The bone-buckling February frost clung to the windows of the Philadelphia Figure Skating Club and Humane Society. "Humane Society?" skaters would ask quizzically as they read the signs on the rink doors, before they burst into laughter. The arena name had nothing at all to do with the rescue of animals as one would expect. Rather, this humane society endeavored to rescue people. Its ties to the skating rink came almost a century earlier, when the club was first formed as a gentlemen''s athletic club, which also served to rescue poor souls who crashed into icy Pennsylvania ponds while skating. The club members even carried badges that made them a sort of civilian police entity. The Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society was the first figure skating club in the United States and was host to the first-ever U.S.
Championships, giving it the storied past that qualified it for "sacred ground" status. Once the indoor rink was built, the "humane society" portion of the name stuck. Whatever the origins of its name, the lobby''s warmth could not come fast enough for the weary travelers, who just the night before had landed on a snow-dusted tarmac before driving to the hotel they would call home for five days. Wakeup calls for three, four, or five in the morning were not the usual for guests, but these guests were tenacious in their quest for victory--they were the figure skating elite from two countries. The Americans and Canadians all arrived at the heavily arched rink building, their earmuffs and gloves bundling their extremities in a fierce fight against the cold. Inside, the frigid air would be exacerbated by wind created by skating fast, a gust that felt more like a jet stream against their chafed faces. Mara and Dud made their way to the practice ice rink, holding hands as usual. A lone ice monitor ushered the first of the groggy, sleepy-eyed skaters to the rink door, with coffee-slurping coaches tailing behind.
Their names were called in militaristic fashion. "Maria and Otto Jelinek." "Here." "Dudley Richards and Maribel Y. Owen." "Here." "Gertrude Desjardins and Maurice Lafrance." "Present.
" Names continued to ring out. Most of these teams had never competed against each other before. However, Maria and Otto Jelinek, a sister-and-brother team favored to win the gold, had met Mara Owen and Dudley Richards while skating exhibitions in America. The two teams greeted each other with the same sincere handshakes, hugs, and pecks on the cheek that one would expect from friends returning to summer camp. The North American Championships to them were almost not a competition, but more of a class reunion in this closely knit world. Maria and Otto originally hailed from Czechoslovakia. Their parents had defected from the communist regime years earlier so Maria and Otto could live a life of freedom. When the Jelineks won their Canadian national title in 1961, they earned passage to the World Championships in Prague.
The Czech government threatened to have them arrested if they entered the country. The International Skating Union, in turn, threatened to remove the event from Prague if the Jelineks were harassed in any way. A reluctant truce had been brokered on their behalf, but the Jelineks confided in Mara and Dud their fear of returning to their homeland. A plan was hatched. The Jelineks and Mara and Dud came to an agreement that the safest way to be ignored by the Czechs was to arrive on the American team plane. The Canadian and American planes were departing at roughly the same time. It was decided the Jelineks would meet the Americans at Idlewild Airport on departure day and organize a switch with someone so they could fly with the Americans. This way, the Jelineks would be much less noticeable when they returned to Prague, and they''d feel safer.
The camaraderie extended beyond the pairs event. Laurence Owen and Canadian Wendy Griner were the reigning ice queens of the event. They were both the darlings of the sport, and their admiration for each other was natural. Laurence, Wendy, U.S. men''s champion Bradley Lord, and Canadian men''s champion Don Jackson spent time discussing their triumphs and, when spotting them together, photographers snapped as many pictures as they could. The young skaters basked in the attention, smiling and posing, and carrying on as if there wasn''t a competition at all. Laurence''s one-of-a-kind smile eclipsed all others in photographs-- every eye being drawn to her first by her uncanny magnetism.