Norwood, Mass. – It was impossible not to notice the clean, shiny ice cream when stepping in the Boston skating club on Thursday morning. It was practically young skaters to go there to go there and show their beautiful talents; Instead, the ice remained unused all morning and in the afternoon, a symbol of the heartache was felt in this venerable age -old institution.
Of the 67 people who were killed as a result of the collision of an army helicopter and American Eagle Flight No. 5342 near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday evening, six of them had ties with the Boston skating club: Skater Jinna Han and her mother, Jin Han; Skater Spencer Lane and his mother, Christine Lane; And coaches Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova. They returned to Boston via Washington after participating in a National Development Camp in Wichita.
If they had returned home, Jinna Han and Spencer Lane would have quickly made plans to get back to the ice at the vast practice facility of the club. Instead, while a tight knitted community mourned, nobody was skating.
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“It would be packaged in an hour,” said Doug Zeghibe, the CEO and executive director of the club, while on Thursday afternoon he stood next to the unused ice. He tapped some of the many competitions, including the Figure Skating 2025 world championships, which was held in Boston’s TD Garden, organized by the Boston Skating Club in March. With that big event on the schedule, the club of activity buzzes.
But on Thursday, the forthobby was a place where members of the Boston skating community came to share stories and hugs. The visitors include the 89-year-old Tenley Albright, an Olympic champion from 1956 who was the first American woman to won art skate and Olympic silver medal winner of 1994 Nancy Kerrigan. Both women grew up in the Boston area and trained in the Skating Club. The most important ice surface in the Norwood facility, which was opened in 2020, is called Tenley E. Albright Performance Center.
“I certainly have no answers,” said Albright, who became a prominent surgeon after her career of figure skating. “I really can’t believe it happened because I see them here.” She added: “The skaters just flew over the ice, did remarkable things, inspired us all.”
Nancy Kerrigan (right) is hugged by an employee of a Boston skating club. A tearing Tenley Albright is on the left. (Marc Vasconcellos / The Entprise / USA Today Via imagn Images)
Also present was the 16-year-old Patrick Blackwell from East Greenwich, RI, a bronze medal winner in the recent American junior figure skating championships. Blackwell was friends with Spencer Lane.
“It is heartbreaking to know that something like that can influence the community so much,” said Blackwell. “But the entire community comes together to recognize the passings of everyone. The skaters, their families. ‘
Blackwell said that Lane was caring, friendly, extrovert and happy. “Every time he landed something new, he would come to me and say,” Hey, I landed this, “” I landed that. “
The Boston skating club, founded in 1912, was located for many years in a modest facility along the Charles River in the Brighton district in Boston, not far from the Harvard Stadium. The long history of the club, and his roots of Brighton, played a role in what took place on Thursday in the new facility in Norwood. Because this is not the first tragedy of the skating club. In 1961, the entire American figure skating team was killed when the plane accompanied its members to the world championships in Prague in Belgium. Ten members of the delegation came from the Boston Skating Club; A plaque was placed in their memory in the club room of the Brighton facility.
Ann Buckley, president of the Boston Skating Club, looks at the plaque in honor of the 10 members killed in a plane crash in 1961 (Steve Buckley / Athletics))
When the new facility was opened, the plaque made the trip to Norwood and was placed on a wall on the second floor, opposite a lounge that overlooks two of his ice rinks.
For Paul George, an old member of the Boston Skating Club, the parallels between the crashes are striking.
“My wife tapped me on the shoulder at 6.30 am and told me, just as my father had done 64 years ago,” said George. “As Tenley said, we have lost a whole group of friends. We all grew up together, we skate together, we trained together. We even went to parties together. ‘
George connects 1961 with this last tragedy: “We think and pray and hope for their families. And then there will come a time when the music starts and we will move forward, be determined, more determined. “
Ann Buckley, president of the Boston Skating Club, noted that the tragedy of 1961 inspired the club to enter the community to keep skating lessons, identify talent and rebuild her ranks.
“Continuation and resilience have accompanied the values of our club,” said Buckley.
Patrick Blackwell, 16, from East Greenwich, Ri, Spencer Lane remembered as friendly, extrovert and happy. (Steve Buckley / Athletics))
By 5 o’clock the ice sheet of ice in the Tenley E. Albright Performance Center remained clean and unused. But young skaters continued to arrive outside in the corridor, some alone, some in groups of two, three or four, hug and cry while they saw each other, some of them moan. They are not directly related to 1961. They are teenagers and young adults, many of them are first confronted with real tragedy.
They will gather.
For now, nobody feels much like skating.
“We will be back tomorrow,” said Misha Mitrofanov, 27, who participated in the 2025 US National Pairs Championship in Wichita with partner Alisa Efimova. “It’s what we do. It is our job. “
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(Top photo of Tenley Albright (left), Doug Zeghibe and Nancy Kerrigan during a press conference Thursday in the Boston Skating Club: Craig F. Walker / The Boston Globe Via Getty Images)