After 50 years, Skate Canada remains an anchor on winter sport schedule

Over the phone from her home near Ottawa, Lynn Nightingale is bursting to talk about figure skating.

Fresh in her mind's eye is that time nearly 50 years ago when, as a teenager, she skated from the ice at Calgary's Stampede Corral right into the living rooms of countless Canadians.

"Skating in our country was riding a big high — Karen Magnussen had just won the world championship and success breeds success," said Nightingale, who was born in Edmonton but honed her skills at the Minto Skating Club in Ottawa. "It was a small rink, an intimate crowd, and I remember it vividly because it was the first time that I had faced those kinds of expectations."

In 1973, a 17-year-old Nightingale won the women's singles title at the inaugural Skate Canada International back in 1973.

She was victorious again the next year in Kitchener, Ont., and for a short time, for a generation of figure skating fans in this country, became the face of a sport which was just beginning to blossom in the golden age of television.

"Television boosts the sport massively. Having it on mainstream TV is really important and exposure is critical," Nightingale said. "You need to captivate people. The power of figure skaters is unbelievable. The more people see it, the more they will fall for it."

Skate Canada International grew out of the defunct North American championships and from its inception became the first truly annual international invitational competition for amateur skaters held in America.

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For Canadian figure skaters, in many ways it was the only home game they could count on every season. And Skate Canada remains that way as an anchor event of the Grand Prix of figure skating series which has assembled the best in the world in the fall and early winter seasons since 1995.

To have that rare opportunity to compete before a friendly crowd of passionate and knowledgeable fans is something that athletes like Nightingale have never taken for granted and likely never will.

"It was all about learning to compete," she said. "It was about learning to leave everything behind and focus on what you could control. It was about facing different kinds of pressures and skating under circumstances that you had likely never encountered before."

In the early days Skate Canada was a low-budget event and figure skating was well behind sports like hockey, football, and curling in the effort to thrive because of television exposure.

Broadcast rights were only purchased for the first edition by CTV on the condition the network be able to use advertising on the rink boards, something unheard of in Canada back then but common practice in European markets.

It took a change in ruling by the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission), which allowed placards on the boards, to make it worthwhile for Skate Canada to hit the airwaves.

The gamble paid off and the first Skate Canada International in Calgary not only had substantial crowds, but strong broadcast viewership and ended up turning a profit for organizers.

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When Nightingale, who stood in seventh place after the compulsory figures, skated near-flawless short and free programs she could hear the supportive fans cheering their approval at the Stampede Corral.

With the legendary Canadian broadcaster Johnny Esaw calling the play-by-play, and world champion pairs skater Otto Jelinek providing analysis, the whole impression was one of a grand, summit on ice which was of Olympic calibre.

"Representing Canada at Skate Canada was an honour and I loved the support of the home country crowd," Nightingale said. "It all seemed so very important at the time and we understood that any competition is good competition. It signaled the beginning of the season and a taste of what lies ahead."

Over the nearly half century of its existence, Skate Canada has featured iconic athletes who have been the acknowledged superstars of this graceful endeavour which manages to meld the intensity of sporting competition with the aesthetic value of an art form.

Women's champions over the years have included East Germany's magnetic Katarina Witt, Japan's trailblazer Midori Ito, and the graceful Michelle Kwan of the United States. On the men's side, generational skaters like American Scott Hamilton and Russian Evgeni Plushenko have prevailed at Skate Canada as have ice dance greats such as Natalia Linichuk and and Gennadi Karponosov of the Soviet Union.

National consciousness

It wasn't until 1984 that pairs skating was included in the Skate Canada gathering. Early organizers at the Canadian Figure Skating Association thought it was too much like "roller derby on ice."  But soon partnerships from the Soviet Union came to dazzle on Canadian ice like the two-time Olympic champions Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov.

Just as important has been the increased opportunity for Canadian skaters to weave their way into the national consciousness. Toller Cranston, Brian Orser, Kurt Browning, Elvis Stojko, and Patrick Chan have all won at Skate Canada. So too have Elizabeth Manley, Josee Chouinard, Joannie Rochette, and Kaetlyn Osmond.

Pairs teams like Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, as well as Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford have found success on friendly ice as a precursor to getting to the podium at world championships and the Olympics.

Canadians Tracy Wilson and Rob McCall, Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz, Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon and, of course, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, among others have fashioned an enduring legacy in ice dancing in arenas across the country from Kelowna, B.C., to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador at Skate Canada International.

Nightingale has no doubt that her victory in 1973 helped propel her to a career which saw her win four Canadian titles as well as compete at the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. She also competed in five world championships.

"It's a difficult sport and skaters and fans are both starved for competition," she said. "Skate Canada is important because it's essential to be introduced to young athletes who will be the stars of the future. We watch skaters grow and develop into champions. The sport has to be nurtured and you always need to cultivate a new audience to appreciate it."

Skate Canada International has, by virtue of its longevity, become a fixture event in this northern nation. And like hockey or curling, figure skating is a pillar of our country's sporting folklore.

It's something that speaks to a Canadian obsession with ice and the talented athletes who have an ability to tame it while carving out a compelling narrative.

Skate Canada International is something to count on even as we enter the deep freeze of winter.