Learn all about the fascinating world of figure skating history with Skate Guard Blog.
Explore a treasure trove of articles on the history of figure skating, highlighting Olympic Medallists, World and National Champions and dazzling competitions, shows and tours. Written by former skater and judge Ryan Stevens, Skate Guard Blog also offers intriguing insights into the evolution of the sport over the decades. Delve into Stevens' five books for even more riveting stories and information about the history of everyone's favourite winter Olympic sport.
Eileen Seigh holding a pair of wooden skate guards at the 1947 World Championships
"It was raining in torrents and the ice was covered with nearly an inch and a half of water," recalled World Champion Jacqueline du Bief. "The loud speaker having announced me, I sprang forward with all my force. Alas! I had forgotten to take off my rubber skate guards and I made my entrance flat on my stomach, shooting across the rink from one end to the other and leaving in a wake a big wash and a multitude of little waves. I sat up, calmly took off the guards responsible for my unorthodox entrance and, after placing them on the edge of the rink, I wrung out my skirt to get rid of the water. The public, which had been silent until that moment, gave a great shout of laughter and began to applaud madly... and before I had taken my first step on the Vienna rink, we were good friends." On December 17, 1939, a member of the Ice Club of Chicago named Jeannette (Lay) Le Mar wasn't so lucky. She stepped on the ice without removing her skate guards and died suddenly as a result of her subsequent fall. Fortunately, Jeannette's tragic death was an isolated incident. As it turns out, the largely ignored history of one item in a skater's bag that is often overlooked - the skate guard - is quite interesting.
The image that we conjure up of a nineteenth century skater slinging their skate blades over their shoulder and trudging through the snow before attaching them to their boots and skating outdoors on a pond is pretty accurate. Skaters of the early Victorian era weren't hauling rolly bags out of their carriages and walking out to the ice on rubber mats wearing skate guards. The only 'skate protection' that really existed until late in the nineteenth century were smart carrying bags.
Frederick Whit-Gould's Patent Skate Protector. Photo courtesy "The Weekly Telegraph", 1896.
The first known 'skate blade protector' was patented by an inventor from Regent's Park in London, England, named Frederick Whit-Gould in the year 1895. An article that appeared in the "Field" on December 28 of that year noted, "The protector consists of a sheath made of india-rubber, which is easily slipped onto the skate blade, and so protects it from injury when be carried and swung about. It will be invaluable to those who have occasionally to walk with their skates from one piece of ice to another; and to obviate slipping the bottom of the sheath is corrugated... They will be... extremely usual to the figure skater, who nowadays invariably has his skates fixed permanently to his boots; as they enable him to stamp the foot well into the boot before lacing. As most skaters use vaseline to preserve their skate blades from rust, we thought that this would render the rubber sticky, but the manufacturers (Messrs Purser and Co., 92 Hatton garden) informs us that the rubber used is specifically made to resist the action of grease. The protectors are obtainable at all india-rubber dealers and skate vendors and the price per pair is 2s." Unfortunately, he died only thirteen years later, at the age of fifty, never having seen his clever idea achieve great popularity. During the Edwardian era, a sporting goods store in Manchester called Mitchell & Co., which specialized in lawn tennis, fishing, and cricket gear, began selling Skate Blade Guards made of leather. In the years that followed, a company called Fagan made quite a trade out of selling leather guards in England.
Top: Advertisement for Mitchell's Skate Blade Guards. Bottom: Diagram from Alfred K. Johnson's 1920 'skate guard improvement' patent.
In 1920 and 1925, Alfred K. Johnson of Chicago patented two improvements on Frederick Whit-Gould's design. Skate guards began to be widely marketed by his brother Nestor's Manufacturing Company, already well-known for designing their own line of skates called 'Johnsons'. In one of his patent applications, Alfred K. Johnson noted, "These guards are commonly made of leather so they will not dull the skate when the user walks around. The guards are commonly a foot or more in length, and hence it is desirable to fold them when not in use so they may be put in the users pocket. This folding or bending has, however, been difficult heretofore because the leather of which the guard is composed is necessarily thick and consequently rather stiff; hence the guard does not bend readily and if forced to bend is apt to crack. The purpose of my invention is to increase the flexibility of the guard so that it may be readily bent double with very little effort and without danger of damaging the article." Johnson faced some competition locally from Harry H. Kaskey, who patented a similar 'skate scabbard' in 1928 which was sold by F.W. Planert & Sons.
1929 advertisement from Planert catalog showing Harry H. Kaskey's 'skate scabbards'
In July 1930, Charles I. Johnson of Chicago filed for a patent for a 'guard for skate runners' on behalf of the Nestor Johnson Manufacturing Company. Interestingly, by this time, Alfred K. Johnson had left his brother Nestor's company and formed the rival Alfred Johnson Skate Company. The Nestor Johnson Manufacturing Company's 'guard for skate runners' proposed using rubber or "other suitable elastic material... in one piece [to simplify] the construction, enabling the guard to be readily and easily put on and taken off the runner, and also permitting the guard by reason of its resilient character to snugly grip the runner when applied thereto, and moreover permit stretching of the guard to fit different lengths of runners and adjust itself thereto."
Diagram from Thomas R. Barnard's 1939 patent application.
Nestor Johnson died in 1950, and the next year Alfred K. Johnson's company went under. But by that point, neither of the Johnson brothers' stakes in the skate guard trade really mattered. In November of 1939, Thomas W. Barnard of St. Paul, Minnesota patented his own unique brand of skate guards, fashioned of wood.
Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine
Thomas W. Barnard's timing was perfect, owing to large-scale World War II shortages of natural rubber when the Japanese quickly conquered the rubber-producing regions in Southeast Asia. Barnard's wooden "skate guards" were a huge hit with figure skaters, who would get their name and skating club engraved in them so as not to mix them up in the dressing rooms. The cost in 1942 was two dollars and seventy-five cents and they sold like hot cakes. Also popular during wartime were the Cryst-O-Guards designed by Betty and Bill Wade. Manufactured by the NuLine Manufacturing Company in Chicago, these adjustable guards were made of lucite, an acrylic resin often used in shoe manufacturing.
Skate guards from Olympiad Skate Company in St. Paul, Minnesota
In the years that followed, countless patents were filed for skate guards made of everything from wood and rawhide to rubber to plastic, with numerous variations in designs. Some had collapsible hinges; others had notches and adjustable plastic straps.
Photo courtesy "Ice Skating" magazine
By 1946, the "National Skating Guide" listed over twenty American companies that manufactured skate guards. The popular Walkon Guards, distributed by Grove Hardware in Kansas, were made of plastic and 'strong fiber' with an aluminum core. A novel DIY project even appeared in the Junior Hobby Club column of the "Buffalo Evening News" in January of 1957, instructing young people on how to sew their own 'soakers' out of old blankets.
Photo courtesy "Skating World" magazine
Though wooden, rubber, and leather skate guards may seem foreign to the skaters of today, they were all the rage at one point in time. Such has always been the case in skating. Trends wax and wane, but the general underlying concept of 'what works' will evolve but retain its original character.
Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.
Photo courtesy Sveriges Centralförening för Idrottens Främjande Archive
Born on October 23, 1885, in Stockholm, Sweden, Elna Charlotta Elvira Montgomery was the daughter of Frans Otto Vilhelm Fabian Montgomery, a bookkeeper and office manager for a machine company, and his second wife, Lydia Wilhelmina Lamberg.
Right off the bat, I know what you're probably thinking. Montgomery? That doesn't sound very Swedish. The last name Montgommerie was actually adopted by Elna's father's ancestors in the early eighteenth century. Over the years, it got anglicized.
At any rate, Elna was the youngest of Frans and Lydia's five children. She had one brother, named Bertil Wilhelm, and three sisters: Ellen Maria, Edith Hilbur Wilhelmina and Willy Helena Leonora. The family had ties to the Finnish nobility and was well-off enough to employ a live-in servant.
Elna joined the Stockholms Allmänna Skridskoklubb at the age of fourteen in 1900, studying both school figures and free skating under the watchful eye of coach Henrik Petersson. That same year, she placed second in her very first competition. Like Madge Syers, Lili Kronberger, Muriel Harrison, Dorothy Greenhough-Smith and several other prominent female skaters of the early twentieth century, Elna found herself in the position of being forced to compete against men - or not at all. She did just that, winning a youth competition in 1901 and going up against male skaters in the 1905 Nordiska Spelen (Nordic Games) held in her home city. She also skated pairs with a man named Erik Amundson.
Elna Montgomery at the 1908 Swedish Championships. Photo courtesy Sveriges Centralförening för Idrottens Främjande Archive.
In 1906, when the Swedish Championships were held in Gothenburg, Sweden, a separate competition for women was held for the first time in the country. With little competition, Elna easily won. However, the event wasn't recognized as an official part of the competition. She had to wait until 1908, the year women were first allowed to officially compete in the event, to be recognized as Sweden's first women's champion. In actuality, she won the 1908 event in Karlstad by default, because she was the only woman brave enough to enter. Her win set in motion a long standing tradition: women from SASK dominated the women's event at the Swedish Championships every single year until 1936.
Following the 1906 Swedish Championships, Elna travelled to St. Petersburg, where she won a bronze medal in an international competition held in the Russian city. She did all of this while holding down a job as a stenographer.
Later that year, at the age of twenty-two, Elna once again made history when she entered the women's figure skating competition at the 1908 Summer Olympic Games at Prince's Skating Club in London, England. Along with tennis players Anna Märtha Vilhelmina Adlerstråhle and Elsa Wallenberg, she became one of the first three women in history from Sweden to ever compete at the Olympic Games. She was the very first female figure skater, or athlete in any winter sport, for that matter.
Elna just missed the medal podium at the 1908 Olympics, placing fourth behind Madge Syers, Elsa Rendschmidt and Dorothy Greenhough-Smith. Commentary from "The Fourth Olympiad, the Official Report of the Olympic Games 1908" by Theodore Andrea Cook noted that Montgomery struggled on the third compulsory figure, the change loop, and in the free skate, "skated first, and, save for a slight fall owing to a slip when attempting a toe-step, she skated steadily and well, though her programme did not contain any items of difficulty."
Elna Montgomery and Zsófia Méray-Horváth. Photo courtesy Sveriges Centralförening för Idrottens Främjande Archive.
Although she never competed in any official events at the World Championships, Elna remained active as a skater after her Olympic appearance. She finished third in her second appearance at the Nordic Games in 1909, behind Elsa Rendschmidt and Zsófia Méray-Horváth. That same year, a figure skating exhibition was held in conjunction with the Swedish Speed Skating Championships. She performed alongside Ulrich Salchow and British pairs skaters Phyllis and James Johnson for a visiting class of physical education students, imploring them to recognize the beauty and athleticism of the sport.
In Gothenburg in 1912, Elna won her second and final women's title, decisively beating two future Olympic Medallists: Magda Mauroy (Julin) and Svea Norén. She made history for a third time that year when a pairs competition was first included in the competition. Surprise, surprise... she won that too. Her partner was none other than Olympic and World Medallist Per Thorén. She took one final stab at the Swedish title in 1916, but by that point, Mauroy and Norén were establishing themselves as her successors. She won the silver medal and retired from competition.
Anna Hübler, Elsa Rendschmidt, Elna Montgomery and Lili Kronberger
As quietly as she made history that has been all but forgotten, Elna got married to Copenhagen-born Allan Bäckman, moved to Malmö, and continued to skate for pleasure. Swedish skating historian Lennart Månsson informed me that she even once staged a comeback of sorts: "As late as 1924, at the age of 38, she entered the Danish National Championships as a guest skater, outside of the official competition. Her result would have earned her second place."
Widowed on August 28, 1956, Elna passed away in Båstad, Skåne, a small village in the south of Sweden, on June 13, 1981, at the age of ninety-five. At the time of her death, she was the oldest surviving figure skater who competed at the 1908 Summer Olympic Games in London.
Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.
Figure skating wouldn't be figure skating without its judges. From the encouraging judges who guide us through our Preliminary Dance tests to the crooked 'tap-dancing judges' and Marie-Reine Le Gougne in Salt Lake City, these volunteers certainly do run the gamut.
In 2020 and 2022, the blog looked back at fascinating stories of judges from years past. It's been a couple of years but here's a third installment!
A JUDGE WHO STOOD BEHIND HIS MARKS
In 1964, British judge Harry Lawrence earned himself a one-year suspension from the ISU for 'inexperience'. Serving as a judge at the World Championships for the first time, Lawrence placed the number three British couple (Diane Towler and Bernard Ford) in a tie for fourth in the compulsories, eleventh in the free dance, and seventh overall. They had finished an unlucky thirteenth. Lawrence's suspension was considered quite controversial at the time, as he was an experienced N.S.A. judge who had done a fine job judging at the European Championships in Berlin in 1961. If anything, the ISU could have accused him of national bias. Lawrence stood by his scores, believing that the other judges hadn't known what to do with the virtually unknown young team. Two years later, Towler and Ford were World Champions. Lawrence never judged at the World Championships again. ONE TOUGH COOKIE
Harry N. Keighley. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.
Chicago's Harry N. Keighley served as the USFSA's President from 1949 to 1952. A prominent USFSA judge, referee and accountant, he devoted over thirty years to the sport of figure skating. Two years before his death in 1983, seventy-nine year-old Keighley suffered a heart attack and lost consciousness while judging Larry Holliday's Novice 4th Test figures at the Evanston Figure Skating Club in Illinois. Holliday recalled, "After he passed out, I got off the ice and waited a few minutes for him to come to. We waited thirty minutes, and after he recovered, he insisted on finishing the test. He would not allow the ambulance to take him away. Tough man! Club officials gave him a chair to sit as he judged. Back then, the judges stood on the ice right in front of the skater to terrorize us! He passed me and the running joke was always, 'Wow, Larry your figures were so bad, Harry couldn't take it.'"
GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN
Distinguished Canadian judge Flora Jean (Gilchrist) Matthews' first trip to the World Championships in Tokyo in 1985 was certainly memorable. When she gave American Debi Thomas (a newcomer on the World stage) high marks of 5.8 and 5.6 in the free skate, a Canadian fan in the stands loudly yelled out, "Fire the Canadian judge!" It didn't seem to matter that Matthews had Thomas fourth in the free skate, the same as the majority of the other judges. The fact that she was simply a high marker was apparently grounds for dismissal. Matthews had the last laugh the following year when she was in Geneva judging the men's event at the World Championships and Thomas took the women's gold.
Not afraid to go against the grain, Matthews memorably served as a judge in the men's events at both the 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympic Games. In Calgary, she was one of four judges who had Brian Orser ahead of winner Brian Boitano. In Albertville, she was one of two judges to place Paul Wylie ahead of winner Viktor Petrenko in the free skate.
NOT YOUR EVERY DAY AMERICAN JUDGES
Left: Virginia Vale. Right: Mabel Lamborn Graham.
Virginia Vale (born Dorothy Howe) made all of her own clothes and had roles in over a dozen B-movies during World War II. In one, she played a race car driver. Elisabeth Daub Hickox rode her own racing pony in Shanghai and played the violin. Katherine Miller Sackett enjoyed canoeing in remote areas along the Minnesota-Canada border. Mary Natwick Meredith was a housewife by day; trapeze enthusiast by night. Minerva Burke tap-danced and played hockey. Mabel Lamborn Graham gave piano lessons, sang, and booked theatrical productions. Nellie Matson Jensen was a talented photographer who enjoyed fishing and skiing. All of these women had one thing in common: they were active figure skating judges in America in the fifties! THE 1957 AUSTRIAN JUDGING SCANDAL
A smiling Adolf Rosdol (seated right) with Canadians F. Herbert Crispo (seated left) and Sandy McKechnie (standing) at the 1957 World Championships. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.
At its meeting prior to the 1957 Congress in Salzburg, the ISU voted to "permanently" suspend two Austrian officials, Hans Grünauer and Adolf Rosdol, for "improper conduct at international skating events." ISU historian Benjamin T. Wright recalled, "Mr. Grünauer had established a 'calculation office', to ascertain throughout a competition the exact position of each competitor with each judge, by means of which the Austrian judge serving on the panel was informed of the current standings and instructed (by signals) as to the marks to be awarded... The so-called calculation office had operated over many years since the advent of open marking, right up to the 1957 World Championships... The case of Mr. Rosdol was perhaps a more difficult one, since he was at the time of his suspension the Chairman of the Figure Skating Committee... Mr. Rosdol had been previously suspended for two years in 1951 for attempting to influence another judge to place an Austrian competitor higher. His engaging in comparable activities, first observed in 1949, had continued at various Championships thereafter and even during the period of his first suspension, as well as after he became an ISU officeholder." The Austrian federation opposed both men's suspensions vehemently, to no use. Grünauer's suspension from the ISU continued until his death in 1976, but Rosdol's suspension was lifted in 1977 by Jacques Favart. Incredibly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, he was soon reappointed as an international judge by the Austrian federation.
Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.
At the turn of the century, Hindley Street in Adelaide, Australia played host to a busy shopping center and the popular Theatre Royal, which showcased the first Lumière moving pictures in the country. The street's businesses were serviceable by a tram car, which travelled from nearby King William Street up to the hills or down to the sea coast. In 1899, another of the street's attractions, the Cyclorama was razed to the ground by fire. It was on the site of this Cyclorama that Henry Newman Reid set to work building a novelty never before seen down under... the first ice rink in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Adelaide Glaciarium was modelled after Prince's Skating Club in London and the Pôle-Nord rink in Paris. The circular building boasted a rink that was one hundred and fifteen by eighty-four feet, with a bandstand and maypole in the middle of the ice. A non-conductive floor and piping were installed and a Hercules refrigeration system at the Adelaide Ice Works (managed by Reid) pumped brine from Light Square - a quarter of a mile away - to the rink. The Glaciarium adjoined the Coffee Palace and was across the street from the Sharples Bros. Printers. In advance of the rink's opening, the May 27, 1904 issue of the "Kapunda Herald" raved, "There will, of course, be absolutely no dust, and the skating conditions will be exhilarating, and in most respects similar to those to be had in the cold regions of the world."
It was standing room only when two thousand, five hundred people showed up on the rink's opening night in early September of 1904, after receiving invitations by post. Considering the capacity was just under six hundred, the place was packed to say the very least. Member of Parliament John Darling Jr. declared the rink officially open on that day, although the owner allowed "a few persons who either had experience in ice skating or were proficient on rollers" a sneak peek the weekend prior.
Newspaper accounts from the Glaciarium's opening night reflected what you may expect... that many Australians didn't know what to do with themselves the first time they skated on ice. One man, who knocked down five or six people on his fourth fall, sat on the ice completely lost until someone yelled, "Get up! Or you'll freeze to the ice." Several women held up others while they stopped to eexamine the ice and one Aussie excitedly proclaimed to reporters, "It's glorious - but - Great Scot - it's cold!" Another columnist noted, "The number of elderly men skating was quite a feature, and they were the only ones who attempted fancy figures. Maybe they looked back on boyhoods spent in the mother country and were renewing their youth on the ice."
In September of 1904, "The Register" reported, "Between 300 and 400 people can occupy the floor at the same time, and still have ample room in which to skate. Under the south-eastern gallery, a refreshment room has been built, and in other parts of the building retiring rooms for ladies and gentleman have been prepared. In fact, everything likely to add to the comfort of patrons has been done, regardless of expense. At the western end of the hall, which is festooned with long streams of gay-coloured chiffon, a mirror 45 ft. by 8 ft. has been erected, and offers a bewildering effect as the gliding forms of the skaters flash in reflection across its surface. Arrangements have been whereby in the hottest part of the summer, or at any other time, the ice surface can be thawed off, a false floor placed over the pipes, and the building used as a concert hall... Splendid seating accommodation has been provided for 2,000 people, exclusive of those on the rink. Six electric Flume lamps of 2,000 candle power have been placed inside the main hall and two similar illuminants outside the main building. Numerous smaller lights have been distributed in the refreshment and other rooms, and the workshop in which the skates are stored and sharpened... Judging by the enthusiasm... and the ease with which the skaters acquired the knack of balancing themselves, the ice rink will be an unqualified success."
Costumed skater at a skating carnival at the Adelaide Glaciarium. Photo courtesy National Library Of Australia.
What made the Adelaide Glaciarium so different from the early rinks in England and France was the fact that it didn't just cater to rich white people. Men and women of all classes and colours took to the ice... and almost all were equally inexperienced and thus, in the same boat. The Glaciarium had three sessions daily - morning, afternoon and evening - and skates could be rented for as little as one shilling.
Photo courtesy National Library Of Australia
The Adelaide Glaciarium's first manager was John Caldwell, an accomplished roller skater. He, along with several attendants, helped beginner skaters as best as they could. In February of 1905, Walter William Brewer came to town. Billed as "Professor Brewer, a scientific skater from the famous London Princess Rink", Brewer was hired as the club's head instructor and gave an endless series of nightly exhibitions as soon as he arrived in town to get the Aussies excited about skating. He also demonstrated cross-cuts, brackets, loops, rockers, counters, spread eagles, paragraph loops and spins during the club's sessions, and tried to engage the skaters by getting them to copy him. One account from "The Advertiser" of one of his first performances in Adelaide noted, "The feature of the evening was an exhibition of fancy skating by Professor Brewer, who comes to Australia with excellent credentials. He proved that he is a skater whose equal has never been seen in Australia on an ice rink, and was loudly applauded for his dextrous and interesting exhibition, which reached a climax when he turned a complete somersault while going at full speed."
Costumed skaters at a carnival at the Adelaide Glaciarium, 1905. Photo courtesy State Library Of South Australia
The seeds Walter William Brewer sewed in attempts to interest the citizens in Adelaide paved the way for the club's first carnival on April 12, 1905. The ice was packed with skaters in formal wear and fancy dress, many of whom tried to mimic Brewer's 'fancy figures'. Nearly two thousand spectators - again, over capacity - looked on as Mayor Theodore Bruce presented prizes for Best Fancy Dress Costume, Most Original Costume, Most Sustained Character and Most Grotesque Character. Some of the costumes included an American Indian, Little Red Riding Hood, a Scotchman in a kilt, a Samoan belle... and a man in a wedding dress who went by the drag name Ada Crossley. Brewer gave a much-raved-about exhibition during the intermission.
Photos courtesy National Library Of Australia
Not long after, the Adelaide Skating Club was formed, with W.J. Gunson presiding. The club had weekly private sessions on Monday evenings, and Walter William Brewer served as the club's Head Instructor. It was on those Monday night sessions that the residents of Adelaide would have received their first formal instruction in figure skating. In the years that followed, carnivals became the Glaciarium's chief attraction.
West's Picture Theatre and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra's Grainger Studio - future incarnations of the Adelaide Glaciarium. Photos courtesy State Library Of South Australia, The Historical Society Of South Australia
Encouraged by the success of the Adelaide Glaciarium, Henry Newman Reid opened the Melbourne Glaciarium in 1905 and sold his shares in the Adelaide venture to his business partners Sir Colin Stewart and William Booker in 1906. Unfortunately, business slowed down after Reid's departure and the Glaciarium closed on June 30, 1907. The venue later became a roller rink, a vaudeville house, theatre, Chinese restaurant, disco, cinema and nightclub. Today it plays host to the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Though the Adelaide Glaciarium was short-lived, its success helped generate interest in figure skating down under and was the catalyst to the opening of similar Glaciariums throughout Australia.
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.
Held on January 21, 1900, in Berlin, the 1900 European Figure Skating Championships marked the first time since 1893 that Germany played host to the European Championships. Although good ol' Wikipedia claims "Skaters competed only in the categories of men's singles" and "the competitors performed only compulsory figures", the event included competitions for senior men, junior men and pairs skating. It also most definitely included free skating competitions, referenced in both ISU records and numerous German and Austrian newspaper accounts. The judging panel for all three events consisted of three German judges, one Swedish judge and one Swiss judge, stacking the events in favour of the German and Austrian participants.
Ulrich Salchow and Gustav Hügel
The turn-of-the-century competition pitted Ulrich Salchow - the two-time and defending European Champion - against Gustav Hügel - the two-time and defending World Champion. Salchow took a comfortable lead in the school figures, only to be defeated by Hügel in the free skating. As was often the case in those days as figures counted for more than half of the overall score, Salchow's early lead was more than enough to win him his third European title. Although a Swede - Viktor Balck - was the ISU President at the time, Salchow defeating Hügel in Berlin with only one Scandinavian judge on the panel was still considered something of an upset, even considering Salchow's competitive record to date at the time. Norway's Oscar Holthe and Johan Peter Lefstad placed third and fourth, ahead of Franz Zillÿ, the bronze medallist from the very first European Championships in Hamburg in 1891. A sixth competitor, Norway's Martinus Lørdahl, was forced to withdraw as the result of an injury.
A report that appeared in the January 28, 1900 issue of the "Illustrierte Sport-Zeitung" noted, "Salchow, perhaps, did the [compulsory] exercises even better than in the previous year. He made them very large and with excellent coverage. In the free-skating, which was very nicely put together and from him was very beautiful, he began with a jump... a spiral [following with] several dance steps, the Engelmann Star, Hügel Star... and the end was a Haines pirouette in deep knee bend. Hügel's [figures] were also large in axis and beautifully covered, but he made a sound when he skated which was more than noticed... The verve with which he otherwise completed his program this time was not so noticeable... With a spiral he ran in, then made a very beautiful standing pirouette, several dance steps, his special Haines-Pirouette with low knee, rising to the high pirouette, and a pirouette with the same swing, then some figures of his own invention and finally a deep pirouette. Holthe and Lefstad from Trondheim, the two in somewhat acrobatic costumes skated the [compulsory] exercises not as well as Salchow and Hügel, but both skated brilliantly in the free-skating with colossal and secure jumps and deep pirouettes. Holthe also performed a waltz on one leg, which was quite good."
The junior men's competition which was held in conjunction with the European Championships was won by Edgar Syers of Great Britain. The "Illustrierte Sport-Zeitung" noted, "Syers has significantly improved since the previous year. He's skating now with more momentum and energy and also covers the ice pretty well. His skating was indeed simple, but it was very elegant. Steiner from Vienna skated quite well, and in the free-skating, which was also very simple, he showed some pretty dancing steps."
Christa von Szabo and Gustav Euler
The pairs competition was won by Viennese siblings Otto and Mizzi Bohatsch. Their program was described as "really exquisitely chosen" and reportedly received "repetitive stormy applause." Madge Cave and Edgar Syers, then engaged to be married, placed second ahead of Christa von Szabo and Herr Euler. They reportedly skated "with great calm and [were] quite elegant."
The Hôtel de Rome in Berlin around the turn of the century
The evening following the competition, the skaters and judges assembled at the Grand Hôtel de Rome for a banquet where the results of the event were announced and prizes awarded.
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.
Photo courtesy Canada's Sports Hall Of Fame. Used with permission.
Canada had just introduced a capital gains tax and a ban on cigarette advertisements on television, film and radio. In England, unemployment had reached the one million mark for the first time since the thirties, and a miner's strike foreshadowed the oil crisis and Three-Day Week to come. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's son Justin was only a few months old and Bettye Lavette's cover of Neil Young's new hit song "Heart Of Gold" blared on the 8-track players of Volkswagen Beetles.
The year was 1972 and sixteen years before the Battles Of The Brians and Carmens and Liz Manley's show-stopping free skate at the 1988 Olympic Games, Albertans herded into the Stampede Corral in record numbers for the 1972 World Figure Skating Championships.
Layout of arena showing ticket prices. Tickets for school figures and practice sessions (not shown) were $1.00, payable only at the door. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.
George J. Blundun conceived a Canadian bid for Worlds during his stint as CFSA President from 1967 to 1969. Pulling together a copy of the CFSA's financial report and a report of the host committee of the 1960 World Championships in Vancouver, he met with Thayer Tutt, the President of the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, to discuss the budget needed to pull off a successful bid for the World Championships. Tutt, who was directly involved in the organizing of four World Championships, was supportive of Blundun.
George J. Blundun honoured by the city of Calgary with a plaque commemorating the 1972 World Championships in 1981. Photo courtesy "Canadian Skater" magazine.
However, when Blundun met with ISU officials at the 1968 World Championships in Geneva, he learned that Japan was considering a bid and was encouraged to bid for the 1971 World Championships instead. Though Toronto also submitted a bid, Blundun secured a twenty-two thousand dollar grant from the Province of Alberta, a one hundred and twenty thousand advance from the Royal Bank and five thousand, five hundred dollars from the city of Calgary.
In her book "Reflections On The CFSA: A History Of The Canadian Figure Skating Association 1887-1990", Teresa Moore explained that Blundun "wanted to see Canada as a major force in the skating community and the way to do that, he reckoned, was to bring the world to Canada. He was also a westerner and when he brought the world to Canada, he wanted to make sure it was Calgary they saw. He planned to hold the best World Championships the world had ever seen - not to repeat the success of Vancouver, but to outdo it. His Worlds would be like nothing anyone had ever seen. And he planned to do the unthinkable... he planned to make money doing it."
Wally Attrill, the building superintendent, spraying white paint at the Stampede Corral in preparation for the competition. Photo courtesy Glenbow Archives.
Blundun's Calgary bid beat out Toronto easily, but in June of 1968, it was announced that the 1971 World Championships would be held in Lyon, France. Unphased by the loss, Blundun applied to host the World Championships in 1972. Japan had also applied, citing the logic that it would be easier for skaters to remain in Asia following the Sapporo Olympics than to travel to another continent shortly thereafter. However, the ISU balked at the cost of holding the 1972 World Championships in Japan and finally decided to accept Blundun's bid. The good news was announced by the CFSA in June of 1970.
Photo courtesy Canada's Sports Hall Of Fame. Used with permission.
With the assistance of Nancy Southam (the wife of ATCO President Ron Southam), Mel Shannon, Marg Southern, John Francis, Beverley Brodie and ISU judge Joan Maclagan, Blundun secured the Glencoe and Foothills Arena for practice ice, recruited two hundred local volunteers and put together a team to organize every detail of the March 6 to 12, 1972 event.
Left: Official logo of the competition. Right: Commemorative badge. Photo courtesy Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. Used with permission.
The 1972 World Championships made a profit of one hundred and forty thousand dollars - no small sum in those days! In a 1989 interview, CFSA President Donald Gilchrist recalled, "He [Blundun] put a whole new lease of life on the World Championships and the money that could be made. The Americans had never made any money because they always held it at the Broadmoor and the arena up there is like a theatre."
Canada Post's commemorative stamp issued in conjunction with the 1972 World Championships
The event was televised internationally on Eurovision and its Iron Curtain satellite Intervision and ABC's Wide World Of Sports. Johnny Esaw and Otto Jelinek called it for CTV. To commemorate the event, Canada Post issued a special eight-cent stamp five days before the competition. It was the first time a Canadian stamp was ever issued in conjunction with the World Figure Skating Championships.
However, not everything in Calgary was all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. In "Skating" magazine, Nancy Gupton Aitken recalled, "In the days before the competition, everything that could go wrong, did. Music tapes broke, were spliced, and retaped. Competitors missed buses, were stuck in elevators, caught the 'flu bug', fell and were hospitalized, and misinterpreted practice schedules, but still made lifelong friends while learning each other's languages. Coaches got in the way, yelled at their skaters, and berated music operators. Parents alternately laughed and cried."
Ondrej Nepela and Trixi Schuba
With huge thanks to Lindsay Moir of the Glenbow Museum (who went above and beyond with her help with this particular blog), Canada's Sports Hall Of Fame, Marie Petrie McGillvray and the Alberta Sports Hall Of Fame, we'll explore the story of the event played out!
Photo courtesy Canada's Sports Hall Of Fame. Used with permission.
THE PAIRS COMPETITION
Pairs medallists in Calgary. Photo courtesy Marie Petrie McGillvray.
The required elements for the pairs compulsory short program were side-by-side double Salchows, a straight line step sequence, back outside death spiral, side-by-side flying camel spins and a double overhead lasso lift. Skating to "Metelitza" and "Csárdás", twenty-two year old Irina Rodnina and twenty-four year old Alexei Ulanov made history, receiving the first two 6.0's ever awarded in the pairs compulsory short program at the World Championships. One was for technical merit and the other for artistic impression.
Rodnina and Ulanov's success was remarkable in that the Sunday before the start of the competition, Rodnina was reportedly hospitalized due to a concussion and shoulder injury after a missed lift in practice. They missed two days of practice as a result. The reported concussion wasn't the only reason that Rodnina was "pale and unsteady" in Calgary. She and Ulanov were barely on speaking terms and this event was when the love triangle between Rodnina, Ulanov and Lyudmila Smirnova reached its apex. Sandra Bezic recalled that as a result, "Her 'Sad Eyes' exhibition number was never more poignant." Between the Sapporo Olympics and the Worlds in Calgary, Smirnova and her partner Andrei Suraikin had been sent back to Leningrad, skipping the exhibition at the Closing Ceremonies. When Ulanov returned, he quickly married Smirnova.
Irina Rodnina and Alexei Ulanov. Left photo courtesy Lindsay Moir, Glenbow Museum; Calgary Public Library Archives. Right photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.
Irina Rodnina struggled with her double Axel and double Salchow in the free skate, but the judges still awarded her and Ulanov 421.8 points and 9.0 ordinal placings for their effort... enough to take the overall title by a wide margin based on their result in the compulsory short program. They skated from Alexander Glazunov's "The Seasons" and Aram Khachaturian's ballet "Gayane".
Lyudmila Smirnova and Andrei Suraikin. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.
In what would be their final competition together, Smirnova and Suraikin skated extremely well in both phases of the competition, their only mistake being a missed double flip jump by Smirnova in the free skate. Their marks in the free skate, which ranged from 5.7 to 5.9, were comparable to Rodnina and Ulanov. JoJo Starbuck and Ken Shelley struggled on their lift in the compulsory short program but their come-from-behind free skate upstaged the Soviets. They earned two standing ovations - one after their program and another after their marks - and moved up to take the bronze. East Germans Manuela Groß and Uwe Kagelmann dropped from third to fourth, missing both throw double Axel attempts in their program.
Irina Rodnina and Alexei Ulanov. Photo courtesy Lindsay Moir, Glenbow Museum; Calgary Public Library Archives.
The UPI News Agency noted, "The Russian couple [Rodnina and Ulanov] so far outclassed other competitors with their highly original and challenging free-skating exhibition that they were unbeatable despite several stumbles by the faint Miss Rodnina. The petite skater, still pale and unsteady after a slight concussion she incurred during a practice session Saturday, had to be assisted to her dressing room following the couple's performance and a doctor waited to examine her while she returned to the podium to claim her title."
Placing fifth overall, West Germans Almut Lehmann and Herbert Weisinger thrilled the Calgary crowd with a five jump combination in their free skate set to Aaron Copeland's "Rodeo" and "Billy The Kid", but they included a cartwheel lift that some felt might have been illegal. Americans Melissa and Mark Militano finished ninth, landing a throw double Axel late in their free skate after missing one earlier in their program. In the compulsory short program, the Militanos had made an extremely unorthodox music choice, skating to the eerie soundtrack from the Alfred Hitchcock film "Psycho".
Top: JoJo Starbuck and Ken Shelley. Bottom: Melissa and Mark Militano. Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine.
Canadian Champions Sandra and Val Bezic placed eighth in their third trip to the World Championships, but earned a standing ovation for their compulsory short program to "Tin Roof Blues". Sandra Bezic told "Calgary Herald" staff writer Ray Blair, "I could feel the audience behind us. They were just great." Val added, "The ovation touched me. It meant more than the marks." Those marks, in the 5.3 to 5.7 range, were loudly booed by the pro-Canadian crowd. Mrs. Ellen Burka stated that their equally impressive free skate was "the best they could have done." Sandra Bezic recalled, "It was an awesome experience for the Canadian team. Standing ovations for everyone... a rowdy Calgary crowd for all the competitors. It was also a great competition for Val and me." Calgary made such an impression on Mary Petrie (who placed eleventh with partner John Hubbell) that she moved there, married former Glencoe Club President Doug McGillvray and started a summer skating school. She recalled, "It was really fun to skate at Worlds in Calgary. We felt some pressure to skate well in front of a hometown audience but also tremendous support!"
THE MEN'S COMPETITION
Men's medallists. Photo courtesy Marie Petrie McGillvray.
After the men's school figures, twenty-one year old Ondrej Nepela of Czechoslovakia had a forty-one point lead over twenty-six year old Sergei Chetverukhin of the Soviet Union. The Olympic Gold and Silver Medallists were both widely known for their strength in the compulsories and certainly lived up to expectations in Calgary. Nepela told "Calgary Herald" staff writer Bob Tate, "I always want to do my best in competition and I think I did here. I was very satisfied, particularly with the first three figures, and my total marks were good." Totals perhaps, but on the final figure the American judge Dorothy Burkholder gave Nepela a 3.6, which stood out vastly in comparison to the East German judge Helga von Wiecki's 4.8.
Left: Sergei Chetverukhin. Right: Toller Cranston. Photo courtesy Lindsay Moir, Glenbow Museum; Calgary Public Library Archives.
Sergei Chetverukhin wasn't as pleased, telling reporters he planned to retire after this event and that he wasn't as pleased with his final two figures as he was with the first four. He conceded, "It's possible to win, but I don't think so. [Nepela] is a strong free skater, too." Rounding out the top five after figures were Vladimir Kovalev, Jan Hoffmann and John 'Misha' Petkevich. British skater Haig Oundjian withdrew mid-way through the figures, sitting in an unlucky thirteenth place. He complained to reporters, "Any sport that relies on human judgment to decide the competition is not a sport."
Canada's hopes were dashed when twenty-one year old Toller Cranston - the only skater the CFSA elected to send to Worlds - placed a disappointing eleventh on one figure and ninth overall after he'd performed the other five.
Though Toller Cranston claimed that he "forgot how to skate" during the warm-up, he delivered one of the finest performances of his career and actually won the free skate ahead of Chetverukhin and Nepela, though Chetverukhin received two 6.0's for artistic impression to Cranston's one from Austrian judge Franz Heinlein. Cranston's performance included two clean triples and his characteristic flair, creative spins and musical brilliance. He didn't just receive a standing ovation from the Calgary crowd - he earned one. There was considerable criticism about the fact that ABC's Wide World Of Sports didn't televise his performance. The consensus was that, by excluding it, an inaccurate perspective of the competition was portrayed to the public. "Nepela, Chetverukhin and Kovalev may have won the medals," noted Nancy Gupton Aitken in "Skating" magazine, "But Cranston's performance was the story of the evening."
Ondrej Nepela and Sergei Chetverukhin. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.
In a column penned for the "Calgary Herald", World Champion Paul Thomas remarked, "The packed Stampede Corral was alive with anticipation Thursday evening as Canada's hope, Toller Cranston, came onto the ice to skate. And how he skated! Off to a great start with a double Axel, double Axel, and off he went... using his music well with great steps, style and poise he brought off his triple Salchow and triple loop with ease... What can one say? He received a standing ovation and moved up to fifth place from ninth, which means Canada can send a full team of men to Worlds next year."
John 'Misha' Petkevich practicing in Calgary. Photo courtesy Glenbow Archives.
Like Cranston, John 'Misha' Petkevich of the United States also turned in an outstanding free skate in Calgary. However, Nepela, Chetverukhin and Vladimir Kovalev's combined scores were still enough to keep them on the podium and Petkevich in fourth.
Canadian and American journalists struggled to explain to the public why the two brilliant North American free skaters hadn't won medals. Petkevich retired and focused his attention on his biology Ph. D. at Oxford; Cranston immersed himself in his art and regrouped for a rematch with Nepela in Bratislava the following year. The Olympic and World Champion had announced to the North American press that he wanted to retire from competition but acknowledged he was under pressure from his federation to retain his amateur status for another year and compete in the 1973 World Championships in his home country.
Ondrej Nepela, Sergei Chetverukhin and Vladimir Kovalev. Photo courtesy Lindsay Moir, Glenbow Museum; Calgary Public Library Archives.
The competition was equally disappointing for John Curry. With Haig Oundjian's withdrawal, the hopes of Great Britain rested on his shoulders. Despite placing a commendable sixth in the figures and seventh in the free skate, he placed ninth overall due to the scoring system in place at the time. Curry received more points than the eighth place finisher, Gordon McKellen, Jr. of the United States, but had one fewer ordinal placing. The Referee and Assistant Referee of the men's event were Donald Gilchrist and Sonia Bianchetti Garbato.
Sergei Chetverukhin, Kenneth Shelley, Ondrej Nepela and Toller Cranston. Photo courtesy Sandra Bezic.
THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION
Ice dance medallists. Photo courtesy Marie Petrie McGillvray.
There was a great deal of speculation in Calgary as to how the ice dance competition would play out. At the European Championships in Gothenburg, West German siblings Angelika and Erich Buck simply couldn't make a mistake. Pulling off a rare upset, they handily defeated Soviets Lyudmila Pakhomova and Aleksandr Gorshkov. Seventy-five hundred spectators crowded into the Stampede Corral to watch the two teams go head-to-head in the compulsories, curious to see how things would play out in a rematch. The three compulsories drawn were the Starlight Waltz, Rhumba and Argentine Tango. It was the first time the Rhumba was skated at the World Championships. Another first in Calgary was the introduction of a rotating starting list. After each dance, the groups of skaters rotated so that no couple faced the perceived disadvantage of having to skate in the first or second group every time.
Photo courtesy Canada's Sports Hall Of Fame. Used with permission.
Pakhomova and Gorshkov and the Bucks were both less than stellar in the Starlight Waltz, with the Soviets coming out on top. The Bucks finished first in the Rhumba, though many felt that a third team, Americans Judy Schwomeyer and James Sladky should have been the winners. The Soviets rebounded to win the Argentine Tango, etching out a narrow 1.2 lead over the Bucks after the compulsories. Schwomeyer and Sladky, with 248.7 points and twenty-three ordinal placings, certainly weren't far behind the top two teams by much at all. Hal Walker, the sports editor for the "Calgary Herald", reported that the banks of lighting set up for the television crews melted a small section of the ice during one of the compulsory dances.
Lyudmila Pakhomova and Aleksandr Gorshkov. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.
The OSP that year was the flashy Samba, a popular choice with the Calgary crowd, and Pakhomova and Gorshkov's win in this phase of the competition only widened their overall lead. In her book "Figure Skating History: The Evolution Of Dance On Ice", Lynn Copley-Graves described the grand finale of the event - the free dance - thusly: "The Bucks performed moves aimed to excite the crowd - lifts, a fast-moving broken sit spin, and a death spiral that would count against the Duchesnays a decade and a half later. Schwomeyer/Sladky skated the most difficult of the free dances with changes of tempo and a beautiful blues section. They had never been so relaxed. The only thing wrong with their free was their marks. Pakhomova/Gorshkov skated their best free dance yet. Aleksandr, though improved, was still rough around the edges. But nobody watched him anyway... Many thought Judy and Jim should have won or at least come out ahead of the Bucks, whose program contained many illegal and questionable moves and too much arm waving, an effect most intrinsic to Eastern European style. No matter what the rules, the judges showed preference for theatrical skating and mini-pairs over dance." Canadians Louise and Barry Soper placed ninth but delighted the Calgary audience with a juxtaposition of blues and samba music. Japan's Keiko Achiwa and Yasuhiro Noto made history as the first Japanese ice dance team to compete in the World Championships. They finished dead last, almost seventy points behind winners Pakhomova and Gorshkov. Popular with the Calgary crowd, the Soviets closed the exhibition following the competition with a rousing program set to Russian folk music. They were called back for encore after encore.
Group shot following the exhibition
A noteworthy aspect of the ice dance competition was the fact the competitors - first through fifteenth places - had the same result after the compulsories and the OSP as they did overall. The only slight change was the fact that Teresa Weyna and Piotr Bojanczyk of Poland bested Anne Wolfers and Roland Mars of France by one place in the free dance, but they remained behind them in unlucky thirteenth overall. The Referee and Assistant Referee of the ice dance event were Lawrence Demmy and George J. Blundun.
Looking back at the event, Judy Sladky recalled, "We'd stayed in for 1972 in case ice dancing made it into the Olympics but it never even came up. At that point, we were getting twenty-five dollars a show and you had to pay for your food and everything else. We had to make money. We had to turn pro."
After the school figures, twenty-year-old Olympic Gold Medallist Trixi Schuba, the daughter of a Viennese shopkeeper, led nineteen-year-old Canadian Karen Magnussen by a whopping one hundred and thirty-one points. Trixi's seventeen marks of 5.0 or better were more than impressive and relatively unheard of in figures at the time. Eighteen-year-old Janet Lynn of Rockford, Illinois stood third, almost forty-four points behind Magnussen and only slightly ahead of Zsuzsa Almássy of Hungary, whom she'd managed to squeeze ahead of after performing especially well on her final two figures. Fifth in figures was Great Britain's Jean Scott.
In the free skate, Janet Lynn delivered an outstanding performance, earning six 5.9's and two perfect 6.0's for artistic impression. Karen Magnussen also outdid herself, skating brilliantly to music from "Spartacus" and earning a standing ovation in her home country. Her only error was a stumble on a double Salchow.
Karen Magnussen. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library, from Toronto Star Photographic Archive. Reproduced for educational purposes under license permission.
Trixi Schuba's performance to selections from "Man Of La Mancha" only earned her the ninth-best free skating scores... but it didn't matter and she repeated as World Champion. Though defeating Schuba would have been practically impossible under the judging system in place at the time, the fact that Magnussen bridged the gap by almost one hundred points was more than impressive, especially because Lynn was the winner of the free skate. In the final tally, she was only thirty-three points behind Schuba and received first-place marks overall from three judges, including the American judge. Lynn, unable to bridge the gap, finished third with twenty-five ordinal placings and two thousand, seven hundred and thirteen points. Almassy finished in fourth, over sixty points ahead of East Germany's Sonja Morgenstern, who was third in the free skate, landing a triple Salchow. Aside from Schuba's win, another key example of the value of figures was the result of East Germany's Christine Errath. Inge Wischnewski's pupil actually finished fourth in the free skate, but an eleventh-place finish in the figures kept her in tenth overall.
Dorothy Hamill, a last-minute replacement for Julie Lynn Holmes, placed fifth in the free skate and seventh overall in her first trip to the World Championships. Her program to music from Stravinsky's "The Firebird" was one of the highlights of the evening. In her book "A Skating Life: My Story", she recalled, "Somehow [my parents] made it seem as if we were on a vacation and put no pressure on me between practices. We drove up to gaze at Lake Louise and then ate at the landmark Banff Springs Hotel. I skated quite well... It probably made my mother feel vindicated about her instincts that I should have been on the Olympic team. I was the fifth-best free skater in the world. Wow! I have to admit, that was a real boost to my confidence. I had officially arrived on the international figure skating scene. Now, if I could only pass ninth-grade English!"
Top: Trixi Schuba, Karen Magnussen and Janet Lynn. Photo courtesy Lindsay Moir, Glenbow Museum; Calgary Public Library Archives. Middle: As a result of her success at the World Championships, Karen Magnussen was invited to be a special guest at the 1972 Calgary Stampede. Bottom: Janet Lynn, Trixi Schuba and Karen Magnussen backstage. Photo courtesy the 1972 ISU Tour Of Champions program.
Toronto's Cathy Lee Irwin placed ninth in her second trip to the World Championships, still recovering from an injury that had sidelined her the previous season. Sixteen-year-old Daria Prychun of Toronto, Canada's third entry in the women's event, was a last-minute replacement for an injured Ruth Hutchinson of Vancouver. She finished fifteenth of the twenty-one entries. The Referee and Assistant Referee of the women's event were Josef Dědič and Elemér Terták.
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