Discover The History Of Figure Skating!
Lovers In A Dangerous Time
Pride Month
Happy Pride Month!
Check out Skate Guard's Pride Month page for Required Reading and a Pinterest board of LGBTQ+ Skating History. Stay tuned to the blog and social media for fabulous new LGBTQ+ figure skating history content throughout the month of June.
National Indigenous History Month
#Unearthed: The Mad English
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. This month's 'buried treasure' is an article called "The Mad English", which first appeared in the November 1949 issue of "Skating World" magazine. It was written by Swiss Champion Nigel Brown, the author of the outstanding book "Ice-Skating: A History". The article explores the impact of early British winter sports enthusiasts on Switzerland's skating culture - and the impacts of the Age of Austerity on skating tourism.
"THE MAD ENGLISH" (NIGEL BROWN)
Brackets and Birdies: The Frances Fletcher Story
The 1969 Canadian Figure Skating Championships
For starters, it was the first Canadian Championships where an opening ceremony was included. After flag-bearers Karen Magnussen and Jay Humphry were escorted to center ice by twelve young skaters, Norris Bowden - the competition chair - made a speech and Linda Carbonetto read the competitor's pledge. David Dore symbolically cut a white ribbon to complete the ceremony.
It was also the first year that the value of school figures was reduced from sixty to fifty percent. This fifty/fifty split between figures and free skating better balanced the playing fields and gave stronger free skaters more of a fair shake than the sixty/forty split that had favoured school figure specialists for decades. From unlikely upsets to new emerging stars, the 1969 Canadian Championships certainly wasn't short on drama. Today, we'll explore the skaters and stories that made this sixties skating event so sensational!
THE NOVICE AND JUNIOR EVENTS
Twelve year old Julie Black of Port Edward claimed the novice women's title while Oakville's Linda Tasker and Allen Carson took top honours in the novice pairs event. To the delight of Cricket Club members, Roger Uuemae and Peter Penev took the top two spots in the novice men's event.
THE PAIRS COMPETITION
In a class of their own, Anna Forder and Richard Stephens finally managed to win the senior pairs title that had eluded them the last two years. Having skated in the shadow of Betty and John McKilligan for some time, Forder and Stephens hailed from Fort Perry, Ontario and were coached by Marg and Bruce Hyland. Their free skating performance was nearly flawless and featured a split double Lutz and fine side-by-side camel spins. The battle for silver and bronze was between two junior teams 'skating up' in the senior ranks. Incredibly, Mary Petrie won her third medal of the competition - her only silver - with partner Bob McAvoy. Mary recalled, "It was a busy, fun year for me... No one competes in three events anymore... not like the very old days. Bob and I were pushing the bar higher in pairs by including double flips as our individual jumps. Most were doing Salchows or toe-loops or even just a single Axel. By placing second in senior pairs we were eligible to go to the North American Championships in Oakland, California."
Sandra and Val Bezic took the bronze ahead of Steven and Nancy Dover. Maureen Walker and Dick Shedlowski, also initially scheduled to compete, withdrew. Sandra recalled, "We wore green (ugh) and we qualified for our first international, North Americans in San Francisco. Our short program was Ellington's 'Caravan' and jazz really worked for us... I would have been twelve - so it's mostly all a blur. I think I recall performing at Maple Leaf Gardens and being in awe of the building."
THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION
'Skating up' in the senior ice dance event, Louise Lind and Barry Soper stood third after the compulsories but dropped behind Hazel Pike and Phillip Boskill after the newly introduced OSP. Mary Church and Tom Falls performed a showy free dance that was a hit with the audience but received low marks from several judges who deducted for illegal moves. The judges in question were (of course) met with a chorus of boo's.
THE MEN'S COMPETITION
Jay Humphry hailed from British Columbia but trained at the Cricket Club with Mrs. Ellen Burka for most of the year. Despite having seven challengers in 1969, few doubted that he'd have much difficulty defending the senior men's title he'd won the year prior in Vancouver. He certainly delivered with his "Orpheus In The Underworld" free skate, although David McGillivray and Toller Cranston gave him a run for his money. Jay's winning program featured a triple toe-loop, three double Axels, three double Lutzes and three other double jumps.
At that point in time, Toller Cranston was training for part of the year in Lake Placid and working as a groundskeeper at the Mirror Lake Inn for room and board. He was also - in his words, not mine - "in the worst shape of [his] entire career." It was not long after this event that his journey with Mrs. Ellen Burka began and he emerged as Canada's leading man.
THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION
After the school figures, sixteen year old defending Canadian Champion Karen Magnussen, Linda Carbonetto and Cathy Lee Irwin were neck and neck, with Magnussen taking an ever-so-slight lead over her eleven rivals. The media hyped up a rivalry between Magnussen and Carbonetto, noting that Magnussen had won the previous year when the Canadian Championships were in her home province but that this year the event was hosted by Carbonetto's club.
In the free skate, Cathy Lee Irwin omitted several jumps from her program due to a hip injury but skated a fine program. Karen Magnussen missed both of her double Axel attempts and Linda Carbonetto skated the performance of her life in front of a hometown crowd, earning a 6.0 for artistic impression from one judge. Jim Proudfoot of the "Toronto Star" remarked, "Miss Carbonetto, of course, realized that she could win last night only if she was superb. She was better than that; she was perfect." In the end, four judges voted for Carbonetto, three for Magnussen and the Canadian Champion was dethroned. Sandra Bezic recalled, "Linda Carbonetto is a sweetheart - a gentle spirit - and skated a brilliant program to win. The best knees ever."
Later, Karen Magnussen reflected to sportswriter Jeff Cross, "I learned a lot from that. It sure made me come back fighting hard. But I just wasn't myself in that competition. It was the only year I can remember that I couldn't get myself up for the championship. I am usually so excited and ready to go, but in Toronto my heart just wasn't into it." She, of course, went on to prove herself time and time again, winning the Olympic silver medal in 1972 and World title in 1973.
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.
A Johannesburg Jumper: The Eric Muller Story
The son of Helene (Ruzicka) and Dr. Isidor Muller, Eric Ludwig Muller was born in Vienna, Austria on November 7, 1922. He was the youngest of three children and his older siblings, Kurt and Elisabeth, were fraternal twins. His father was an engineer with business interests in South Africa. In his youth, he attended a boys school called the K. K. Staatsrealschule, which in 1935 was renamed the Robert Hamerling-Realgymnasium.
When Eric was thirteen, he and his mother emigrated to South Africa aboard the Giulio Cesare, following his father who emigrated separately aboard the Giulio Cesare's sister ship Duilio. Their decision to relocate was a fateful and timely one. The following year, The Aliens 1 Act of 1937 was enacted by the South African government. This Act put into place an Immigrants Selection Board, which screened each immigrant from outside of the British Empire. The Act was enacted with the goal of reducing Jewish immigration to the country.
Between 1933 and 1939, over five thousand Jews emigrated from Austria and Germany to South Africa, hoping to escape the anti-Semitic wave in Europe... and Eric and his mother were two of them. Had they stayed in Vienna, they very well could have lost their home and possessions before losing their lives in Nazi concentration camps. Eric's siblings names weren't among ship manifests so it is unclear what their fates were during the War. The fact that the Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution lists numerous Kurt and Elisabeth Muller's isn't encouraging, to say the least.
Prior to World War II, Eric was educated at Jeppe High School in Johannesburg. In 1937, less than a year after he arrived in the city, an ice rink was set up during The Empire Exhibition, funded by a gold mining company. Afterwards, the setup was moved to Springfield under the name the Wembley Ice Rink. It was at this rink that Eric began pursuing the art of figure skating. This was the same year the South African Ice Skating Association (SAISA) was formed.
Eric and Arthur Apfel were among the country's first serious figure skaters. In those early days, there was little professional instruction, so amateur skaters like Eric and Arthur had to help each other when training for the first SAISA figure and dance tests, which were modelled after the tests of Great Britain's National Skating Association. Their progress would have greatly depended on trial and error, reading books and the advice of foreign skaters that visited Johannesburg.
During the War, the skating club at Wembley Ice Rink's membership swiftly dropped from four hundred to two hundred. Ice dancing contests (the country's first competitions) ceased and the number of shows and tests taken declined drastically. Forced to hang up his skates, Eric joined the South African Corps of Signals, a branch of the South African Army. He did radar research work and was on active service on several coastal radar stations in the Special Signal Services division. He was fortunate enough to be able to keep up his education through the War, and earned an engineering degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in March of 1944.
After the War ended, Eric dusted off his blades and resumed skating at the Wembley Ice Rink in Johannesburg. Inspired by the success of his friend Arthur Apfel, who won the bronze medal at the 1947 World Championships in Stockholm, Eric entered the South African Championships the following year and took first place. He went on to win another three National titles in 1949, 1950 and 1951. All of these events were open to both men and women. He also won an open free skating competition at the Johannesburg rink in 1950 and the 1950 and 1951 National ice dance titles. At the free skating competition in 1950, he defeated Travers Penrose, one of the country's most dominant skaters in future years. When Eric won the 1950 South African title, he was the only skater in the competition to do a Lutz, loop and Salchow jump. Arthur Apfel remarked in a short write-up in "Skating World" magazine, "Muller skated with his usual accuracy in the figures and performed some fine high jumps in the free."
The fact that both Arthur and Eric, two of South Africa's first elite skaters, were Jewish is certainly an interesting historical note - especially so considering that during wartime in South Africa, many Jewish immigrants to the country were treated quite poorly. One of the country's political parties had enacted the The Aliens 1 Act of 1937, while another argued that it was too lenient. A great many Afrikaners people openly espoused pro-Nazi views. For two Jewish athletes to emerge victorious in the post-War years was indeed significant.
Eric set aside his skates at the age of twenty-eight after winning his final two National titles in 1951. He and his wife Lily had three children, but one of their sons sadly passed away. He acted as director of the engineering company his father had founded, which had nearly three dozen property holdings, and worked as an associate building contractor with The South African Institute Of Electrical Engineering. He was extremely active in the Johannesburg community, serving on nearly thirty suburban committees, including the Johannesburg Emergency Campaign. He served as a Chairman of King David Schools and as a council member of the South African Board of Jewish Education, and was an active member of the Linksfield-Senderwood Hebrew Congregation. In his spare time, he enjoyed playing the piano, coin collecting and tennis.
Elliot Wolf, the long-time principal of King David High School Linksfield recalled, "I remember Mr. Muller very well, as an executive on council of the SABJE and as a parent. He was a remarkably good-looking man with European charm! He was a great architect and was in fact responsible for designing many of the buildings of the King David Schools. I still cherish vivid memories of him as he supervised the building operation on the school premises. I knew nothing of his figure skating talent."
In the seventies, Eric relocated to Beverly Hills, California. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1985 and passed away in Los Angeles on April 19, 2006 at the age of eighty-three. His gravestone reads, "A man of vision, courage, wisdom and humor."
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.
Asian Canadian Skating Pioneers Through The Years
When Barbara Ann Scott was busy practicing double Salchows and double threes during World War II, over ninety percent of the Japanese Canadian population were being forcibly relocated to internment camps. Families were separated; houses were confiscated and sold. Men were forced to toil away on farms and do back-breaking road work.
In the fifties, Canadian figure skating was about as white as you can get. Some skating clubs had decades old policies that denied membership to would-be skaters that didn't already know someone who was a member. These policies were a convenient excuse for club officials to turn down Jewish people, people of colour and people of Asian heritage.
Nearly a decade later, a small group of very talented young Canadians of Japanese ancestry burst onto the scene and made history as the first Asian Canadians to compete at the national level. The first was Hamilton, Ontario's Janice Maikawa. She made her first appearance at the Canadian Championships at the age of thirteen in 1967, placing eleventh in the junior women's event. Two years later, she won the Western Ontario senior women's title. At the 1971 Canadian Championships, she placed eighth in the senior women's event and second in novice pairs with her partner Reid MacDonald. In 1972, she placed fourth in junior pairs and sixth in the senior women's event. A wiz in school figures, she placed second to Karen Magnussen in the first phase of the competition that year. Had it not been for a disappointing free skate, she would have made the Olympic team. Janice's expertise in figures was a juxtaposition to Sarah Kawahara's brilliance in free skating.
Choreographer extraordinaire Sarah Kawahara won the Central Ontario Championships at the junior level in 1967 and made her debut at the Canadian Championships in 1968, finishing just off the podium in the novice women's event, right behind Sandra Bezic. Four years later, young Naomi Taguchi of the North Shore Winter Club placed sixth in the novice women's event at the Canadian Championships. Three years prior, she had bested twenty six other young women to win the Juvenile Girls title at the B.C. Coast Championships.
A precocious and brilliantly artistic free skater, Sarah Kawahara was Osborne Colson's star pupil. He coached her from her second figure test to her Gold figure, free and dance tests and the senior ranks at the Canadian Championships. Sarah recalled, "Janice Maikawa and I were good friends back in the day. She had great school figures. Mary Jane Halsted was our figure coach. I used to go out to Hamilton and stay with Janice’s family. Mary Jane would pick us up and take us to Guelph Summer School. My coach Osborne Colson would go to Banff, Alberta in the summer and he wanted me to study with Mary Jane for a couple summers. In those days I was not aware of any barriers. I loved to skate and my parents were willing to get me to the rinks. Osborne Colson was my driving force and inspiration. I was always in the minority in everything I did. I studied ballet at the National Ballet. My Mom would take me on the bus and subway to class. I was the only Asian in the classes at the time. Same with drama class. I was one of two Asian kids all the way through high school at Forest Hill Collegiate. I never really thought much about it. Being an only child I was fortunate that my parents gave me every opportunity to learn related arts, like piano, drama, ballet. My parents were evacuated inland from British Columbia to Montreal where they met. I was born in Montreal. We moved to Toronto when my Dad was transferred while working for Procter and Gamble's TEK HUGHES brushes."
Charlene Wong of Pierrefonds, Quebec made history in 1983 as the first Asian Canadian skater to win a medal at the senior level at the Canadian Championships. A wonderful all-around skater, Charlene won the figures at Canadians at both the junior and senior level and worked with Sandra Bezic to showcase her artistic side, always showing up at events with well-packaged programs and consistent jumps. She made history again in 1988 as the first Asian Canadian skater to compete at the Winter Olympic Games. Like Sarah Kawahara, Charlene arguably made her most important contributions to skating as a professional. She won the U.S. Open professional title in 1990, toured with Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean and coached Mirai Nagasu to the U.S. junior and senior titles in consecutive years.
At the age of fourteen, Netty Kim made history as the first Asian Canadian winner of the Canadian junior women's title in 1991. Four years later in Halifax, the pre-optometry student from the University of Waterloo became the first skater of Asian heritage to win the senior women's crown. She was the daughter of Korean immigrants who ran a convenience store in North York.
Megan Wing and Aaron Lowe teamed up in 1986. Megan became the first ice dancer of Chinese descent to win a medal at the Canadian Championships in both junior (1994) and senior (1997). Megan and Aaron reigned as one of Canada's top dance teams for a decade, winning an incredible ten consecutive senior medals at Canadians and representing their country at six Four Continents Championships, five World Championships and the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Torino. Today, they are without a doubt two of Canada's absolute best ice dance coaches and in 2011, they worked with Nam Nguyen, the talented young son of Vietnamese immigrants, who went on to win his first of two Canadian titles in 2015. Megan recalled, "Back in 1990 at our first Nationals in novice there weren't many Asian Canadian ice dance teams and very few Asian dance teams on the world scene in general. It did feel a little lonely out there at the beginning! Gradually this changed and today's ice dance scene looks much different and is far more inclusive. I hope that the cultural diversity of competitive dance continues to broaden."
While Canadian skaters of Japanese, Chinese and Korean heritage may be very well represented at the elite level now, it's important to recognize that it absolutely hasn't always been this way - and that diversity is something always worth celebrating.
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.
Devoted To Evolution: The Joel B. Liberman Story
"As a rule an author has one or two popular ways of contrasting the past with the present. He can treat the past as lying in comparative doleful ignorance, or he can explain that the past was infinitely superior to the day we live in. Of course, either method is the popular journalism of the moment, and in reality there is no sharp contrast, but a gradual transition which leads the past into the present." - Joel B. Liberman
Born January 17, 1883 in New York City, Joel 'Joseph' Brandon Liberman was the son of Lewis and Elina (Helena) Liberman, immigrants from Warsaw, then part of Russian Poland. After arriving in America, Joel's father passed away. His mother later remarried to Isidor Munstock, a merchant of hunting supplies. He grew up in a large, wealthy, blended Jewish family.
Though Joel was certainly a talented skater, his most important contributions to the figure skating world were unquestionably 'off-ice' ones. He was a well-respected judge and referee who officiated at numerous U.S. and North American Championships. He served as an official at the 1930 and 1932 World Championships and 1928 and 1932 Winter Olympic Games. He also served for many years on the executive of the Skating Club of New York and Artists' Skating Club.
Joel's service to the USFSA spanned three decades. He served as the Association's Secretary from 1924 to 1928, and then again in 1931 and 1932. As head of the USFSA's Test Committee in 1922, he was the one who recommended the adoption of the eight test system. As head of the Amateur Status Committee, he developed the first code of rules on sanctioning. A regular contributor to "Skating" magazine, he took great pains in educating the skating world about the rules and regulations of the sport. He was the person responsible for penning reviews of the both first Olympic Games and World Championships on U.S. soil.
From 1934 to 1945, Joel served as head of the USFSA's Judges and Judging Committee, playing an important role in the sport's evolution in America during World War II. In 1942, he penned the Judges Manual, which was sponsored by Heaton R. Robertson. Robertson later remarked, "His Judges Manual... marked the pioneer effort to lay down a better interpretation of the principles upon which judging should be based. The subject of judging is a very large one... We should be most grateful to Mr. Liberman for his splendid work in laying such a substantial foundation for its development."
Outside of the skating world, Joel was a very successful patent and corporate law attorney with an office on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. He served for eight years on Board Of Directors of the Lionel Corporation, which manufactured toy electric trains. He was also a director of a lighting business, Holophane Company, Inc.
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.