BOSTON — For the skating club of Boston, history is repeating itself.
The tragedy in Washington is reopening the scars of a similar, horrible tragedy in 1961.
It was on February 15th, 1961, that a plane carrying the entire U.S. Figure Skating team crashed as it approached the airport in Brussels, Belgium.
All 73 passengers were killed, including the U.S. Figure Skating team, 10 of them were members of the Skating Club of Boston.
It was a devastating loss for the club, the impact of that disaster was felt for decades.
At the club’s rink in Norwood, there is now a memorial commemorating the tragedy. As club members console each other over this current loss, they remember what happened in 1961.
“There were really 22 of my friends on that plane, in 1961.”
Tenley Albright, a former Olympic champion in 1956 and surgeon, reflected on that tragic day.
“I was on the way to the World Championships, and I’m sure I would have gone there to cheer them on, but I was in my last year of Medical School and couldn’t go. And I remember, years later, people looking at me very strangely, when they talked about it: “‘Weren’t you on that plane?”
Former Vice President of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee Paul George referred to the tragedy as “the day the music stopped.”
“I think it made us more resolute as we moved forward as skaters, young skaters. I was 19 at the time. It took time, but we came back, stronger, better.”
For the skating club of Boston, what happened back in 1961, and again now in 2025, is a shared loss.
If anything is to be learned from history, it’s that this club will rise from this tragedy.
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