt, I don't know - just blank, doing what I was told. Hitler's eyes were very starey. Like he wanted to hypnotize you. When he shook hands, it hurt my hand. He was very abrupt. Very military. Goering and Goebbels were in the box too. Hitler said, 'How do you do? How do you like Germany?' He said it was a beautiful job I had a done. Then he said 'I think a fine girl like you should skate under the German flag. I said 'No, thank you, Herr Fuehrer, I am very under mine. I couldn't tell them that you'd rather die than skate under Hitler. Hitler said 'Well as long as you're happy'. He posed for a picture shaking hands with me. Then he said 'Good to see you... goodbye.' Very abrupt and very military again. I went back to the dressing room and all the girls came running up asking what happened. It got out that I wouldn't skate for Hitler. I lost the competition to Sonja." Hrubá Ralston claimed that she was given a cup inscribed with Hitler's name by the Nazis and years later, when her father was imprisoned in Prague for his political beliefs under Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazis found that very cup when they ransacked the family home. Was it  literally his get out jail free card? Here's the thing... considering that she, in another interview, claimed "I looked [Hitler] right in the eye, and said that I'd rather skate on the swastika. The Führer was furious", I personally have suspicions as to the veracity of her storytelling. Both make for great stories though.

High drama was again the name of the game on February 15, 1936 as the women took to the ice for their free skating performances. Cecilia Colledge, skating second of twenty three competitors, came out and gave the Nazi salute. The German audience loved it. Her music started and then stopped due to 'technical problems' and she was allowed to start again. Despite a near stumble early in her program, she recovered to give what was by all accounts a brilliant performance. Later, when Henie came onto the ice, the crowd was oddly silent. However, after she gave a near-perfect performance, the audience went wild with applause. It was pretty clear how this was all going to go... and the judges concurred.

Women's medallists

Henie won Olympic gold for a third time, with Colledge second, Hultén third, Liselotte Landbeck fourth and Maribel Vinson fifth. In a 1999 "Newsweek" article, Colledge recalled, "On the podium after the Olympics, there were no kisses, no handshakes, not even a word." Hitler presented Henie with a giant autographed photo of himself along with her Olympic gold medal. As the legend goes, that same picture, placed atop a piano in Henie's Oslo home by a fast-thinking caretaker, spared her a lot of trouble during World War II. The controversial 1990 book "Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows: The Unsuspected Life of Sonja Henie", penned by Raymond Strait and Henie's brother Leif, claimed that after receiving the photo and medal from Hitler, the Henie family sat down for lunch with the devil himself. Pretty disgusting stuff if you ask me. Was it all political? Dick Button doesn't think so. In a February 11, 2014 "Vanity Fair" article, he commented, "I don't think Sonja Henie was a political person in any way, shape, or form. She was an opportunist... I don't think she could have cared less who Hitler was, except for whatever power he had and what it would do for her career." Whatever the case may be, their unquestionable connection was the story of the 1936 Games; one that cast a dark cloud over the entire figure skating competition.

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.

Patinage Poetry: The Language Of The Ice (Part Quatre)

How doth I love skating? Let me count the ways... Just prior to the Sochi Olympics, I put together the blog's first collection of poetry about skating called "Patinage Poetry: The Language Of The Ice". The topic of skating poetry has recurred often on the blog, in "Georg Heym: The Skating Prophet" and "Canada's Valentine" and the second and third editions of "Patinage Poetry". Guess what? I just can't get enough! The fourth installment in this series is chock full of wonderful gems from Williams Haynes and Joseph LeRoy Harrison's 1919 collection "Winter Sports Verse". Put on your beret and get ready to snap afterwards for another fabulous collection of historical skating poetry:

PRELUDE FROM "THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL" BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak,
From the snow five thousand summers old;
On open world and hill-top bleak
It had gathered all the cold,
And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek;
It carried a shiver everywhere
From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare;
The little brook heard it and built a roof
'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof;
All night by the white stars' frosty gleams
He groined his arches and matched his beams;
Slender and clear were his crystal spars
As the lashes of light that trim the stars:
He sculptured every summer delight
In his halls and chambers out of sight;
Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt
Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt,
Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees
Bending to counterfeit a breeze;
Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew
But silvery mosses that downward grew;
Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief
With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf;
Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear
For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here
He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops
And hung them thickly with diamond drops,
Which crystal led the beams of moon and sun,
And made a star of every one:
No mortal builder's most rare device
Could match this winter-palace of ice.

"THE SKAITER'S MARCH" (COMPOSED FOR SKATERS AT THE EDINBURGH SKATING CLUB BY CHARLES DIBDIN)

This snell and frosty morning,
With rhind the trees adorning.
Tho' Phoebus be below?
Through the sparkling snow,
A skating we go,
With a fal, lal, lal, lal, lal, lal,
To the sound of the merry, merry horn.

From the right to left we're plying,
Swifter than winds we're flying,
Spheres with spheres surrounding,
Health and strength abounding,
In circles we sweep,
With a fal, lal, lal, lal, lal, lal,
To the sound of the merry, merry horn.

Our poise we still keep,
Behold how we sweep,
The face of the deep,
With a fal, lal, lal, lal, lal, lal,
To the sound of the merry, merry horn.

Great Jove looks down with wonder,
To view his sons of thunder,
Tho' the water he seal,
We rove on our heel,
Our weapons are steel,
And no danger we feel,
With a fal, lal, lal, lal, lal, lal,
To the sound of the merry, merry horn.

See the Club advances,
See how they join the dances,
Horns and trumpets sounding,
Rocks and hills resounding,
Let Tritons now blow,
For Neptune below,
His beard dares not shew,
Or call us his foe,
With a fal, lal, lal, lal, lal, lal,
To the sound of the merry, merry horn.

"THE HOODOO" BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

Owned a pair o' skates once
Traded fer 'em,
Stropped 'em on and waded
Up and down the crick, a-waitin'
Tel she'd freeze up fit fer skatin'.
Mildest winter I remember--
More like Spring- than Winter-weather!--
Didn't frost tel 'bout December-
Git up airly ketch a' feather
Of it, maybe, 'crost the winder--
Sunshine swings it like a cinder!

Well - I waited - and kep' waitin'!
Couldn't see my money's w'oth in
Them-air skates and was no skatin',
Ner no hint o' ice ner nothin'!
So, one day - along in airly
Spring - I swopped 'em off 0 and barely
Closed the dicker, 'fore the weather
Natchurly jes' slipped the ratchet,
And crick-tail-race - all together,
Froze so tight cat couldn't scratch it!

"SKATER AND WOLVES" BY GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE

Swifter the flight! Far, far and high
The wild air shrieks its savage cry,
And all the earth is ghostly pale,
While the young skater, strong and hale,
Skims fearlessly the forest by.
Hush! shrieking blast, but wail and sigh!
Well sped, O skater, fly thee, fly!
Mild moon, let not thy glory fail!
Swifter the flight!

O, hush thee, storm! thou canst not vie
With that low summons, hoarse and dry.
He hears, and oh! his spirits quail, -
He laughs and sobs within the gale,
On, anywhere! He must not die, -
Swifter the flight!

"OF SKATING" BY COULSON KERNAHAN

She's just at my back, and
She sees me, I'm certain.
I'll show I'm a crack hand;
She's just at my back, and -
But something goes crack, and
I'd best just draw the curtain;
She's just at my back, and
She sees me, I'm certain.

"SKATING" BY JAMES GATES PERCIVAL

We speed o'er the star-lighted mirror along,
And the wood and the mountain re-echo our song.
As on, like the wing of the eagle, we sweep,
Now gliding, now wheeling, we ring o'er the deep.
The winds whistle keenly, - the red cheek is warm,
And there 's none who would yield not his breast to the storm.

The stars are above us, so full and so bright,
And the mirror below us is gemmed with their light.
Like the far-wheeling hawk, in the mid-air we fly;
A sky is above us, - below us a sky.
As onward we glide in our race, we keep time;
And clear as the morning bell echoes our chime.

By pine-covered rock, and by willow-bound shore,
Breast even with breast, like a torrent we pour.
Short, quick are our strokes, as we haste to the mark,
And shrill is our cry, as the trill of the lark.
The goal is now reached, and we bend us away,
Wide wheeling, or curving in fanciful play.

How fondly I loved, when my life-blood was young, -
When buoyant my heart, and my limbs newly strung, -
When the friends of my childhood were round me and near, -
O'er the dark lake to sweep in our sounding career;
And high beat my soul, with enthusiast glow,
As a clear-ringing music was pealing below.

We heeded no danger, - we carelessly flew
O'er a deep, that in darkness was lost to our view;
And onward we rushed, in the heat of our strife,
As, o'er danger and ruin, we hurry through life.
So we sped in our flight, as on pinions along,
And the wood and the mountain re-echoed our song.

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.

A Skating Treatise From A Fallen Civil War Soldier

Theodore Winthrop... Why does that name sound vaguely familiar?  I'll give you the abridged version. Winthrop was a descendent of both Governor John Winthrop (one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second settlement in New England) and Puritan philosopher and theologian Jonathan Edwards. He was a Yale graduate, world traveller and aspiring author. Sadly, in life much of his writings were largely ignored. It was only in death, as one of the very first - and I mean very first - Union soldiers to be killed during the American Civil War, that his writing was published and widely acclaimed.

In his anthology "Life In The Open Air And Other Stories" which was published posthumously two years after his death, Winthrop wrote a passionate treatise about the art of skating:

THE FINE ART OF SKATING

"The world loves to see Great Artists, and expects them to do their duty.

It is hard to treat of this Fine Art by the Art of Fine Writing. Its eloquent motions must be seen.

To skate Fine Art, you must have a Body and a Soul, each of the First Order; otherwise you will never get out of coarse art and skating in one syllable. So much for yourself, the motive power. And your machinery, your smooth-bottomed rockers, the same shape stem and stern, this must be as perfect as the man it moves, and who moves it.

Now suppose you wish to skate so that the critics will say, "See this athlete does his work as Church paints, as Barley draws, as Palmer chisels, as Whittier strikes the lyre, and Longfellow the dulcimer; he is as terse as Emerson, as clever as Holmes, as graceful as Curtis; he is as calm as Seward, as keen as Phillips, as stalwart as Beecher; he is Garibaldi, he is Kit Carson, he is Blondin; he is as complete as the steamboat Metropolis, as Steers's yacht, as Singer's sewing-machine, as Colt's revolver, as the steam-plough, as Civilization." You wish to be so ranked among the people and things that lead the age; consider the qualities you must have, and while you consider, keep your eye on Eichard Wade, for he has them all in perfection.

First, of your physical qualities. You must have lungs, not bellows; and an active heart, not an assortment of sluggish auricles and ventricles. You must have legs, not shanks. Their shape is
unimportant, except that they must not interfere at the knee. You must have muscles, not flabbiness;
sinews like wire; nerves like sunbeams; and a thin layer of flesh to cushion the gable-ends, where you will strike, if you tumble, which, once for all be it said, you must never do. You must be all momentum, and no inertia. You must be one part grace, one force, one agility, and the rest caoutchouc, Manilla hemp, and watch-spring. Your machine, your body, must be thoroughly obedient. It must go just so far and no farther. You have got to be as unerring as a planet holding its own, emphatically, between forces centripetal and centrifugal. Your aplomb must be as absolute as the pounce of a falcon.

So much for a few of the physical qualities necessary to be a Great Artist in Skating. See [Benjamin] Wade, how he shows them!

Now for the moral and intellectual. Pluck is the first - it always is the first quality. Then enthusiasm. Then patience. Then pertinacity. Then a fine aesthetic faculty, in short, good taste. Then an orderly and submissive mind, that can consent to act in accordance with the laws of Art. Circumstances, too, must have been reasonably favourable. That well-known sceptic, the King of tropical Bantam, could not skate, because he had never seen ice and doubted even the existence of solid water. Widdrington, after the Battle of Chevy Chase, could not have skated, because he had no legs, poor fellow. But granted the ice and the legs, then if you begin in the elastic days of youth, when cold does not sting, tumbles do not bruise, and duckings do not wet; if you have pluck and ardour enough to try everything; if you work slowly ahead and stick to it; if you have good taste and a lively invention; if you are a man, and not a lubber; then, in time, you may become a great Skater, just as with equal power and equal pains you may put your grip on any kind of Greatness.

The technology of skating is imperfect. Few of the great feats, the Big Things, have admitted names. If I attempted to catalogue Wade's achievements, this chapter might become an unintelligible rhapsody. A sheet of paper and a pen-point cannot supply the place of a sheet of ice and a skate-edge. Geometry must have its diagrams. Anatomy its corpus to carve. Skating also refuses to be spiritualized into a Science; it remains an Art, and cannot be expressed in a formula."

Winthrop was clearly of the belief that though skating required great physical tenacity, it was first and foremost an art form. Even if he looked at skating through a different historical lens, he absolutely 'got it.' And take that last sentence: "Skating also refuses to be spiritualized into a Science; it remains an Art, and cannot be expressed in a formula." I think any of us who have laced up a pair of skates and stepped on a blank canvas on ice can relate to that cathartic quality of carving out edges; that sense of skating being about that intangible 'more' than mere athletics. No matter what the era, no matter through whose eyes, skating has always evoked that same sense of magic as it did to this brave author and soldier who helped shape America's future.

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 Queen Of Canadian Pairs Skating: The Frances Dafoe Story

"The nicest thing about figure skating is the wonderful people you meet. I have friends in many countries that I probably never would have met if it hadn't been for figure skating." - Frances Dafoe, January 23, 1956, "The Montreal Gazette"

Born December 17, 1929 in Toronto, Ontario, Frances Helen Dafoe Bogin was the daughter of Helen Parker Gibson and Dr. William Allan Dafoe, a prominent surgeon who had lettered in four sports at the University Of Toronto. Her uncle, Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, was known for delivering and caring for the famous Dionne Quintuplets. An energetic and athletic youngster who excelled in synchronised swimming and diving, Frances started skating at the age of eight. Her parents originally put her on the ice so that she could burn off some steam with no designs of her ever being a competitive skater, but she was soon identified as one of the Toronto Skating Club's most promising young talents. Sidelined early on for two years after breaking both ankles, it was the club's lavish carnivals that drew her back to the ice.

Frances Dafoe appearing as one of 'the devil's revels' in the 1948 Toronto Skating Club carnival

Interestingly, Frances' first big victory in the skating world wasn't even on the ice. When the Canadian Figure Skating Association decided to hold a contest to select a new design for medals for the Canadian Championships in 1950, the high school student entered and won. "There had been an open competition for the design of this medal and when I won I was awarded the princely sum of $100.00," she recalled in a memoir written in the late nineties. "I don't know who was more surprised - my teachers, at Central Technical School, one of whom was the great artist Doris McCarthy, or me. I was so pleased that one of the judges was photographer Yousuf Karsh. The old medal was based on a sculpture of a great Canadian skater, judge and official - Norman Mackie Scott, one of Canada's skating pioneers. The new medal was a winged blade resting on a branch of laurel, the Greek symbol of victory. A branch of laurel is also used today, on the ISU's World Figure Skating Championship medals." Frances' design remained in use by the CFSA until 1987.

Left: Frances, Norris and a really adorable furry fan. Right: Frances sewing away.

Frances teamed up with Norris Bowden in 1950 shortly after their engagement. Prior to their pairing, she had been a singles skater, but her injury forced her to focus on ice dancing. Winning the Waltz title at the 1950 Canadian Championships at the Winter Club of St. Catharines, the duo became the first recipients of the very medals that Frances had designed. Coach Sheldon Galbraith convinced the duo to give pairs skating a try. They were an unusual pairing - he an engineering student; her a designer... left brain meets right. Their on again, off again off-ice romance and 'artistic differences' often led to stormy on-ice disagreements, soothed by Galbraith's firm but compassionate guidance. Frances and Norrie trained six hours a day at Toronto Skating Club rink, the Varsity Arena and at Schumacher in the summers.

Photo courtesy Elaine Hooper, the National Ice Skating Association Archives

Throughout her competitive career, Frances balanced her on-ice training with Norris with her studies at Branksome Hall. She also designed wedding dresses for Eaton's Department Store - who in turn made her skating costumes in their workroom from her designs - as well as costumes and program covers for Toronto Skating Club carnivals, pins for tests and the crest for the CFSA's international team. Frances' passion for fashion made her and Norris stand out on the ice at a time when many of her competitors were costumed in black and white. "During our time we did take a daring step," she recalled. "For our exhibitions, Norrie and I were dressed alike in bright colours - blue, bright yellow, and white outfits trimmed with cerise. Norrie wore matching boot covers, which at this time was very different."

Up, up and away - Frances and Norris in action!

Frances and Norris were true pioneers in pairs skating. They introduced the twist lift, throw jump, catch lift, pressure lift, overhead lasso lift, hip Axel lift, the Axel into a partner's arms, the leap of faith and many other elements to the skating vocabulary. Frances credited the ballroom dance team of Blanche and Alan Lund for assisting her and Norrie with their lifting technique. Norris was some eight inches taller than Frances, making a lot of these movements - termed "too athletic" by the skating establishment - possible. "We were always criticized for being too athletic," recalled Frances. "We also introduced changes of musical speed and interpreted different types of music. Sheldon Galbraith, our coach, remembers with great amusement, one of our club members coming up to him and saying, 'mood spelled backward is doom'... We were major contributors to the 'illegal lift' section in our present day ISU and CFSA rulebooks but at least we broke the old fashioned pair rigidity."

In 1952, Frances and Norris won the Canadian pairs, ice dance, Waltz and Tenstep titles in Oshawa at the Canadian Championships and skated to top five finishes at both the Winter Olympic Games and World Championships. Over the next four years, they amassed another five Canadian titles in pairs, Waltz and Tenstep, two North American pairs titles and four medals at the World Championships - two of them gold - and the 1956 Olympic silver medal. The team's loss at those Winter Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo was a crushing blow. They earned more points than the Austrian team of Sissy Schwarz and Kurt Oppelt and tied them in first place votes, but the Austrians earned more second place votes than the Canadians... and the gold medal. Norris recalled, "The most disappointing moment is when you know you have done the best you could possibly ever do, and it hasn't been recognized. We wanted that gold medal so badly." The result was highly controversial at the time. More than once, there were loud whispers about funny business when it came to the judging of the competitions the Canadians entered overseas in Europe.

Frances and Norris - better known to friends as Frannie and Norrie

On top of dealing with behind the scenes judging intrigue, the first Canadian pair to win a World title accomplished this with next to zero financial or moral support from the CFSA, who placed very little faith in the talented Toronto twosome. "It was trying time for Canadian skaters," Frances recalled. "We were all blazing new trails, whether it was altitude training (Sheldon along with Barbara Ann Scott, and my father Dr. William A. Dafoe were the only people who thoroughly understood this problem), equipment difficulties, ice conditions, blade sharpening (to handle different kinds of ice conditions which changed daily); availability of knowledgeable coach/trainers; experienced judges; the necessity of massage after outdoor training to keep the muscles pliant, suitable costumes, lack of funds (The CFSA gave us our airfare after we won the World Championship and the Toronto Skating Club gave us $150.00. Sheldon gave up his income for two weeks each year to accompany us and my father paid for his transportation and living expenses); and last but not least a skating association with little or no understanding of the European climate - political or otherwise."

Frances and Norris called it a day at twenty six and twenty nine following the 1956 World Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany and ended up remaining very close friends despite calling off their engagement. After overcoming a very messy, public spat with the CFSA in 1958 that saw both her and Norris suspended as members for a time, Frances divided her time between costume design and judging. She studied cooking at the Ryerson School of Technology, took commercial art and fashion courses at the Central Technical School and draping and fabric courses at the Parsons School of Design in New York.

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

Turning down an offer to work for Arnold Scaasi, Frances designed costumes for the CBC for close to forty years. She was responsible for the imaginative costumes worn in Toller Cranston's television specials and her work for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the Charlottetown Festival, the folk dance troupe Les Feux-Follets and the 1981 film "Movie Magic" with magician Doug Henning was highly acclaimed. In 1988, she was responsible for creating over six hundred costumes for the Closing Ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Alberta. She also created costumes for Kurt Browning, Brian Orser, Scott Hamilton, Liz Manley, Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, Katarina Witt and countless others. Balancing a hectic work schedule with marriage and motherhood, she always found time for her family. Most of her design work was done away from the chaos of the television studio, late at night in her home studio.

Of all of Frances' incredible work in costuming, many will remember Toller Cranston's television special "Strawberry Ice" best. World Professional Champion John S. Rait recalled, "I first met Frances as a skater working on 'Strawberry Ice'. Her attention to detail and creative flare was evident in everything she did." On the beloved production, Frances remarked, "I felt very strongly that I was the right costume designer for this project as I fully understood what they were trying to accomplish and wanted to be part of the creative process... It was the challenge of a lifetime. It was a joy to be part of such a free thinking team where everyone respected each others uniqueness and talent.... The Strawberry Queen's costume was great fun to make. The skirt was made of layers of quilted petals, each dyed by hand starting with pale pink and increasing in tone to dark red. These petals resembled strawberries with small mirrors, rim set to look like small seeds. The bodice was boned to a period shape and made of lightweight pink spandex with a silk collar trimmed with ruching. This whole creation was put over a spring steel hoop with a long silk georgette ruffle around the bottom. As Sarah Kawahara (the Queen) moved, in her long dress it slowly disappeared leaving a saucy leotard of hot pink sequins with a skirt of silk green ribbons and hand made miniature strawberries of red, orange and hot pink."

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

Delaying the start of her international judging career to allow Norris to move up the ladder as they were not permitted to be on the same panel, she eventually judged countless national, international and professional competitions, including the pair events at the 1984 World Championships and 1994 Winter Olympic Games. She retired from judging in the mid-nineties. In a March 2, 1990 interview with Laurie Nealin for "The Globe And Mail", she admitted, "When I was a competitor I thought, 'those lucky judges, all they have to do is go to a World Championship and hold up marks. Now that I'm a judge, [I realize] it was really easier when I was competing. You sit up up there thinking, 'those kids have spent so many years getting here. Please, dear God, give me the wisdom to judge well'." A year and a month after that interview, she said goodbye to Norris, her former partner who had been as much of a support during her judging career as when the duo was skating together.

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

Frances was inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall Of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Olympic Hall Of Fame in 1958, the World Figure Skating Hall Of Fame in 1984, the Order Of Ontario in 1990 and the Order Of Canada in 1991. In 1992, she earned the Confederation Medal and in 1993, she was inducted into the CFSA (Skate Canada) Hall Of Fame. In 2002, she earned the Golden Jubilee Medal. She was nominated for several Gemini awards for costume design and won Golden Gate and Prix Anik awards for her work on "Strawberry Ice". In 2010, she was honoured by Branksome Hall with the Allison Roach Alumna Award.

A long-time believer in the importance of figure skating history, Frances penned the gorgeous 2011 book "Figure Skating And The Arts", hands down one of the most thorough and well-researched books detailing figure skating's history in recent years. Later in life, she split her time between residences in Toronto and Jupiter, Florida. Predeceased by her second husband in April, Frances passed away at the age of eighty six on September 23, 2016 in Toronto. If you looked up the words "someone who left the figure skating world better than they found it", Frances Dafoe's picture should be right there.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.