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Virginia Thompson and Bill McLachlan, Wendy Griner, Donald Jackson and Maria and Otto Jelinek. Photo courtesy "Toronto Telegram" fonds, York University Archives.
John Glenn was sent into outer space from Cape Canaveral on the third Project Mercury mission, in the space capsule Friendship 7. Planters introduced dry-roasted peanuts. Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl" topped the music charts, and John Diefenbaker was Canada's Prime Minister.
From February 22 to 24, 1962, Toronto played host to the first Canadian Figure Skating Championships since the unimaginably tragic crash of Sabena Flight 548 in Belgium, which claimed the lives of the entire 1961 U.S. figure skating team.
Spencer L. Rodway served as the event's chair and set up headquarters at the Park Plaza Hotel on Avenue Road. Two venues were used for the Championships. Figures, the junior dance event and senior compulsory dances were held at the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club, with all other events contested at Varsity Arena. Tickets ranged from a dollar and twenty-five cents to two dollars.
Let's hop in the time machine and reflect back on how things all went down back in 1962!
THE JUNIOR EVENTS
Eight teams skated the Fourteenstep, American Waltz and Blues in tandem in the preliminary round of the junior dance event, with the top four teams progressing to the finals. Four of the five judges placed Carole Forrest and Kevin Lethbridge first, with a judge from Winnipeg opting for Prairie skaters Marilyn Berry and Richard Dunlap. Forrest worked as a typist at the Royal Crown Cola Company, and Lethbridge was taking his Master's in civil engineering at the University of Toronto. They were coached by Marg and Bruce Hyland.
The unanimous winners of the A.L. Dysart Cups for junior pairs were Toronto's Alexis and Chris Shields. Galt's Linda Ward and Neil Carpenter, who were eliminated in the initial round of junior dance, took the silver. The Shields siblings were sixteen and nineteen. Chris was a piano player and former competitor at the Canadian Junior Tennis Championship and was studying medicine at the University of Toronto. Alexis was a grade twelve student at Lawrence Park Collegiate. They were coached by Sheldon Galbraith.
To save time, referee Sandy McKechnie tried something new - holding the junior men's and women's figures on the ice at the same time, using separate judging panels. Eighteen-year-old Bill Neale of Stamford surpassed Gregory Folk of Toronto in the junior men's event. Folk had won the figures but had several rough landings in the free skate. The other four men - one of them being a young David Dore - each had at least one third-place ordinal. Neale was a student of Wally Distelmeyer. He sang in his church's choir and taught Sunday School.
Eleven young skaters vied for the gold medal in the junior women's event. In a three-two split of the judging panel, Valerie Jones came out ahead of Norma Sedlar of the Connaught Skating Club, who was known for her artistry. Thirteen-year-old Jones was a student at Vincent Massey Public School. On the ice, she was taught by Sheldon Galbraith. Moncton's Sally Jean Radford placed a disappointing tenth but made history as the first woman from New Brunswick to compete at the Canadian Championships.
THE PAIRS AND FOURS COMPETITIONS
Fours skating returned to the Canadian Championships after a one-year absence. Toronto's Gertrude Desjardins, Elinor Flack, Maurice Lafrance and Phillip McCordic came out ahead of a four from the Glengarry Figure Skating Club in British Columbia. The winning four, who included The Twist in their program, were just one of many entries coached by Sheldon Galbraith.
Behind the scenes, everything wasn't exactly peachy for Donald Jackson in Toronto. He had taken a flu inoculation priorto the event, so he'd be over its effects well in time for the World Championships in Prague. He been feeling sick the week prior and during the competition. The day before the event, he and Sheldon Galbraith discovered there was a problem with the tempo of his free skating music. The referee gave him special permission to practice at the Cricket Club because he'd missed his practice at the Varsity Arena due to the music problem.
THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION
Sonia Snelling was the only woman to compete in just the free skating event, where she placed third behind Wendy Griner, Petra Burka and Shirra Kenworthy. Griner bested Burka in the overall standings as well, three judges to two. Shirra Kenworthy took the bronze, ahead of Patricia Cook, Joy Ann Moyer and Rose Bilyk. Kenworthy had been second in figures over Burka. Joy Ann Moyer had a tense few minutes when her music malfunctioned. Because Burka had made history with her triple Salchow attempt in her free skate and Griner missed a jump midway through her program, some felt that Burka should have at least won the free skate, if not the title. Two of the five judges had Burka ahead of Griner in the free skate.
THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION
The senior ice dancers skated the Kilian, Westminster Waltz, Argentine Tango twice in tandem and a free dance. June Pinkerton, a judge from Vancouver, had Jean Westwood's students Donna Lee and John 'J.D.' Mitchell first, but the other four judges voted for Virginia Thompson and Bill McLachlan, who trained at the Cricket Club in Toronto. Paulette Doan and Ken Ormsby, the bronze medallists, had two second-place ordinals. Thompson and McLachlan's free dance consisted of a cha cha, tango and waltz. Mrs. L.E. Heffelfinger, who reviewed the event for "Skating" magazine, remarked, "The final round of the Senior Dance with its near-miss and 'brush' collisions due to the variety of starts and length of pattern had all the suspense of a good TV whodunit. Much to the relief of all, the situation was quickly alleviated by a re-skate [and] the placements remained unchanged."
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, Bluesky, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering one of eight fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating: https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.
THE JUNIOR EVENTS
The unanimous winners of the A.L. Dysart Cups for junior pairs were Toronto's Alexis and Chris Shields. Galt's Linda Ward and Neil Carpenter, who were eliminated in the initial round of junior dance, took the silver. The Shields siblings were sixteen and nineteen. Chris was a piano player and former competitor at the Canadian Junior Tennis Championship and was studying medicine at the University of Toronto. Alexis was a grade twelve student at Lawrence Park Collegiate. They were coached by Sheldon Galbraith.
Top to bottom: Valerie Jones and Bill Neale, Chris and Alexis Shields, Kevin Lethbridge and Carole Forrest. Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine.
To save time, referee Sandy McKechnie tried something new - holding the junior men's and women's figures on the ice at the same time, using separate judging panels. Eighteen-year-old Bill Neale of Stamford surpassed Gregory Folk of Toronto in the junior men's event. Folk had won the figures but had several rough landings in the free skate. The other four men - one of them being a young David Dore - each had at least one third-place ordinal. Neale was a student of Wally Distelmeyer. He sang in his church's choir and taught Sunday School.
Valerie Jones and Sheldon Galbraith
THE PAIRS AND FOURS COMPETITIONS
The Cricket Club four
Fours skating returned to the Canadian Championships after a one-year absence. Toronto's Gertrude Desjardins, Elinor Flack, Maurice Lafrance and Phillip McCordic came out ahead of a four from the Glengarry Figure Skating Club in British Columbia. The winning four, who included The Twist in their program, were just one of many entries coached by Sheldon Galbraith.
Maria and Otto Jelinek
The pairs event felt a little bit like Groundhog Day, with the top three teams placing in the same order as they had at the Nationals the year prior in Lachine. With first-place ordinals from four of the five judges, Maria and Otto Jelinek easily defended their national title, besting Desjardins and Lafrance and Debbi Wilkes and Guy Revell. Flack and McCordic finished fourth. One of the highlights of the Jelineks' program was a death spiral where Otto left Maria hanging while he went to do an Axel. The Jelineks and Wilkes and Revell were coached by Bruce Hyland. Desjardins and Lafrance and Flack and McCordic were students of Sheldon Galbraith.
THE MEN'S COMPETITION
THE MEN'S COMPETITION
Interestingly, the CFSA decided to add two new events to the competition in 1962 - men's and women's free skating events for the McKechnie and F. Herbert Crispo Memorial trophies. Instead of having to skate their free programs a second time, the results from the free skating portion of the singles competitions were used to calculate the winners of these trophies. The winners of the men's trophy was Donald Jackson.
To no one's surprise, Jackson was also the overall winner for the fourth year in succession. He attempted the triple Lutz that he would later land for the first time in competition at the 1962 World Championships in Prague, but slightly two-footed the landing. Donald McPherson was a strong second to Jackson, with Donald Knight third despite losing in free skating to Bill Neale. Because Jackson's triple Lutz attempt had been so close, he received a huge round of applause from the crowd and several newspapers of the time reported that he had in fact landed the jump successfully.
Donald Jackson
Behind the scenes, everything wasn't exactly peachy for Donald Jackson in Toronto. He had taken a flu inoculation priorto the event, so he'd be over its effects well in time for the World Championships in Prague. He been feeling sick the week prior and during the competition. The day before the event, he and Sheldon Galbraith discovered there was a problem with the tempo of his free skating music. The referee gave him special permission to practice at the Cricket Club because he'd missed his practice at the Varsity Arena due to the music problem.
THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION
Wendy Griner
Sonia Snelling was the only woman to compete in just the free skating event, where she placed third behind Wendy Griner, Petra Burka and Shirra Kenworthy. Griner bested Burka in the overall standings as well, three judges to two. Shirra Kenworthy took the bronze, ahead of Patricia Cook, Joy Ann Moyer and Rose Bilyk. Kenworthy had been second in figures over Burka. Joy Ann Moyer had a tense few minutes when her music malfunctioned. Because Burka had made history with her triple Salchow attempt in her free skate and Griner missed a jump midway through her program, some felt that Burka should have at least won the free skate, if not the title. Two of the five judges had Burka ahead of Griner in the free skate.
Because of a last-minute flight switch, Wendy Griner's name had initially been reported in Canadian newspapers among those who had perished in the Sabena Crash the year prior. Upon returning to North America, she skated in The Skating Club of Boston's "Ice Chips" show in memory of her late friend Laurence Owen and visited Grammy Vinson at her home to express her condolences.
THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION
Virginia Thompson and Bill McLachlan
The senior ice dancers skated the Kilian, Westminster Waltz, Argentine Tango twice in tandem and a free dance. June Pinkerton, a judge from Vancouver, had Jean Westwood's students Donna Lee and John 'J.D.' Mitchell first, but the other four judges voted for Virginia Thompson and Bill McLachlan, who trained at the Cricket Club in Toronto. Paulette Doan and Ken Ormsby, the bronze medallists, had two second-place ordinals. Thompson and McLachlan's free dance consisted of a cha cha, tango and waltz. Mrs. L.E. Heffelfinger, who reviewed the event for "Skating" magazine, remarked, "The final round of the Senior Dance with its near-miss and 'brush' collisions due to the variety of starts and length of pattern had all the suspense of a good TV whodunit. Much to the relief of all, the situation was quickly alleviated by a re-skate [and] the placements remained unchanged."
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, Bluesky, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering one of eight fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating: https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.