The 1972 Canadian Figure Skating Championships

Scandinavian pop sensations ABBA got their start and people went gaga for Atari arcade game Pong. The year was 1972, and before the World's best figure skaters gathered in Sapporo, Japan to compete in the Winter Olympic Games and in Calgary, Alberta for the World Championships, Canada's best skaters convened in London, Ontario from January 13 to 16 for the 1972 Canadian Figure Skating Championships. With career-altering Olympic spots on the line for singles and pairs and World spots for dancers on the line, it was do or die for the twelve men, twenty women and four pairs and seven dance teams entered in the senior competitions. How did things play out in London? Let's take a look back!

THE NOVICE AND JUNIOR EVENTS 

Multiple panel judging was used in the novice and junior singles events. After twelve teams tackled the Fourteenstep, American Waltz and Rocker Foxtrot in the initial round, Nicole and Pierre Nadeau of Montreal led the pack. After the elimination of all but four teams, the Nadeau's managed to hang on to their early lead, winning the novice ice dance event with superior performances of the Foxtrot and Tango. An unprecedented fifteen teams vied for the novice pairs title, and in a three-way split of the judges panel, Londoners Cheri and Dennis Pinner came out on top by the slimmest of margins. The results were just as close in the novice women's event, when Judy Bowden of the Cricket Club narrowly upset Kim Alletson of the Minto Skating Club, who had won the figures. Though Kevin Robertson of the Granite Club was the unanimous winner of the novice men's title, it was the performance of Barry Fraser that stole the show. He vaulted from sixth after the figures to secure the silver medal. A young Brian Pockar finished tenth. In a four-three split of the judges panel, Linda Watts and Don Fraser of Richmond Hill defeated Daria Prychun and Roger Uuemae of the Cricket Club to claim the junior pairs title. Judy Currah and Keith Caughell were the unanimous winners of junior dance.

Lynn Nightingale, her sister and dog. Photo courtesy Marie Petrie McGillvray.

Lynn Nightingale may have been fifth after the figures in the junior women's competition, but a sublime free skate moved her all the way up to first. Moving up from third after figures, Chatham's Lee Armstrong was the winner of the junior men's competition.   

THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION

After the Starlight Waltz, Rhumba, Argentine Tango and OSP, defending champions and newlyweds Louise (Lind) and Barry Soper held a solid lead. Their effervescent free dance easily scored top marks from all seven judges and earned them the sole ticket to the World Championships in Calgary. Barbara Berezowski and David Porter finished a solid second. Linda Roe and Michael Bradley skated a very strong free dance to claim the bronze medal, dropping Judy Currah and Keith Caughell to fourth.

THE PAIRS COMPETITION

The pairs podium. Photo courtesy Marie Petrie McGillvray.

For the fourth straight year, Mary Petrie had to settle for the silver medal at the Canadian Championships. The silver lining to that silver was that she and partner John Hubbell earned a spot on both the Olympic and World teams. The winners, Toronto siblings Sandra and Val Bezic, dazzled in claiming their third consecutive Canadian title. Their short program was set to "Tin Roof Blues" and their free skate was a medley of music by Chopin, Brahms and Tchaikovsky. Marian Murray and Glen Moore, who'd been training in California under Mr. John Nicks, finished third; Linda Tasker and Allen Carson fourth.

Sandra and Val Bezic. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

THE MEN'S COMPETITION

Toller Cranston in 1972. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

After amassing a considerable lead in the school figures, defending champion Toller Cranston spellbound audience members and judges alike with his winning free skate, earning six 5.9's for technical merit and a quartet of 6.0's for artistic impression. He received a standing ovation for his performance and earned Canada's lone men's berth on the Olympic and World teams. Paul Bonenfant of the Capilano Winter Club, who had been a solid second in figures, managed to fend of Kenneth Folk for the silver medal. Patrick McKilligan, Ron Shaver and Stan Bohonek rounded out the top six.

THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION

Karen Magnussen in London

Due to a fractured pelvis, nineteen year old Cathy Lee Irwin was forced to watch the 1971 Canadian Championships from the sidelines, supported by a pair of crutches. She had returned to competition triumphantly the autumn prior to the Canadian Championships in London, winning the silver medal at the Richmond Trophy in England. However, a disappointing sixth place finish in the figures all but took her out of the running for the silver medal. The gold, of course, was expected to go to the darling of Canadian figure skating, Karen Magnussen. Magnussen amassed a huge lead in figures but fell on both of her double Axel attempts in the free skate. Aside from those two mistakes, her program was otherwise top notch and it was still enough for her to unanimously win her fourth Canadian title. The silver went to Ruth Hutchinson and Irwin moved up to take the bronze. Preston's Janice Maikawa, who had been second in figures, dropped all the way down to sixth behind Daria Prychun and the previous year's bronze medallist Diane Hall.

Cynthia Miller competing in London. Photo courtesy Cynthia Miller.

Also competing were Cynthia Miller, pairs medallists Mary Petrie and Marian Murray and future legendary choreography Sarah Kawahara. Petrie was the only skater in the event to land a triple jump... a rare feat in those days! All three medallists would be named to the Olympic team, but Hutchinson would be forced to withdraw when she broke her arm on the way back to the Olympic Village after a practice session. The fact there had been twenty entries in the senior women's event in London stemmed from the 'problem' that anyone with a Gold test could compete at Sectionals, there were twelve sections at the time and the top three finishers at each Sectionals earned a trip to the Canadian Championships. This theoretically meant that there could be thirty six entries. David Dore later stated of the entries in London, "half of them shouldn't have been there." From the number of entries in the London event came the CFSA's development of the Divisionals, which were first held in 1974.

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.

Bracket-Change-Brackets And Business: The Sherwin Badger Story

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

Born August 29, 1901 in Boston, Massachusetts, Sherwin Campbell Badger was the son of George and Grace (Spear) Badger. Dr. George Badger was a respected physician who performed house calls and advocated for health standards in public schools. Sherwin and his younger sister Virginia enjoyed a rather privileged upbringing, growing up in a very nice house on the Back Bay with two servants at their beck and call. The Badger family had ties to the local copper industry; E.B. Badger and Sons manufactured copper kettles in their thriving shop on Pitts Street.

While attending the Browne and Nichols School on Garden Street in Cambridge, Sherwin was introduced to the wonderful world of figure skating at the age of fourteen by his headmaster, American skating pioneer George Henry Browne. He took his first steps on the ice at the Cambridge Skating Club.

Joining The Skating Club of Boston, Sherwin was quickly recognized as something of a skating prodigy. When the Cambridge Skating Club administered its first tests in the International (Continental) Style only a year after he started skating, he became one of the first three skaters to pass and earn a Bronze medal. One of his first performances was in a skating pantomime organized by Clara Rotch Frothingham called "The Enchanted Forest". He played the role of Jean, a boy with magic skates.

Left: Beatrix Loughran and Sherwin Badger. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine. Right: Sherwin Badger.

At the age of sixteen, Sherwin earned a place in the record books when he won the very first U.S. junior men's title at the 1918 U.S. Championships in New York City. A report from "The New York Times" remarked, "Young Badger... displayed a skill on the runners which surprised the old-time skills. Rarely has a boy skater been developed in this country who has shown the talent of this Boston boy." His sister Virginia would also go on to claim a U.S. junior title of her own in 1927.

Right photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

In the years that followed, Sherwin's accomplishments on the ice were nothing short of incredible. Mentored by Charles Morgan Rotch and George Henry Browne, he won five consecutive U.S. senior men's titles from 1920 to 1924 and the very first North American men's title.

Sherwin also won five medals (three of them gold) at the U.S. Championships in pairs skating with three different partners, bronze medals at the 1930 and 1932 World Championships in pairs skating, a medal in fours at the 1923 North American Championships and a medal in the Fourteenstep at the 1922 U.S. Championships. In addition, he won the Cambridge Skating Club's annual competition in men's singles, Waltz and Fourteenstep.

An account of Sherwin's win at the 1920 U.S. Championships from "The New York Times" noted, "Badger won by an exhibition of whirling that threw his older opponents definitely into the shadow. In comparison with [Nathaniel] Niles, his form was more spirited, dashing and unrestrained, and with his daring and dash he combined exquisite grace and polish... He whirled and pirouetted in mid-air with amazing ease."

Though selected for both the 1920 and 1924 Olympic teams, Sherwin was forced to decline both invitations due to schooling and business affairs that didn't permit him the 'time off' to travel abroad.
At the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, he placed eleventh in the men's event and fourth in the pairs event with partner Beatrix Loughran. Four years later in Lake Placid, Sherwin and Beatrix won America's first medal in pairs skating at the Winter Olympic Games.

Sherwin Badger and Bea Loughran receiving the Henry Wainwright Howe Trophy. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

Roger Turner, Maribel Vinson, Beatrix Loughran, Sherwin Badger, Theresa Weld Blanchard and Nathaniel Niles in 1928

Early in his competitive career, Sherwin studied at Harvard University. He graduated in 1923, earning his letter not as a skater but as a coxswain in boat races. Following his graduation, he worked for United Fruit Co. in Boston and Cuba, then joined the Boston News Bureau. Moving to New York City in 1925, he worked for Dow-Jones Publications as banking editor of "The Wall Street Journal" and then wrote and edited for "Barron's Weekly" from 1932 to 1935. In 1937, he joined the Washburn & Co. firm in New York and in 1940, began working for New England Mutual Life Insurance Company, serving as Senior Vice President - Financial until his retirement in 1967. In 1954, he was appointed by then Governor Christian Herter to the Massachusetts Fiscal Affairs Survey Commission, which aimed to reduce the state's debt.

Sherwin also served as Chairman of the Board of the New England Conservatory Of Music and on the boards of the Old Colony Trust Company, Massachusetts Business Development Corporation, Downtown Waterfront Corporation, Massachusetts Small Business Development Company, Boston Opera Association, Children's Hospital Medical Center, New England Baptist Hospital and the Transportation and Communication Committee, of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

After marrying his first wife, novelist and reputed spy Mary Bancroft in December 1923, Sherwin had a son named Sherwin, Jr. and a daughter named Mary Jane. After the couple divorced in the early thirties, he remarried to Anna Clark. The couple welcomed two more sons, David and William, to the Badger family. Mary Jane married Yale professor Horace Dwight Taft, the son of Republican senator Robert A. Taft.

James Lester Madden and Sherwin Badger examining a bracket

Believe it or not, this incredibly busy man's most important contributions to the figure skating world happened off the ice and not on. Joining the USFSA administration in 1927, Sherwin served as First Vice President to America's governing body of figure skating in 1928 and as President from 1930 to 1932 and 1934 to 1935. He acted as a skating judge and chaired the Eastern, Sanctions, Nominating, Olympic Games, Ways & Means and Judges Committees. He was an esteemed member of the USFSA Executive Committee for some twenty two years. Under his presidencies, he worked to make the first World Championships and Winter Olympics ever held in America a success and the subscription of "Skating" magazine more than doubled. Managing the USFSA's finances through The Great Depression, he chose to spend money on skater development rather than tucking it away for a rainy day. This strategy of course paid off at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, where as an Olympic Committee member, USFSA President and Manager of the U.S. Figure Skating Team, he and Beatrix Loughran medalled, as did Maribel Vinson.

Photo courtesy Boston College Libraries

Sherwin also worked tirelessly with Ulrich Salchow and the ISU during his presidency to effectively wrangle control of the newfound influx of European skaters performing in U.S. carnivals, many organized by rink managers and promoters, not USFSA clubs. Later recalling his presidency, Sherwin admitted, "All in all, the highlights of my years as President, as I look back on them, center around foreign skaters. They brought to this country a much needed boost and were, to my mind, to a large degree responsible for the rapid development of both the popularity and skill of skating as practiced in this country. If there were headaches in trying to foster European participation in events here, they were well worthwhile."

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

Sherwin passed away on April 8, 1972 in Sherborn, Massachusetts at the age of seventy, seventeen years before his second wife Anna and twenty five years before his first wife Mary. He was
posthumously inducted to the U.S. Figure Skating Hall Of Fame in 1976. In his obituary in "Skating" magazine, Theresa Weld Blanchard remarked, "No one can know what he sacrificed... but skaters everywhere still owe him sincere gratitude as his leadership advanced figure skating."

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of 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.

Barbizon Queen: The Beatrix Loughran Story

The daughter of Thomas and Margaret (Foley) Loughran, Beatrix 'Bea' Suzetta Loughran was born June 30, 1900 in the New York City suburb of Mount Vernon. Her father died when she was just an infant. Bea's mother was forced to move to a home in the Bronx and raise Bea and her older sisters Margaret and Alice on her own.

Five foot two Bea's outgoing personality and penchant for combining the athletic and artistic was evident even in her youth. As a young woman, she skied in Lake Placid and represented the Women's Swimming Association of New York in diving contests. A love of acting brought her to the stage of the Provincetown Theater. In the play "The Hand Of The Potter", she was cast in a male role.

Ultimately Bea's true passion - carving out figure eights at the exclusive Skating Club of New York - began to take up most of her time. She soon moved into the Knights Of Columbus hotel and got a job as a switchboard operator to pay for her figure skating lessons with William Chase at the St. Nicholas Rink.

Top: 'Bea and Tee' - Beatrix Loughran and Theresa Weld Blanchard

After winning the U.S. junior women's title on her second try in Philadelphia in 1921, Bea finished second to Theresa Weld Blanchard in the senior women's class and teamed up with Edward Howland of Boston to claim the Waltzing championship at the U.S. Championships in Boston the following year. After finishing second to Weld Blanchard again at the 1923 U.S. and North American Championships, she was named to the 1924 Winter Olympic team by International Skating Union Of America officials. New York reporters praised her "verve and dash" and fine spins, but was that enough to compete with Europe's best?

Photo courtesy Library Of Congress

Departing for France on January 2, 1924 with the U.S. speed skating team, the 'hothouse' skater arrived in Chamonix as a favourite to challenge Austria's perennial champion Herma Szabo. In the figures, she presented Szabo with a formidable challenge, but struggled with the high winds and hard, brittle ice during the free skating competition. Nathaniel Niles recalled, "In my opinion Miss Loughran's improvement over her form of a year ago was astonishing. Aside from her loop change loops... her edges were strong and her lobes round, and had Mrs. [Szabo] been much less consistently steady and accurate she would certainly have led the school figures. In free skating she did not nearly do herself justice and doubtless was affected to a great extent by conditions. I thought this at the time but knew it after seeing her exhibition four or five days later at St. Moritz. Her spread eagle was good but her spins, though controlled, were slow and suffered from comparison with the excellence of those done by Mrs. [Szabo] and Miss Henie."

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

Though Theresa Weld Blanchard had claimed the bronze at the Summer Olympics in 1920, in Chamonix Loughran won the silver, thus becoming the first American woman to win a medal at the Winter Olympic Games. That same winter, she passed the ISU's bronze, silver and gold tests on one day in Lausanne, achieving higher marks on the silver and gold tests than both Andrée (Joly) and Pierre Brunet.

Returning to New York aboard the S.S. Berengaria, Bea was welcomed at Quarantine by the police tug Manhattan. Onboard were International Skating Union Of America and Olympic officials and a full police band. Once home from abroad, Bea aptly predicted in "Skating" magazine that "future aspirants for the world's championship will have to reckon with Sonja Henie of Norway, a child of eleven, already a great performer, who has every gift - personality, form, speed, and nerve."

In the subsequent years, Bea firmly established herself as America's top women's figure skater. Between 1925 and 1927, she won three U.S. women's titles and two consecutive North American women's titles, as well as the prestigious Hobbs Trophy. With Ferrier Martin, she won the Skating Club of New York's Waltzing competition and with Newfoundlander Raymond Leslie Harvey she claimed the silver medal in pairs at the U.S. Championships but it was the establishment of a partnership during this period with Sherwin Badger, a Boston skater in New York on business, that would ultimately change the trajectory of her figure skating career.

Sailing on the S.S. Majestic, Bea arrived to compete at the 1928 Winter Olympic Games in St. Moritz well aware of the perils of outdoor skating in Europe and true to form, the ice conditions were truly appalling. Forced to manoeuvre around flags that marked bad parts of the ice, she skated commendably in the women's event, actually earning more points than winner and silver medallist Sonja Henie and Fritzi Burger but ending up in third based on the judging system in place at the time which factored in ordinal placings.

Interestingly, Bea earned one ordinal for each of the top seven places from the seven judges in St. Moritz. Confusion over the point totals versus ordinal placings led a handful of sportswriters to erroneously report that she'd won and rather than take the time to correct the error and educate the public on the judging system, many journalists were more interested in the 'risque' knee-length blue skirt she free skated in.

Photo courtesy McGill University Library, Rare Books And Special Collections

Asked about why she'd chosen to skate in such a "revealing" costume in St. Moritz, Bea shrugged and responded, "I just want to be comfortable." Sherwin Badger and Bea made quite an impression in the pairs event, where they performed one of their signature moves, a pivot movement performed in an upright position where the duo clasped left hands overhead and held each others waists with their right hands. Narrowly lost out on a medal to a pair of Austrian teams, they received marks ranging from first place from the German judge to ninth from the Finnish judge. In her 1940 book "Advanced Figure Skating", Maribel Vinson Owen noted how well-paired Beatrix and Sherwin were: "Beatrix and Sherwin covered the ice... with quite short, staccato steps that gave them a rollicking, bouncing movement that emanated its own special brand of joyousness."

Bea Loughran and Sherwin Badger

After the 1928 Winter Olympic Games, Bea gave up singles skating to focus entirely on pairs skating with Sherwin, though she did continue to compete in ice dancing contests, notably winning the Fourteenstep at the 1930 Middle Atlantic Championships with Joseph Savage.

Top: Vintage postcard of the Barbizon Hotel For Women. Bottom: View of New York City through the loggia of the Barbizon Hotel, 1932. Photo courtesy Library Of Congress.

In the late twenties, Bea took up residence at the famous Barbizon Hotel for Women on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a residential hotel for women known for its strict curfews and 'no men allowed' policy. The Barbizon was known as "the city's elite dollhouse". In the aftermath of the women's suffrage movement's success in gaining American women the right to vote, the Barbizon played host to many famous actresses, flappers and fabulous writers. Even famed Titanic survivor Margaret 'The Unsinkable Molly' Brown lived there. For a free-thinking, modern woman of the roaring twenties like Bea, it was 'the' place to be.

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

By the time of the big stock market crash of 1929, Bea was moonlighting as a golfer in the summers at the Coldstream Club. One of her many wins on the golf course was at the Westchester-Fairfield Women's Golf Association's invitational golf tournament in 1930. The plucky women's reporter who covered her successes on the green for "The New York Times"? Why, who else but Maribel Vinson Owen.

Theresa Weld Blanchard, Bea Loughran and Maribel Vinson

By the time the 1932 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid rolled around, hopes were high that Bea and Sherwin would be able to pull off a coup in their home state and defeat the reigning Olympic Gold Medallists Andrée (Joly) and Pierre Brunet. With five thousand spectators anxiously looking on, Bea skated to center ice in a white satin dress trimmed with ermine, black stockings and black gloves with Sherwin by her side. Sportswriter Quentin Reynolds wrote, "The pretty American girl caught the fancy of the crowd at once, and when she and Badger had finished they were greeted with a wild roar of applause. It seems rather difficult to conceive that paired figure skating can be exciting, but as Miss Loughran and Badger floated around the ice, skating slowly or madly, according to the tempo of the music, the audience reacted just as a fight crowd, a baseball crowd or a football audience would react, stimulated by the amazingly fast performance of the pair and impressed by the grace and unity they displayed." Though Bea and Sherwin skated perfectly and the Brunet's faltered, the daring lifts of the French team were rewarded by the judges and Bea and Sherwin settled for silver.

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

What had to have been especially heartbreaking for her was the fact that just like in St. Moritz, Bea and Sherwin had amassed more points than the gold medallists but again lost the title on the ordinal placings. Ending her career with a bronze medal in the pairs event at the World Championships that followed, Bea held the distinction of being the first American woman in history to win medals in both singles and pairs at both the World Championships and Winter Olympic Games.

After her retirement from competitive figure skating, Bea continued to give skating exhibitions and compete in golf tournaments until the late thirties. However, her main focus during this period was in coaching her sister Alice's daughter Audrey Peppe, a perennial runner-up at the U.S. Championships in the late thirties. Bea even attended the 1936 Winter Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen - her fourth Olympics if you're counting - as Audrey's coach. Had the 1940 Olympic Games not been cancelled by World War II, she would have gone to five as Audrey had been selected to compete at those Games as well.

Bea later turned her attention for a time to judging and as of 1942, she was one of only ten judges in America to be approved by the USFSA to judge at the World Championship level. On February 28, 1942 in Elkton, Maryland, she married her former pairs partner Raymond Harvey. Her Newfoundland born husband, a Canadian soldier in The Great War, was a merchant with business interests in the Caribbean. The happy couple spent several years living in Mexico and Switzerland. He passed away in 1959 in The Bahamas; Bea passed away on December 7, 1975 in Long Beach, New York at the age of seventy five and was inducted posthumously into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall Of Fame in 1997.

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.

#Unearthed: Humors Of Skating

When you dig through skating history, you never know what you will unearth. In the spirit of cataloguing fascinating tales from skating history, #Unearthed is a once a month 'special occasion' on Skate Guard where fascinating writings by others that are of interest to skating history buffs are excavated, dusted off and shared for your reading pleasure. From forgotten fiction to long lost interviews to tales that have never been shared publicly, each #Unearthed is a fascinating journey through time.

Today's gem is a short excerpt from "A Winter Sport Book", released in 1911 by British "Punch" cartoonist Reginald Thomas Cleaver. It was reproduced in J.C. Dier's "A Book Of Winter Sports" the following year under the title "Humors Of Skating".

"HUMORS OF SKATING" (REGINALD THOMAS CLEAVER)

Looking back on some of the sports pursued at Montana, in Switzerland, that of skating occupies a prominent place in the memory, though no one could compare the skill of the performers there with exhibitions at Villars. Yet I will make bold to say that the skating, greatly inferior though it may be to that of the more renowned and spacious rinks, is in one respect too good. It misses some of the exquisite humors to be witnessed in Regent's Park, and which depend not so much on the skill of the performers as on their want of it. Never at Montana, but frequently in England, there is the suggestive incident of two perfect strangers, generally of different sexes, colliding by some slight miscalculation with each other, and, to save a sudden fall, clinging with a fervid embrace round the waist or neck or either arm each of the other, and holding on trustfully and wholeheartedly till the errant feet are steadied and the parties, at last confusedly recognizing the precise situation, part with hastily murmured apologies, meeting thus once and never again, between the cradle and the grave. One may speculate whether such a slashing of atoms has been recorded in the evening diary by either of those concerned, or whether it has in the whirligig of time led to some no less fervid but less fleeting union, and been the beginning of a life-history of conjugal peace.

Another humor of the ice I can recall which unfortunately could not be reproduced in Switzerland. Some forty years ago, no less, we repaired for an afternoon's skating to the Welsh Harp, Hendon. I have never been there since, but can remember the grand expanse of inferior ice and the huge crowd on it. People were standing in thick clusters, talking and laughing, or wildly whirling about or patiently practising rudimentary figures where space allowed. One youth of the second sort was speeding round the lake as hard as he could go, and was dashing towards a group of persons intending presumably to skim past them without personal contact. Unfortunately a young man on the outside, while talking harmless vapidities to his lady friend, moved about a foot outwards, just at the wrong moment, and about half of his frame was suddenly caught in the onset of the "scorcher." The latter buffeted him violently, and careered on, not looking round. The victim of his roughings was not at once knocked down, but set rotating. His staggers, though obviously abortive from the start, for a
second or two took that form. He waltzed alone, uneasily, and with irregular lurches like a top just before it falls; and while this was going on, he began his remonstrance in language, it seemed to me, of remarkable self-restraint : "Sir, I think you might at least stop and apologize when you knock a man down." So we all thought, but this was just what the scorcher did not do; and the complainant who began his plea while still rotating continued it in a crescendo of gathering emotion, as the other was now almost out of hearing, and ended it with a loud shout in a sitting posture, the voice rising as the body sank. It was difficult not to apprehend that his conduct, though kept well within bounds, may not have enhanced his dignity in the eyes of Phyllis; and indeed a promising love-affair may have been rudely checked as he sat on the ice patiently restoring his bowler hat to its original shape, and yelling till his voice cracked after a wholly indifferent stranger. But pathetic though the incident was, from some points of view I could not help being glad that it happened so near to where we were
standing; and forgetting it is out of the question now.

Different in its appeal to the imagination was a catastrophe that occurred to a tall bearded skater very soon after the collision above described. We were standing talking in a small group, in a crowded quarter of the lake, when a singular noise made us turn our heads. It was a mixture of a hiss and a rumble, and the rapid crescendo of it made the less robust of our party fear an approaching mischief. But there was nothing to be alarmed at. The skater had fallen, and was gliding rapidly over the ice in the position which he had involuntarily assumed - that is to say, quite at full length on his stomach, and proceeding not sideways nor feet foremost, but as a tobogganer head foremost, the two hands being flat on the surface close by the shoulders. He must have been going at a rare pace originally, as none of us had even heard his fall, and he had been slipping along for an unknown distance as he passed us, the pace just beginning to slacken. The most picturesque fact about him was the heap of ice fragments which gathered in front of his beard as he swept along, and formed a novel setting for the fixed and glassy resignation of his face. We thought we had never before seen a human being so like an express train.

But as I have already remarked, such amenities of a pastime as these are not to be seen in Switzerland. People skate too well to collide, except of course at hockey, but then it is part of the day's work, and misses the glorious element of the unexpected. And they are too decorous to get up sufficient speed for the superb onset of our "scorcher" or the prone onrush of the bearded man. Whatever other attractions hale us to Montana, we must acquiesce in the loss of these subtle sidelights on human society; and the pity of it is that owing to the infrequency of frost in modern England, they tend to become merely the touching memory of a long-past dream.

None the less the skating-rink is a delicious spot, especially at the luncheon-hour when flushed and hungry skaters and curlers gather in friendly groups round the well-earned prog. There were several days last January when the interior of the shed facing the sun was too hot for comfort, but outside
it was always perfect; sometimes a very gentle breeze, ordinarily nothing but the matchless tingle of the crisp unmoving air. And occasionally it comes about that a trained exhibitor of the English or Continental style of skating would stray over from Villars to Montana, either to play in a bandy match or for social reasons, and would give us the delight of watching the Mohawks done to perfection  and with consummate ease, or better still, a whole series of complex evolutions gone through by two ladies in combination. Nothing prettier could well be imagined, except of course a flight of ten thousand starlings in September. 

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.

Sultan Of Swing: The Hubert Sprott Story

Photo courtesy City Of Toronto Archives

Born August 15, 1908, Perry Hubert Sprott was the son of teacher turned merchant Arthur Frederick Sprott and Winnifred Frederica Perry. He was raised in a home on McMaster Avenue in Toronto, Ontario and like many young people in the city at the time spent his winters indulging in outdoor pursuits.

Hubert Sprott, Mary Littlejohn, Elizabeth Fisher and Jack Hose, 1931 Canadian Champions in fours skating. Photo courtesy City Of Toronto Archives.

Although an avid recreational skater in his youth, it wasn't until he was in his twenties that Hubert first started pursuing figure skating seriously. The handsome five foot eight skater with brown hair and blue eyes made his debut at the Canadian Championships in 1930 at the age of twenty two, finishing second behind Winnipeg's Lewis Elkin in the junior men's event and winning the Canadian fours title with Mary Littlejohn, George Beament and Elizabeth Fisher. He repeated as fours champion the following year and defeated none other than Osborne Colson himself to take the 1931 Canadian junior men's title.

Hubert Sprott, Mary Littlejohn, Elizabeth Fisher and Jack Hose, 1931 Canadian Champions in fours skating. Photo courtesy City Of Toronto Archives.

In 1932, Hubert finished third in the senior men's competition at the Canadian Championships behind Bud Wilson and Guy Owen and in 1933, he won the silver medal in the fours event at the North American Championships with Wilson and his sister Constance and Elizabeth Fisher. In the years that followed, he would focus entirely on fours skating, winning five more consecutive medals at the Canadian Championships in the now defunct category for a grand total of two junior and eight senior medals at the Canadian Championships. Not bad for a skater you have likely never heard of, right?

While still competing, Hubert married Louise Hart Allen of Missouri and in 1931, the couple's son
Arthur Frederick Sprott, Jr. - named after Hubert's father - was born. Two years later, they welcomed their daughter Mary. The family resided at Glen Road in Toronto until 1937, when Hubert retired from competitive skating and moved the family south of the border to embark on a career as a professional. After teaching in Cleveland, Ohio for a time, thirty three year old Hubert and the Sprott squad moved to Oakland, California in the spring of 1942. That summer, he appeared in Harry Losée's Hollywood Ice Revels at at the Tropical Ice Gardens in Westwood Village alongside Belita Jepson-Turner and Maribel Vinson Owen. It was while residing in California that he made his most important contributions to the sport.

Along with Audrey Miller, Hubert played an important role in the development of the annual ice carnivals at the St. Moritz Skating Club at Iceland in Berkeley. He also taught skating at the All Year Figure Skating Club in Los Angeles and helped revive interest in pairs skating on the West Coast. However, Hubert's contributions to ice dancing - a discipline he never pursued seriously himself - were his most enduring legacy.

Sprott's Paramount Waltz, skated at a 3/4 tempo with 52 or 56 measures of 3 beats per minute to Viennese Waltz music.

Chances are you've never heard of the one hundred and eight count Sprott Tango or Sprott Waltz or the three-beat Paramount Waltz, but if you've spent any time in a rink you know the Swing Dance. It was Sprott's creation, first introduced to American ice dancers in the November 1948 issue of "Skating" magazine and first performed at the Broadmoor Ice Palace in Colorado Springs that winter. By the 1948-1949 season, Hubert's Swing Dance was in the USFSA Rulebook as one half of America's new Preliminary Dance Test alongside the Dutch Waltz, invented the same year by George Muller. The  Swing Dance was later adopted as a Preliminary and later, Junior Bronze Dance in Canada and in the years that followed, has been skated all around the world.

Sprott's Swing Dance. Photo courtesy Robert S. Oglilvie's book "Basic Ice Skating Skills".

In 1951, Hubert's nephew Peter Firstbrook won his first of three Canadian titles. The following March, Hubert remarried to twenty six year old Tiney Edwina Russell (McGehee), a Texan living in Long Beach. Three years later, he was elected to the board of governors of the Professional Skaters Guild of America, where he served alongside Cliff Thaell, Gene Turner and Bud Wilson. He devoted much of his later life to bettering the world of coaching and died July 11, 1985 in Los Angeles. You may never have heard his name before, but the next time you hear the strains of the Swing Dance music playing at a test day at your local rink, you'll be able to put a story to a dance.

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.