What was your first exposure to figure skating?

[macy]

Watching the '98 Olympics on television. For the longest time I didn't even know I could follow the skating season. I'm so glad NBC Sports Gold exists now.

did you not watch icenetwork when it was around? they even had regionals & sectionals dating back to like 2007. it was wonderful, despite the spotty/crappy streaming. RIP.

 

[kevinVchicago]

On TV
1992 Winter Olympics

 

[Bill S]

I roller-skated first because the roller-rink was just a few blocks away. During that time, I watched ice skating on the Wide World of Sports program on a black and white TV. Oh, yes, I recall seeing Sonja Henie in a b/w movie shown at my grade school in the late 50s or early 60s.

My first time on ice skates was using a pair of women's white skates that someone had given to my mother. My brother, a friend, and I borrowed them to take turns skating on a frozen river. I was 13. That really interested me, but then...

...I saw Peggy Fleming in the 1968 Olympics.

I was her age and was terribly smitten by her beauty and skill. I subscribed to Life Magazine at the time, cherished the Fleming front cover, and read over and over the account of her Olympic gold medal. I started skating as much as I could on a nearby frozen pond after school. It would be dark when I got back home, returning to scoldings for staying out way past dinnertime.

In the years that followed, I'd always take dates to the local ponds to skate in winter, like this... https://www.afterness.com/skating/70s-skating.html

I was in my early 20s when I finally got to skate indoors, and it was an odd sensation coming from harder, brittle outdoor ice. It felt like I was skating on a giant bar of soap, and it smelled like rubber mats and treated water. It also felt confining compared to the great outdoors. But I adapted, and I am still skating and hoping that rinks can re-open soon.

 

[KittyKins]

I took skating lessons when I was about 7 years old, just for one year. I was sick for the final show which is really strange as I can count on my hands the number of times I've had the flu in my life. My sister is 2 years younger than me and so I heard about it when she got home. She was really mad as she was following the girl in front of her who went the wrong way and then the girl realized and changed direction and my poor sister was going the wrong way. She was always rather precocious, LOL. The idea of people skating in costumes intrigued me, and I was so disappointed to miss it.

We got a TV in 1969 (yes, Black & White) and I believe my first exposure to actual figure skating was Canadian Nationals 1970 as Skate Canada International did not exist in those days. I know the competition was in Canada so that had to be it. I was 9 years old, and I was hooked immediately. I think because I am a real sports fanatic in general and also musical, that the mix of the two made me gravitate to it. We also went to Ice Capades with Karen Magnuson, which would have been after she won Worlds and I was likely 10 years old then. It's funny because my first impression of Ice Dance was the skaters were locked arm and arm and skating around the edge of the rink, lol. I can't believe it's been 50 years! I'm now turning 60 and I don't know where the years have gone. I was going to go to Worlds this year to celebrate my 50th anniversary of watching skating, but that went belly up as we know, grr.

 

[pororocheburashka]

My first exposure was:

Other

I was in S.Korea (2013) walking around Seoul: I saw everywhere a photo of a lady.
Talking with my friend I asked her: "Who is she? I saw her photo in Busan, Daegu already"
"You don't know???? (shock!) It's Yuna Kim."
"Who?"
"She is the olympic champhion!"
...

So it started.
I even managed to see her compete once: December 2013, Zagreb (Croatia).
Im my hostel in Zagreb most of the guests were from S. Korea: S.Korean student in Istanbul, another one in Budapest, than a Korean working in Germany etc..
Some went to the Arena the night before, the security let them enter in the middle of the night (because outside was so cold and they were freezing).

"Yuna mania" passed in S. Korea but my love for figure skating was already established

 

[oldsk8er]

It seems to me ice skating has always been a love of mine. As a young child (3 or 4) I can remember watching Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill on tv, my mother always told me it was the only time I would sit still and quiet, mesmerized.
When I was older (5 or 6), there was a park a couple blocks away from our house and the city fire department would flood it during the winter months. I spent every waking moment I could on that "pond" on a hand me down pair of skates that I had to wear 2 pair of socks to get them tight enough to fit LOL. It was heaven to me. I would pretend I was Peggy and Dorothy trying to mimic what I saw them do as I had to jump over hockey pucks from the boys. Also had some good hockey games in those figure skates.
Sometimes the ice was so rippled and crusty that my Dad would haul water down for me to "smooth" things out for me.

When the city quit flooding the park, my Dad made me my own little rink in the back yard with lumber and a tarp! My own private rink, that I could have "new" ice just by turning on the hose!

My Dad always took me to the Ice Capades or Holiday on ice every year in Cleveland and we ALWAYS sat rink side inches from the ice, again, the only times my Mother said I was quiet and not fidgeting around. One time during a Disney on ice, one of the skaters playing Pluto skated over, picked me out and I got to ride in a train on the ice with all the skaters skating around me! Another time Tai Babalonia skated over to us and sat in my Dad's lap, I don't know who was more excited him or me!!

My Dad could not afford lessons for me, but he did whatever he could so I could skate(even in my own back yard) When I was 38 I started taking ice skating lessons for myself. (the love stayed with me)
Now at over 50 I am getting back on the ice. My Mom and Dad are no longer here,but I know but because of what they did for me, skating will forever be a passion of mine and I can't wait for the rinks to open back up.

P.S. I forgot to mention the movie Ice Castles from 1978 and how many times I would watch that. My Mom bought the VHS tape for me. I came home from school one day and there it was on the kitchen table.
I wish they could see me now.

Stay safe and healthy everyone, we'll be back on the ice!

 

[alvaro808]

For years, I was somewhat familiar with figure skating, but on a very casual level.

I remember going to an ice show back in 2005 when I was visiting my sister in San Antonio, Texas while she was living there. And I remember following some of the figure skating competitions while I was watching the Winter Olympics.

But it was not until early 2018 that I began to more closely follow figure skating. That was of course the time when I discovered - and fell in love - with "Queen" Yuna Kim.

I'll never forget the day when I watched her skating at the Opening Ceremony at the Pyeonchang Games. It was one of her most beautiful performances! And after that experience, I slowly began to learn more about Yuna and her legendary career as a figure skater.

There's a guy I follow on Instagram who regularly posts videos of Yuna's skating with detailed and often very technical remarks. Everything about her jumps, spins, movements, musicality, costuming, etc. I wonder if this person was either a competitive figure skater, a coach, or even a judge. But regardless, he's really helped me learn alot about the ins-and-outs of figure skating!

And recently, a new show premiered on Netflix called "Spinning Out." I've heard some mixed things about the show, but personally, I enjoyed the first few episodes, and I'll probably try to finish the rest of the show at some point in the future (it's a shame Netflix canceled it after only one Season).

 

[Parksideprince]

It was the foolishness at the 94 Olympics with Tonya vs. Nancy. I remember watching that single Axel and the tears. I really became invested with the Sasha Cohen/ Michelle Kwan years. My favorite skaters of all time are 1. Sasha Cohen 2. Mao Asada 3. Stephan Lambiel 4. Evgeny Plushenko 5. Alissa Czisny 6. Beatrisa Liang

 

[MsPolyTheist]

Skating at a rink, as a very young child. For some reason, ice skating was WILDLY popular on Long Island in the 1960s and 70s. I remember our front coat closet always had ice skates of various sizes lined up along the back; we kids got new skates whenever our feet grew! When my folks moved out of my childhood home eight years ago, I was sad so see that the skates were already long gone from the front closet. Would have loved to have seen those baby-sized skates again!

 

[50 Words for Snow]

Wow, lots of great stories here!

My dad always let Mom have her way with the TV unless football was on, and Mom was a big Peggy Fleming fan, so we would watch the figure skating events each Olympics. Dorothy Hamil was the first skater who could hold my attention, and Katarina Witt was the first skater I really liked. I just watched it during the Olympics and whenever it was on Wide World of Sports (shout out to the guy who posted early in the thread about watching FS on that show, too :thumbsup until these last Olympics when Evgenia Medvedeva blew me away. I've since been to the last two Skate Canada GPs, and I met her and the other skaters (Kurt Browning is so cool) at one of the Stars on Ice shows last April.

 

[gkelly]

For me, three things:

When I was 3, our back yard was iced over from an ice storm. My mom gave me and my little sister child-sized skates and we skated on the frozen lawn holding Mom's hand. Later we went to a rink and did the same.

During grade school, we went to frozen ponds a couple of times. Without mom or a wall to hang onto, what I mostly remember is falling down a lot.

When I was 10 and my sister 9, mom decided to give us ice skating lessons for a while just enough so we'd be able to skate on our own in case we ever went skating on a date. My sister stuck with it for a few months, enough to be able to skate on her own, but I wanted to learn to figure skate so I did it a couple hours a week for 2 years and then pretty seriously almost another 2 years before I got frustrated (because I'd started too late and at the time there were no opportunities for teenagers still working on the lower figures tests; I'd only made it past the Preliminary test) so I quit.

I know I had seen the men's event from an early 1970s US Nationals on TV because I remember John Misha Petkevich. That was probably before my first skating lesson, but that wasn't the reason I started lessons.

I think I mostly became aware of/interested in figure skating through the book Skating Shoes by Noel Streatfeild.

After I was skating myself, I made more effort to watch skating on TV when I could find it on Wide Worlds of Sports.

 

[lizardlass]

The Tonya/Nancy saga! I was a kid, and it was a huge deal in my area because we lived in the Portland metro. My parents, connoisseurs of tabloids, always had a rag on the table with Tonya and Nancy on the cover. They were in Tonya's corner because Nancy was "snobby" and "rich" and Tonya grew up poor. (Of course the "rich snob Nancy" narrative was actually nonsense, but never mind.) I didn't really get into the watching of skating until the 1998 Olympics. I was very excited when Tara won because I was her age and a newb.

 

[jimmbboe]

There are fuzzy memories of watching figure skating with my mom but I really started following the sport after watching beautiful Yulia at the Sochi Olympics!!

 

[Jeanie19]

My mother loved watching figure skating. When I was 5 , we saw a figure skating show and Janet Lynne was one of the skaters.
The beginning of me following figure skating was the 1994 Olympics. I loved Katerina Witt's free program.
I watched whatever was on network T.V. favorites of mine were Sasha Cohen and Mao Asada.
Then came 2015 Skate America and Evgenia Medvedeva became my all time favorite. I went to 2016 Worlds ladies short program in Boston. And I discovered Golden Skate. I watch everything now. And I have other favorites now, Kevin Aymoz, Deniss Vasiljevs and Jason Brown.

 

[icetug]

I guess I've been watching figure skating since I was a baby (my mom was a fan) but it was Katarina Witt and Torvill and Dean's Bolero that made me watching FS on a regular basis.

I was 6 when my auntie took me to an ice rink. It was made outdoor, on a speedway track, so I feel I didn't even recognized that it was the same sport I knew from TV Funny enough, I was in my thirties when I went to an indoor ice rink for the first time...
As the most exciting experience I remember skating on a frozen lake, many kilometers long, where I could find my way back only following my own traces.

For some reasons I stopped watching figure skating for a long time. And (it must have been in the beginning of 2017) when I was searching for Prince music on youtube, I found Yuzuru's Let's Go Crazy. It left me in such an awe that I was watching more and more performances available on youtube, and wanted to watch a competition live as well. So I found a link to a Russian broadcast of EC, fell in love with Deniss Vasiljevs, Russian ladies and French couples , then got used to wake up in the middle of the night to watch my first Yuzuru's competition (4CC)... and that's how it started again .

 

[laceylou]

Supposedly my mom said I saw it on tv and asked to skate at 2 yrs old. Lasted until I was 9. Then when Surya did her backflip on ice and Tonya did her triple axel, then I really started watching and became a fan.

 

[Sabrina]

Honestly, I don't remember as I was less than 3 years old when I asked my mom for figure skates. My mom told me (I remember that) that there are no skates so small good for me. I got my first skates and some lessons when I was around five years old. I wanted to be a figure skater but I was born in the wrong place, and time. I kept on skating for fun trying jumps and spins on my own. Now I am a shadow of those times, but I still love to skate. Of course I also love watching figure skating, mostly competitions.

 

[azcalder]

When I was five, my mother took me to a movie theatre that showed old films. We saw Sonja Henie in Sun Valley Serenade. I wanted ice skates.

Growing up in Cambridge, MA, I learned to skate on the Charles River. My best friend and I would skate under the bridges and pretend we were on the canals in Holland. We both wanted to be Gretel in our favorite book, Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates.

Every Sunday night during high school and college I did recreational skating at the Boston Skating Club. It was our mall - our social gathering place.

At the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley, I watched practice on the outdoor rink. My $16.00 daily ticket didn’t include competition inside the arena. Although two years later, I skated on that Olympic ice.

My first competition was 1991 Nationals in Minneapolis. A year earlier the Milwaukee Journal travel section advertised an all-event ticket for $100 if bought before June 1. In January, my husband and I drove through an ice storm and saw Tonya Harding do her first triple axel. The very young Kwan sisters presented flowers to fellow Californian Kristi Yamaguchi.

In 2006 at Euros in Lyon, France I cried as a very young Nathalie Pechalat & Fabian Bourzat brought the house down with a free dance to Les Miserables in front of a home country audience.

Over the years, I’ve attended numerous Nationals, Worlds, Four Continents, Grand Prix’s, Junior Grand Prix’s and local competitions. I can’t wait to walk back into a cold ice rink.

 

[Walt FSHunter]

It was March of 1975. World Figure Skating Championships in Colorado Springs. I watched them on Soviet TV. I remember the triumph of Soviet figure skating then. Rodnina/Zaitsev, Moiseeva/Minenkov, Volkov were the champions.

 

[Lyyli]

Thanks a lot for all the stories! I have enjoyed reading them very much.

I started to learn to skate when I was seven at an outdoor rink close to our house and at school rink too. As a child I never had skating lessons but skated with my siblings and with friends. We used to go to skate also when it was freezing cold. It was the most funniest thing to do in the winter.

Speaking of Soviet skaters, my first live event was in 1977. Soviet elite skaters used to give an exhibition in Helsinki those years but in 1977 there was an exhibition also in my hometown in Northern Finland.

All the famous Soviet skaters like Rodnina/Zaitsev and Moiseeva/Minenkov were there. Igor Bobrin and Sergei Volkov skated there too and Marina Zueva with her partner Andrej Wittman. Rodnina/Zaitsev did Kalinka! I remember the event was sold out and so there were about 8000 people in the audience.

A couple of years ago from now when I was cleaning up the attic of my parents I found a box from my childhood there. Inside was a ticket to the Soviet exhibition + an article from a local newspaper about it + a picture of Moiseeva/Minenkov´s wedding that I had cut from a magazine earlier. Mo and Mi were my childhood heroes! So was John Curry.

There in the box was also a ticket to Nordics 1978 which took place in my hometown too. That is the first competition I attended. On the backside of the ticket I had written the names of the best skaters in each category. I don´t remember anything about that event. I had forgotten that Susan Broman, my favorite Finnish skater of that time, competed there, but there she had been because I had written her name in the ticket. She got silver!