Welcome to the Kingdom of Ice-olation

Yes, it's a terrible pun...

Thanks Elsa for inspiring the title of this site!

I was going to go with “Welcome to My World,” but Johnny Weir already used that.

So what is the “Kingdom of Ice-olation” supposed to be?

Long story short, it is my repository for all things figure skating, in all its forms. Competitions, exhibitions, theatre on ice and ice shows — with a heavy emphasis on Disney on Ice (thus the Disney reference in the title of this Substack).

How We Got Here

For those who don’t know me, let me give you a little background. As a child in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I loved watching figure skating during the Olympics, but never really got into much outside of that. I went to skate a few times at my local rink, but never really advanced past the “moving my feet while clinging to the boards for dear life” stage.

Eventually I got older, stopped going to the rink, and stopped watching the sport altogether. I’d love to tell you that it was because of the various scandals, the confusing changes to the scoring system, or the lack of American success, but really it was just kind of a passive thing that happened.

There was a brief resurgence in my interest in 2006, when I started at ESPN. One of my earliest roles was doing “cards” on ESPNEWS. Basically the job was watching live sporting events, writing down little tidbits of information on an index card and handing it to the anchor so they had something additional to say while they were reading highlights. About six weeks after I started, the 2006 Olympics were taking place, and I was captivated by ice dance in particular, especially the three American teams (Tanith Belbin/Benjamin Agosto, Melissa Gregory/Denis Petukhov, and Jamie Silverstein/Ryan O’Meara). But that infatuation didn’t last, as I ended up focusing my career on the NBA (with NBC holding the rights to all the major figure skating events, becoming ESPN’s “figure skating expert” didn’t exactly seem like a path for career growth).

Fast forward to 2019 and my interest in skating had completely bottomed out. To be clear, that’s not to say I disliked it, it just wasn’t on my radar at all. Not until I was looking for a way to scratch my Disney itch without flying all the way to Florida — I’m definitely one of those people who’d be described as a “Disney Adult” — and decided to attend a Disney on Ice show in Springfield, Mass. And I was hooked.

I started going to more and more shows, and sharing photos and videos on Instagram. And something unexpected and wonderful happened: the skaters in the shows started following me. Then they started reaching out and asking for the videos I shot. Before long I was going to multiple shows and connecting with more and more of the performers.

A couple years ago, I decided to start paying attention to competitive skating again, if only so that I could talk with the various Disney on Ice skaters about the sport they participated in on a level that wasn’t completely embarrassing. In doing so, I discovered that many of them had been competitors before skating for Disney on Ice. I also quickly discovered that I loved watching skating competitions as much as I loved watching Disney on Ice. It wasn’t just about seeing my favorite Disney characters anymore, it was about the beauty and majesty of the sport, the spectacle of seeing someone on blades that are 3/8th of an inch thick do things that seem impossible.

Earlier this year I attended my first skating competition — the ISU World Championships in Boston. I joked with people that it’d be like a new NBA fan starting by attending the Finals, but it was a great experience. A couple months later I attended Stars on Ice in Boston, getting to see even more competitive skaters (though in an exhibition setting).

Honestly the best sporting event I’ve ever seen at TD Garden.

I’ve also branched out to seeing ice theatre shows. It started with Ice Dance International in Dover, New Hampshire, then Ice Theatre of New York, and American Ice Theatre in Boston.

Basically, if it’s happening on ice, I want to be there.

And now, I want to share it with you as well.

What to expect

First, let me be clear what this is not: I am not going to be providing news updates or detailed analysis of skating events. There are plenty of other places doing that better than I could ever hope to. I still can’t even tell the different jumps apart as I’m watching them (aside from an Axel, obviously — it’s the only one where the skater is facing forward on takeoff), so my analysis would be limited to “they skated really well” or “ooh, that fall looked like it hurt” (and as someone who just started taking skating lessons, I can tell you from experience that every fall hurts).

What I will share is my impressions of the various events I attend (and I have a lot of them planned this season). I’ll also do book reviews for some of the figure skating books I read — and with 50+ in my library already with even more on my TBR, I have plenty of reading material. You can keep up with what I’m reading, figure skating or otherwise, over on Goodreads.

Just a small portion of the figure skating books in my library.

I’d also very much like to shine a spotlight on the people who are starring on the ice, in all forms of skating. I have a couple of interviews lined up already and I’m hoping that once I’m officially launched here, I’ll be able to get some more on the books.

And, yes, there will still be plenty of skating video over on my Instagram account. I’ll probably post some over here too, where I can go a little longer on my feelings on the specific video I’m sharing.

Basically, what I’m using this for is as an outlet to share how much I love this sport, and I hope maybe you’ll come to love it too.

Aren’t you forgetting something

Oh, right. That.

As some of you might know, I’ve been writing a romance novel set in the world of figure skating. Currently I’m working on major revisions to it, but I might occasionally share updates on that here as well. I had a bit of a setback with it recently, but I’ve decided I’m not going to let that stop me, nor am I going to let it affect my passion for all things skating.