The ice rink at the Skating Club of Boston was completely vacant and uncharacteristically silent Thursday afternoon, but club CEO Doug Zeghibe said that was “very fitting.”
“It’s tragic,” Zeghibe said. “We all feel it. We can’t explain it. We’re in this together.”
The devastation comes after this week’s mid-air collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and a Black Hawk military helicopter over the Potomac River.
Aboard this flight, Zeghibe said, at least 14 young figure skaters were returning home from an elite training camp. Six of these skaters had ties to Zeghibe’s skating club.
“I think for all of us, we have lost family,” Zeghibe told reporters in a press conference this week.
The training camp participants attended rinks all across the country. The Ashburn Ice House, located in Loudoun County, Virginia, stated on its website that the rink was “directly affected” by the incident. The plane was scheduled to land at nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Wednesday night, arriving from Wichita, Kansas, where the skaters’ National Development Camp had been held.
The camp was a training program. Attendees had the opportunity to be selected for advanced novice and junior international competitions from the camp, according to U.S. Figure Skating. Victims include 1994 pairs world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov of Russia, coaches at the Skating Club of Boston.
The crash is reminiscent of a 1961 plane crash, Sabena Flight 548, carrying the entire U.S. Figure Skating team to the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague. There were no survivors of the flight.
“I grew up in the shadow of that,” Zeghibe said. “My mother had me skating at a very early age, and even as a little 3-year-old I knew something terrible had happened.”
Paul George, president emeritus of the U.S. Figure Skating Foundation, said, “The sport will rebound.”
“It always hurts to lose coaches of the talent we lost,” he said. “In 1961, the same thing happened. We lost some very, very upstanding coaches.”
The skating community has already begun to come together. The press conference Thursday afternoon was held at the Skating Club of Boston, where George and Zeghibe spoke alongside former Olympian and Skating Club of Boston alumni Nancy Kerrigan, former figure skating Olympic champion Tenley Albright and Joy Skate founder Elin Schran.
Kerrigan, who showed up to the rink out of support of her former skating club, was emotional.
“Every rink that has skating has some sort of feeling towards this,” Kerrigan said. “It’s tragic.”
Kerrigan referenced the support she got back when she was an athlete. She said the skating club was “the only place” she thought she should be following the tragedy.
“I’m not sure what there is to do, maybe to get someone a cup of coffee, a hug,” Kerrigan said, fighting tears. “I’m here for hugs. I don’t know. I just want to be able to give back what I feel like I got.”