History has repeated itself at the Skating Club of Boston.
Paul George, a club member for over 60 years, received a tap on the shoulder from his wife at 6:30 Thursday morning before she told him the news that has shattered the figure skating world.
Two teenage club skaters, Jinna Han, 13, of Mansfield, and Spencer Lane, 16, of Barrington, R.I., their mothers, Jin Han and Christine Lane, and coaches, married couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, all died in the country’s deadliest air disaster in a generation.
They were en route home from the US Championships and National Development Camp in Wichita, Kansas.
“Very vivid memories” came racing back, George said, to when his father told him the morning of Feb. 15, 1961, that the entire U.S. figure skating team died in a plane crash in Belgium on its way to the World Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Almost half of the skaters on that team came from the Skating Club of Boston including George’s legendary coach Maribel Owen. George, age 19 at the time, went on to win the U.S. Junior Championship with his sister a year later.
“Like today, 1961 was a tragic moment,” George told reporters gathered at the eerily quiet Norwood facility Thursday afternoon. “It was a day the music stopped very much like this. I think it made us more resolute though as we moved forward as young skaters. … It took time but we came back – I think stronger, better.”
George stopped by New England’s epicenter for figure skating with a few other club members who carry legendary names in the sport: Tenley Albright, the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal whom the club’s main rink is named after, and Nancy Kerrigan, a highly-decorated Olympic medalist.
In her first words, Kerrigan said she was “not sure how to process” the pain as she started to choke up.
“I feel for the athletes, the skaters, their parents (and) anyone who was on that plane, not just the skaters, because it is such a tragic event,” Kerrigan said. “We’ve been through tragedies together — as Americans, as people — and we are strong. I guess it’s how we respond to it.
“My response was to be with people I care about and love, and I needed support,” she added. “That’s why I’m here. It’s a shock.”
The Skating Club of Boston sent 18 skaters to Wichita to compete at the US Championships and 12 to the National Development Camp, which CEO Doug Zeghibe explained is for “young competitive skaters with the most promise to be a champion of tomorrow.
That’s exactly how everybody at the club who knew Lane and Han described the skaters: They had unlimited potential on the ice, and their confidence and positivity transcended off the ice.
Lane and Han had been in the crowd when club skaters Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov won the pairs title last weekend in Kansas.
“It is very special for us to see these kids in the audience,” Efiomova said, “to see this community, to see this energy and power of these young skaters cheering and screaming. It really helps me bring a lot of joy into skating.”
Lane was a sectional champion who became popular among the skating community on social media. On Wednesday, he posted a video showing him doing a triple toe loop to wrap up the development camp.
“It has been my goal almost ever since I became aware that it was a thing. I learned so much new information that I can apply to my everyday life, and met so many amazing people,” Lane wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday, hours before he posted a photo aboard the plane just before it departed from Wichita.
Han, who had just turned 13, recovered from a bout of tendonitis before sectionals and earned a trip to the development camp, The Skating Lesson wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday.
“Mother and daughter were known for being positive, enthusiastic and hard-working,” the post read. “Jinna was so concerned for her friend who suffered an injury at Sectionals that (her coach) Olga (Ganicheva) implored her to ‘be selfish.’”
The U.S. Figure Skating and Massachusetts flags were lowered to half-staff outside the century-old club’s newly built rink. Flower deliveries arrived at the reception desk, while visitors were greeted with long and tearful hugs.
Young skaters practiced their routines on the club’s two practice rinks in silence.
A table with framed pictures of Lane, Han and the coaches replaced another filled with messages wishing luck to all the skaters in Wichita by midday.
Tenley Albright, who won an Olympic gold medal at the 1956 Winter Olympics, tried to piece together what had happened as tears flowed. She said she lost 22 of her friends on the plane in 1961 on the way to the World Championships. She didn’t travel because she was in her last year of medical school.
“I certainly don’t have any answers,” Albright said of this week’s tragedy. “I really can’t believe it happened because I picture them right here, the coaches always stood at that entrance, the skaters just flew all over the ice doing remarkable things, inspiring all of us.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
