Ice Capades

If you watch local TV news, you know these people have come up with a new way to terrorize us with their weather coverage. The new way is this: If the snow doesn't come, play up the ice. Ice was the new Armageddon yesterday. So instead of showing footage of panicked shoppers descending on supermarkets for milk, bread and toilet paper after snow forecasts, the TV news showed us footage of traffic creeping along the interstates or cars skidding through stop signs. Instead of interviewing the usual breathless adults shoveling snow off their driveways and giggling kids sledding down snowy hills while enjoying a day off from school, the TV stations trotted out somber-looking highway crew supervisors and state troopers to testify as to the awesome killing power of ice. "There's nothing worse than ice," one highway official told a local newscast.

Anne H. Leitch, a former professional skater who performed during the 1930s and 1940s with Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies and the Ice Capades, died March 20 of pneumonia at St. Agnes Hospital. She was 94. Anne Haroldson, who was born and raised in Duluth, Minn., began ice skating when she was 5. During the 1928 Minneapolis-St. Paul Winter Carnival, which starred world champion and Olympic skater Sonja Henie, she filled in at the last minute for a professional skater. "Sonja would not allow any pros on the program with her," Mrs. Leitch wrote in unpublished autobiographical notes.

In the story of "Cinderella," the heroine dreams of a future of style and grace. So does Dorothy Hamill.The one-time queen of American ice skating, who won an Olympic gold medal in 1976, purchased the venerable "Ice Capades" last winter as it operated under bankruptcy proceedings. She dreams of turning it into the world's premier ice show and hopes to lead skating entertainment into a new realm.When "Dorothy Hamill's Ice Capades" makes its first stop in Baltimore for six performances beginning tomorrow at the Baltimore Arena, audiences will find something different.

If you watch local TV news, you know these people have come up with a new way to terrorize us with their weather coverage. The new way is this: If the snow doesn't come, play up the ice. Ice was the new Armageddon yesterday. So instead of showing footage of panicked shoppers descending on supermarkets for milk, bread and toilet paper after snow forecasts, the TV news showed us footage of traffic creeping along the interstates or cars skidding through stop signs. Instead of interviewing the usual breathless adults shoveling snow off their driveways and giggling kids sledding down snowy hills while enjoying a day off from school, the TV stations trotted out somber-looking highway crew supervisors and state troopers to testify as to the awesome killing power of ice. "There's nothing worse than ice," one highway official told a local newscast.

Anne H. Leitch, a former professional skater who performed during the 1930s and 1940s with Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies and the Ice Capades, died March 20 of pneumonia at St. Agnes Hospital. She was 94. Anne Haroldson, who was born and raised in Duluth, Minn., began ice skating when she was 5. During the 1928 Minneapolis-St. Paul Winter Carnival, which starred world champion and Olympic skater Sonja Henie, she filled in at the last minute for a professional skater. "Sonja would not allow any pros on the program with her," Mrs. Leitch wrote in unpublished autobiographical notes.

He's the rebel without a triple axel.While other figure skaters scale greater and greater technical heights, Christopher Bowman remains the showman, preferring the glitz over the guts and the crowd's adoring applause over the judges' niggling points.But as headliner of the Ice Capades, which comes to town tonight for nine performances, Mr. Bowman gets to indulge in the kind of stunts that would never play before the judges -- a little soft shoe here, a little tap dancing there and, most of all, an entrance in black leather astride a Harley-Davidson.

Nine students from MacArthur Middle School won the academic tournament at Cardinal Gibbons High School Feb. 15. The competition, patterned after the "It's Academic" television show, involved 13 schools and 20 teams. (Several schools, including MacArthur, entered two or threeteams in the tournament).Each middle school was sent a packet oftopics covered in the competition. Coaches and some students researched many of the categories and compiled packets of information for each team member. Practices were held approximately twice a week for five weeks.

Cinderella and her prince were falling in love nightly on the stage of a 1996 Ice Capades tour of China as Dawn Latona and Chris Conte began their own love story off the ice. Roles as the Spanish Princess ("There's some casting," says the fair, blue-eyed Dawn) and Buttons, Cinderella's comic sidekick ("I played the village idiot," jokes Chris) reunited the two, who had known each other as children when they were skating competitively in Buffalo, N.Y. Back then, "I thought she was cute," says Chris, but "she would never talk to me."

For a good winter show, see the Ice Capades -- or watch Mount St. Joseph's Mike Maher.When Maher first arrived at Mount St. Joseph three years ago, the Gaels struggled as the Maryland Scholastic Hockey League's worst team.Now Maher is a junior, and the Gaels lead the league's Northern Division with a 4-0 record, including a 6-3 victory over second-place Gilman (3-1).And Gaels coach Bob Flaherty said Maher, a three-year starter, is responsible."He's been playing for us for three years and he's got very good skills," said Flaherty.

Elsewhere Giovanni Agnelli 81, the patriarch of the Fiat auto company whose jet-set lifestyle, vast financial network and aristocratic air became symbols of Italy's postwar rebirth and prosperity, has died in Rome after suffering from prostate cancer. Company officials would not specify when he died. While Italy worked to remake itself after defeat and disaster in World War II, the ruggedly handsome businessman became its monied symbol. Mr. Agnelli was known for his glamorous lifestyle.

Elsewhere Giovanni Agnelli 81, the patriarch of the Fiat auto company whose jet-set lifestyle, vast financial network and aristocratic air became symbols of Italy's postwar rebirth and prosperity, has died in Rome after suffering from prostate cancer. Company officials would not specify when he died. While Italy worked to remake itself after defeat and disaster in World War II, the ruggedly handsome businessman became its monied symbol. Mr. Agnelli was known for his glamorous lifestyle.

Cinderella and her prince were falling in love nightly on the stage of a 1996 Ice Capades tour of China as Dawn Latona and Chris Conte began their own love story off the ice. Roles as the Spanish Princess ("There's some casting," says the fair, blue-eyed Dawn) and Buttons, Cinderella's comic sidekick ("I played the village idiot," jokes Chris) reunited the two, who had known each other as children when they were skating competitively in Buffalo, N.Y. Back then, "I thought she was cute," says Chris, but "she would never talk to me."

I have often told people I wouldn't walk across the street to watch the Winter Olympics.Now, it turns out, walking across the street -- my block has been officially renamed Ice Station Zebra -- actually qualifies as a Winter Games event.I don't know what the conditions are in Norway, but here, in the ice capades we call home, it's pretty much exactly like s Napoleon's march on Moscow, only colder. The bad news is, we're never going to get exiled to a Mediterranean island.Instead, we sit shivering and ask ourselves the eternal question: Will winter ever end?

In the story of "Cinderella," the heroine dreams of a future of style and grace. So does Dorothy Hamill.The one-time queen of American ice skating, who won an Olympic gold medal in 1976, purchased the venerable "Ice Capades" last winter as it operated under bankruptcy proceedings. She dreams of turning it into the world's premier ice show and hopes to lead skating entertainment into a new realm.When "Dorothy Hamill's Ice Capades" makes its first stop in Baltimore for six performances beginning tomorrow at the Baltimore Arena, audiences will find something different.

For a good winter show, see the Ice Capades -- or watch Mount St. Joseph's Mike Maher.When Maher first arrived at Mount St. Joseph three years ago, the Gaels struggled as the Maryland Scholastic Hockey League's worst team.Now Maher is a junior, and the Gaels lead the league's Northern Division with a 4-0 record, including a 6-3 victory over second-place Gilman (3-1).And Gaels coach Bob Flaherty said Maher, a three-year starter, is responsible."He's been playing for us for three years and he's got very good skills," said Flaherty.

He's the rebel without a triple axel.While other figure skaters scale greater and greater technical heights, Christopher Bowman remains the showman, preferring the glitz over the guts and the crowd's adoring applause over the judges' niggling points.But as headliner of the Ice Capades, which comes to town tonight for nine performances, Mr. Bowman gets to indulge in the kind of stunts that would never play before the judges -- a little soft shoe here, a little tap dancing there and, most of all, an entrance in black leather astride a Harley-Davidson.

I have often told people I wouldn't walk across the street to watch the Winter Olympics.Now, it turns out, walking across the street -- my block has been officially renamed Ice Station Zebra -- actually qualifies as a Winter Games event.I don't know what the conditions are in Norway, but here, in the ice capades we call home, it's pretty much exactly like s Napoleon's march on Moscow, only colder. The bad news is, we're never going to get exiled to a Mediterranean island.Instead, we sit shivering and ask ourselves the eternal question: Will winter ever end?

Nine students from MacArthur Middle School won the academic tournament at Cardinal Gibbons High School Feb. 15. The competition, patterned after the "It's Academic" television show, involved 13 schools and 20 teams. (Several schools, including MacArthur, entered two or threeteams in the tournament).Each middle school was sent a packet oftopics covered in the competition. Coaches and some students researched many of the categories and compiled packets of information for each team member. Practices were held approximately twice a week for five weeks.