Virtually all of the sport’s glitterati who came to the benefit banquet have passed through the club’s Quonset hut-like premises overlooking the Charles River on Soldiers Field Road, and many of them represented the Skating Club at the Olympics and world championships.
It isn’t the oldest skating organization in the country - the Philadelphia Skating Club & Humane Society was founded in 1849 and the Cambridge Skating Club in 1898. But no other American club can match Boston’s influence on the sport since it was incorporated in April 1912.
It is the training ground for stars: Six members of the world Hall of Fame and more than 20 members of the domestic version. Seven presidents of the US Figure Skating Association. Two Olympic champions (Button and Albright) and five other medalists. More than a dozen men’s and women’s national champions. And the planet’s oldest continuing annual carnival in the century-old Ice Chips, which will feature Vancouver gold medalist Evan Lysacek in this year’s edition at the end of next month.
What began as the Back Bay Skating Club, whose devotees skated on pond ice, moved indoors to the Boston Arena in 1909; across the river to the intimate (i.e., cramped) Ice Pavilion on Massachusetts Avenue after the Arena burned down in 1918; then back to the rebuilt venue two years later until the familiar building with the sloped roof and steel arches was erected for $185,000 in 1938.
“We also supported collegiate hockey from the day the place opened,’’ recalled club historian Benjamin Wright, a former association president, international official, and a member of the world Hall of Fame. “We were running around the clock.’’
It was as much a social club as it was a skating club - members had to be elected - and many of them belonged to the city’s exclusive institutions. “The Skating Club was an adjunct to the country clubs in the area,’’ said Paul George, a former US Olympic Committee vice president who both belonged to and competed for the club, winning the US junior pairs title with sister Elizabeth. “It was the winter activities center.’’
