Ice skating
People skate for various reasons, including recreation (fun), exercise, competitive sports, and commuting.
Ice hockey, bandy, rinkball, and ringette are team sports played with, respectively, a flat sliding puck, a ball, and a rubber ring.
Research suggests that the earliest ice skating happened in southern Finland more than 4,000 years ago.
In the Netherlands, ice skating was considered proper for all classes of people, as shown in many pictures from Dutch Golden Age painters.
[2] Ancient ice skates, made of animal bones, were found at the bronze age Gaotai Ruins in north west China, and are estimated to be likely 3,500 years old.
In 1711 Jonathan Swift still thinks the sport might be unfamiliar to his "Stella", writing to her: "Delicate walking weather; and the Canal and Rosamund's Pond full of the rabble and with skates, if you know what that is.
For admission to the club, candidates had to pass a skating test where they performed a complete circle on either foot (e.g., a figure eight), and then jumped over first one hat, then two and three, placed over each other on the ice.
[7] Members wore a silver skate hanging from their buttonhole and met on The Serpentine, Hyde Park on 27 December 1830.
Queen Victoria became acquainted with her future husband, Prince Albert, through a series of ice skating trips.
[11] Albert continued to skate after their marriage and on falling through the ice was once rescued by Victoria and a lady in waiting from a stretch of water in the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
As the technology for the maintenance of natural ice did not exist, these early rinks used a substitute consisting of a mixture of hog's lard and various salts.
An item in the 8 May 1844 issue of Littell's 'Living Age' headed the 'Glaciarium' reported that "This establishment, which has been removed to Grafton Street East' Tottenham Court Road, was opened on Monday afternoon.
The area of artificial ice is extremely convenient for such as may be desirous of engaging in the graceful and manly pastime of skating."
Skating became popular as a recreation, a means of transport and spectator sport in The Fens in England for people from all walks of life.
In these local matches men (or sometimes women or children) would compete for prizes of money, clothing, or food.
The championship matches took the form of a Welsh main or "last man standing" contest (single-elimination tournament).
He was the first skater to incorporate ballet and dance movements into his skating, as opposed to focusing on tracing patterns on the ice.
Haines also invented the sit spin and developed a shorter, curved blade for figure skating that allowed for easier turns.
[19][20][21][22][23] It had long been believed that ice is slippery because the pressure of an object in contact with it causes a thin layer to melt.
[29] The ploughing friction decreases with the velocity V, since the pressure in the water layer increases with V and lifts the skate (aquaplaning).
While serious injury is rare, a number of short track speed skaters have been paralysed after a heavy fall when they collided with the boarding.
Although this can prove fatal, it is also possible for the rapid cooling to produce a condition in which a person can be revived up to hours after falling into the water.
