‘Tis the Season for Frozen Ponds and Sharp Blades

The weather outside is frightful, which makes this a perfect time to strap on your skates and hit the ice – or to curl up inside with these ice-skating books and films:

 

The Skating Rink
by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews

When figure skater Nuria Marti is dropped from the Olympic team, a civil servant secretly uses public funds to build her a skating rink in the ruins of a seaside mansion, but Nuria has affairs and soon the rink becomes a crime scene.

 

 

Ice Castles
DVD [2010]

Alex Winston is young, beautiful and talented, but to become a figure skating superstar she has to push herself, reinvent herself, and most painfully of all, leave her boyfriend behind. When a tragic fall leaves her blind, she needs someone to believe in her, to love her and convince her she has the strength to skate and dream again.

 

 

Home Ice
by Jack Falla

A collection of essays on backyard skating rinks and frozen ponds and how these local skating venues allow their participants to get in touch with the game of hockey in addition to building relationships with family and friends.

 

 

 

First Hockey Words
by Per-Henrik Gürth

An introduction to ice hockey for young children using a group of animal friends all ready to start playing the sport. Each instruction is identified with the picture and the word associated with it. The DEFENSEMAN (clears the puck away from the net) — LINE CHANGE (coach calls for a line change before the next face-off).

 

Figure Skating: A History
by James R. Hines

Hines artfully explains various skating styles – English, Continental, American – and the development of modern competition.

 

 

My Sergei: A Love Story
by Ekaterina Gordeeva with E.M. Swift

Ekaterina Gordeeva tells the love story of her relationship with her skating partner and husband Sergei Grinkov who died suddenly at the age of twenty-eight of a heart attack during a routine practice session.

 

 

Miracle
DVD [2004]

The inspiring true story behind one of the greatest moments in [American] sports history – the 1980 United States ice hockey team’s Olympic victory against the Soviet Union.

 

 

See Jane Score
by Rachel Gibson

While covering the Seattle Chinooks hockey team, reporter Jane Alcott meets career-focused goalie Luc Martineau, but their relationship is threatened by Jane’s other occupation – writing the scandalous “Honey Pie” adventures.

 

 

 

Skating Life: My Story
by Dorothy Hamill, with Deborah Amelon

From age eight, when she discovered she loved skating, to age 19, when she won her Olympic gold medal, Hamill’s parents sacrificed and scraped so she could train. This memoir is her homage to them, as well as her frank recounting of the difficulties women faced in professional sports in the 1970s.

 

 

Blade of Glory
DVD [2007]

Bitter mens figure skating rivals Chazz Michael Michaels and Jimmy MacElroy brawl after tying for the gold medal at the world championships. Banned for life from the men’s single skating competition, these archrivals find a loophole that will allow them to skate again as a figure skating pair.