A Scottish-Canadian Blethering On About Books

I would have enjoyed this much more if it hadn't been so very determinedly US-centric, to the point that other countries' broadcast histories of figure skating go almost completely unmentioned, and other broadcasters' contributions to both the popularity of the sport and the exposure of various scandals is laughably underrepresented. However, that complaint - which could have been avoided by a simple change in subtitle - out of the way, this was quite an interesting read. It's not often that the behind-the-scenes mavens who make all those infuriating decisions about coverage, camera angles, etc., get to have their say. And the author appears to have managed to interview most of the commentators as well, although there is a huge missing voice, that of Dick Button. I would, in particular, have liked to have had more about the early years of professional TV skating, over which he had practically unchallenged domination in the US.

The narrative is chronological, covering the high and low points of figure skating's history in a way that is entirely familiar to anyone who's watched for a couple of decades or so. We have the introduction of satellite TV, the 1961 plane disaster, the Calgary Olympics, the Nancy incident, the overkill of professional skating in the nineties, and the various Olympic scandals - all very much with the received wisdom of the US point of view. And, of course, this is where the US-centrism grates - in the breathless hagiography of Janet Lynn, for instance. (By a couple of sentences she lets slip, though to her credit only in this moment in the book, one gets the impression that the author shares something of Lynn's religiosity).

It was an interesting enough survey, and it brought back memories. But I'm not tempted to acquire it for my shelf.