No sport grew as phenomenally during the last two decades of the twentieth century as figure skating. Having been a favorite sport among women, its popularity was bolstered by Olympic gold medal winners Peggy Fleming (1968), Janet Lynn (1972), Dorothy Hamill (1976), Scott Hamilton (1984), Brian Boitano (1988), and Kristi Yamaguchi (1992). While diehard fans followed the sport through various ice shows, competitions, and television performances, it was the bumbling fiasco of the attack on Nancy Kerrigan in 1994 by the cohorts of a jealous Tonya Harding that propelled figure skating into the news headlines. By the end of the twentieth century, it ranked second behind pro football in television ratings. It is particularly significant that the sport came so far after suffering the devastating loss of its entire roster of top skaters and coaches in an airplane crash on the way to the World Championships in Lyon, France, on February 5, 1961.

Though ice...