There are many untold stories from the ice skating world that are kept secret. As long as I have the time during this time of quarantine, I will write out some of these stories. I will change or leave out names to protect both the innocent and the guilty.
Today's story is called
The Ice Dancing Coaching Feud.
The Ice Dancing Coaching Feud
There were two coaches at a certain ice skating center in the mountains that never got along. I had no idea how bad their feud was until my family was affected. We ended up right in the middle of it. Here's a summary of one of the most dramatic feuds that has ever occured in the figure skating.
Both coaches were very accomplished. One of the coaches was young, beautiful and talented. It seemed like anything she did turned to gold. The other coach was one of the smartest women in skating. She knew how to put skaters together and turn them into champions. She would find other coaches to work with her skaters in addition to herself and her "coaching team" seemed to make her ice dance teams win.
When we first went to the ice skating training center that was right near our home to skate, I just wanted my children to be in an atmosphere where the best skaters trained. I did not know there was tension between these two coaches.
At first I taught my children on my own there. It was intimidating for them, but also stimulating for all of us to be on the same ice with so many good ice dancers. I'd been away from competitive skating for some time and had only taught recreational figure skaters, so I wanted to learn and make my children, who were a cute sister-brother ice dance team into the best they could be.
It was in the spring of 2006 that I decided to approach "Pamela" one day via email since she was too busy at the rink to approach. She seemed to be the best dance coach at the ice center. Her students included ice dance teams that covered every level. I wasn't sure she'd have time to fit my young children into her busy schedule, but I thought I'd ask.
A two to three lessons a week schedule began with me observing Pamela. I would spend the time between those lessons drilling my children on what Pamela wanted them to master. It was a good arrangement and my children's skating did improve.
It was annoying that the ice skating center made me pay to teach my own children every time I taught them. That didn't make sense to me. I was bringing business into the arena by purchasing ice time, so it just seemed ridiculous for me to pay to coach my own children, but I complied.
As the 2007 competition season for my children ended in October of 2006, I noticed that Pamela just didn't give me and my children what I wanted even though they won the Pre-Juvenile regional title. Pamela did not show up at the competition since she was busy with other students, so I had to teach my children myself at the event. I found she was difficult to approach too, so I asked some parents that had skaters that worked with "Brittany" about what their experience was like with the younger and less busy coach. Shortly after, I decided to make a coaching change.
The coaching change went smoothly. Pamela seemed to understand and accepted my decision to make a coaching change and moved on.
Then something happened on their first day of lessons with Brittany that showed me that there was some tension between the two coaches.
Brittany was having my children "Josh and Rachel" do forward swing rolls. I was following behind. A very accomplished brother-sister team (who eventually went on to win an Olympic medal in ice dancing) were having a lesson with "Ronald" one of the coaches who was part of Pamela's co-coaching team.
"Mila and Andrew" were about to leave for the Midwestern Championships. They were working hard on an advanced ice dance called the Paso Doble. This particular pattern dance is done in the middle of the ice sheet.
My kids, Josh and Rachel, were closely following Brittany's lead, as Mila and Andrew were doing the Paso to music. Rachel and Josh were not watching for other skaters since they were following Brittany and trying hard to copy her every move. Suddenly, there was a collision. It seemed as if coach Ronald wanted the skaters to collide.
Rachel and Mila both flew in opposite directions. Rachel was hurt. Andrew made sure Rachel was okay as Mila moaned and groaned. It was obvious she was not hurt, but Mila was only about 11 or 12 years old at the time and needed to make a scene. She cried more than she needed to.
We all felt horrible that there had been a collision, and tried to apologize, but neither Pamela nor Mila's mother would accept our apology. In fact, Mila's mother made my daughter feel so bad that she made my little Rachel cry! I couldn't believe a parent would not accept an apology and not care about my child, but that is what happened.
Later that afternoon, I was called into the rink manager's office and was told that if such a collision would happen again that my children may not be allowed to skate at the facility. I was given a warning, and told that we had jeopardized Mila and Andrew's chances at the Midwestern Championships. (It turned out that Mila was seen happily playing ball later that afternoon outside of the rink.)
When I let Brittany know about my conversation with the rink manager, I was told, after Brittany called the manager, that I didn't quite understand, and that things were not quite as threatening as I had thought, but from that day forward, I was always terribly worried that my children would get in the way of any of Pamela's skaters, so I was constantly on the ice with them making sure they never got in the way.
We did have some close calls and it seemed every time my children were even close to one of Pamela's skaters, that I would see one of the parents of Pamela's students rush into the arena's office to complain.
The atmosphere on the ice was more than tense.
Things worsened when Brittany teamed up "Abigail and Jonathan." Abigail had worked with Brittany as a solo skater, but once she was teamed up with Jonathan, they became a junior level team that were really good. They were a direct threat to Pamela's other junior teams, and so it seemed a competition at the rink began between the two coaches on who was the better coach.
My children, Josh and Rachel, still got a lot of attention from Brittany even though Abigail and Jonathan needed many more lessons and took up what seemed like most of Brittany's time. We felt taken care of and Brittany told me once that she loved my children so much and treated them as if they were her own.
As time went on Brittany gained more students, so there was not really enough spaces on the ice sessions for both Pamela's and Brittany's students. This increased the tension at the arena since the rink's office had to make decisions on who would be skating on certain sessions. In other words, there was a competition for ice time. Solo ice dancers could not get spots on the sessions and sometimes got bumped from sessions even if they paid for those sessions in advance so teams could skate together. On Saturday mornings, there would be a race for walk-on sign ups for sessions where pre-signing up had not been permitted.
One instance which was really typical during this coaching feud that I remember was almost comical. There was a guideline at the rink that the skaters doing their programs to music should wear a green sash. That really helped my children, who were very young, know when to stay clear of the dance teams who were doing run-throughs of their competition programs. The comical instance occurred during a practice session during Summer Skate, when the ice dance sessions were especially full and tense. All of Pamela's skaters decided to come to that session wearing green sashes!
"Mommy, who do we get out of the way for?" asked my children. It was a totally ridiculous prank!
Another young ice dance team, coached by Pamela, teamed up in 2007. Those two young children were extremely talented skaters. It seemed that their existence added more to the existing feud. "Kathy and Luke" were in direct competition with my children and most of the time placed ahead of them which seemed to confirm that Pamela was the better coach, but once in awhile, Rachel and Josh placed higher.
The 2008 US Junior Championships took place in Lake Placid, New York. Kathy and Luke were the Midwestern Juvenile Champions, and the favorite to win. That did not happen though. A team from Maryland won, Josh and Rachel placed second, and Kathy and Luke placed third.
When a local paper in our mountain town posted a photo of the juvenile ice dance medalists from our area on the podium, the article was posted on the club board at the arena. Someone kept turning Rachel's and Josh's photo over and over again so that only Kathy and Luke's photo showed on the board. This, in my opinion, was ridiculous, but also upset me greatly. It was confirmed later that Kathy and her friends thought it was a funny prank. I eventually posted the photo on my blog where no one could touch it.
Sometime during the intense time that my kids were competing against Kathy and Luke, I noticed that Kathy and Luke had the cutest program. I decided to film it since it was just so very clever. A few days later, Kathy's father, who was also a coach, approached me in anger.
"I have talked to all the coaches at the arena about you filming my daughter's program. What you did was out of line. You could possibly be stealing moves."
Kathy's father's statements caught me off guard and of course upset me. I explained to him that I really was clueless that I had given the impression I was stealing moves by filming his child's cute program, but told him I would not do it again.
(Later, filming any skaters, including one's own children at the training center was banned. I really didn't believe it applied to me since I sent videos of my kids' practice sessions to my father every day to enjoy, so I kept filming my kids, but as time went on, I was told I couldn't film my own children's skating unless a coach requested it. I was no longer considered one of their coaches even though I continued to pay the arena to teach my own children and be on the ice with them.)
Another thing that added to the intensity of the tension and feud among these two ice dance coaches was that pair skating teams skated on some combined ice dance-pair sessions. Pair skating teams doing high overhead and dangerous lifts sometimes just couldn't move for ice dancers doing run-through programs. It was so very dangerous.
One day, I was waiting to use the music, when one of the top level ice dance teams was doing a run through of their program, but had to stop as they began to skate right into a pair team that was in the middle of an overhead lift.
The ice dance team was not in the middle of a lesson, but I could "feel the tension" as I saw Pamela angrily walking over to the music playing station to address her team.
I heard the following:
"I NEVER want you to ever stop in the middle of your program again!"
"Tom," Pamela's student replied. "We were about to almost get killed. We had to stop."
Pamela replied, "No! You should have slammed into them since you had the right of way. Never again do I want to see you stop for anyone!"
I was shocked. When I had been a competitive skater, skaters exhibited some courtesy and did move for one another and knew that once in awhile that other skaters might get in their way. I heard Pamela tell her skaters that the only way to train properly was to run other skaters down!
This atmosphere of intensity just kept getting worse and worse. There seemed to be a competition on the ice every day, but this competition went on off the ice too. The parents of Pamela's students sat together and Brittany's parents sat in separate areas. There were no smiles or friendly attitudes among the two camps. Skaters and parents cheered for the skaters only in their camps. This was terrible sportsmanship. My children thought every ice rink had similar feuds. I tried to tell them that coaching feuds in other facilities did not exist with such intensity, but I don't think they believed me. This feud had gone on for more than five years!
My family ended up right in the middle of this feud in 2010 when my youngest child, "Ana," teamed up with "Victor." Victor had been a long time student of Pamela's and I just felt Ana and Victor would make a nice juvenile level ice dance team.
The fact that Ana was going to skate with Victor at all crushed Brittany. I still remember her calling me pleading with me not to follow through on the partnership, but Ana cried when I told her that Brittany did not want her to skate with Victor, so we went ahead and allowed the partnership to form.
As time passed, Brittany accepted the fact that Ana and Victor were a team, but the whole situation felt tense. Ana told me she loved Brittany so much, but felt Brittany was angry with her every time she saw her. This was horrible for a little girl who wanted to be liked by everyone.
My family was part of both skating camps, so I could sit with either Pamela's students parents or Brittany's, but I usually would just get on the ice so I didn't have to be in contact with either side. I would put my skates on at the far end of the rink and instructed my kids to do the same thing.
The feud hit its highest intensity when two skaters who had once been a team, "Janice and Mickey" were teamed up with other skaters from both camps. Janice was now Brittany's student and Mickey was Pamela's. When Mickey and his partner were on the same sessions as Janice and her partner, it seemed that more collisions than ever occurred. Some said that Mickey was deliberately trying to run into Janice.
After a really bad collision, Janice's parents filed a restraining order against Mickey. This meant they could not be within 50 feet of one another, so they could not practice on the same practice sessions or even compete in the same competitions! When this went to court, Pamela paid for Mickey's court costs.
This very public case seemed to be the last straw for the ice skating training center. After a few months, in early 2011, Brittany's and Pamela's students were notified that both coaches were no longer going to be allowed to coach at the arena after April of that year.
Petitions began circulating to keep the coaches in the facility and the parents of both camps met with the arena's general manager hoping for a compromise, but that did not happen.
Aftermath:
Some students followed Pamela and Brittany to different ice rinks, but others hoped the ice skating training center would provide even better ice dance coaches. That never happened. The ice dance program at the facility essentially crumbled.
My own children suffered and so did many other skaters. Rachel and Josh skated together for only one more season. Ana and Victor's partnership ended almost as soon as Pamela was not allowed at the rink.
It took many years for my family to regain their joy of skating. Some of the other skaters' joy of skating never returned.
As time has passed, when we remember this coaching feud, we can't quite believe it existed. I've heard that things are still somewhat tense between Brittany and Pamela, but usually they teach at different rinks, so their students are not affected like we were.
Time does heal and I hope someday that every person affected by this coaching feud will regain their love of skating.
Further Reading:
