The history of Manitoba figure skating

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/12/2017 (3195 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Sun., Dec. 10 a free public skating session is being offered at the Dakota Community Centre from 2:15 to 4:45 p.m. Skate Canada Manitoba is the local host of a Canada 150 Skating Day being held in 17 locations across the country.

Shauna Marling, executive director of Skate Canada Manitoba, encourages people to come out even if they don’t have skates or helmets. Equipment will be available from the Canada 150 Skating Day Skate Bank. Activities will include an exhibition by local skaters and free instruction by Skate Canada coaches. While figure skating is the major program offered by the provincial organization, other programs include synchronized skating and power skating.

To learn more about the history of the organization, this columnist went digging through the skating archives located in the Sport Manitoba storage area on Alexander Avenue.

Our province has produced two figure skaters who have been inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame. Mary Rose Thacker-Temple won three Canadian and two North American championships and was named Canada’s female athlete of the year in 1939 and 1941. Lyndon Johnston, from Hamiota, skated in pairs at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics and won a silver medal at the 1989 worlds.
In the 1940s and ’50s, a highlight of the winter was the annual Ice Club of Greater Winnipeg skating carnival held at the Amphitheatre. Hall of Fame builder Rupert Whitehead — who was a skater himself and donned the blades well into his 90s —produced the carnival.

Travelling ice shows such as the Ice Capades, Ice Cycles and Ice Follies always received strong support in the city. Canada’s first big ice show was Skating Sensations of 1950. The headline attraction was “Canada’s Sweetheart” Barbara Ann Scott, who won the world championship in 1947 and the worlds and Olympic gold in 1948.

The first Manitoba Sectional figure skating championships were held in January 1970 at the Dutton Arena, the Winnipeg Arena and the St. James Civic Centre.

Prior to this our skaters had to compete in regional championships against other Prairie competitors. Flora-Mae McNeill, 15, from Flin Flon, won the senior ladies’ competition. Shawnee Turk, 13, from the Winter Club, won the junior ladies’ championship and Turk and Allan Cherniak from Gimli took the novice dance event. Bruce Kirby from Brandon won the junior men’s event while the Winter Club’s Diane Bentley and Robert Baxter topped junior dance.

Found in the archives was an undated page of instructions for an Ice Club trip by train to Fort Frances, Ont., some of which were too good not to share.

Mrs. Zwaron, Mrs. Turk and Mrs. Weiss were in charge of the skaters and their authority was not to be challenged.

Seven rules were listed as being important and No. 1 was:

“Do not wear slacks, we are going to a strange town and we want our party to make a good impression and consequently slacks and parkas are not to be worn at any time during the trip.”

No. 6 was:

“The drawing room on the train is to be treated as regular berths and the small washroom is to be used by the men in the party only, leaving both the men’s and women’s wash rooms for the exclusive use of the girls and women making the trip.”

Not sure what the males on the trip, Fred Boise, Ken Grundy, Larry Rost and Albert Walker, were supposed to wear instead of slacks. Kilts, maybe?  

Memories of Sport appears every second week in the Canstar Community News weeklies. Kent Morgan can be contacted at 204-489-6641 or email: sportsmemories@canstarnews.com