This is a wonderful book, and not just for die-hard fans of figure skating, but for everyone who has ever been amused by Dick Button's colorful skating commentary. Button has understandably scaled back on that commentary in the last few years and that has been a huge loss to the sport. None of his many replacements has even come close to providing the depth, honesty, humor, and reverence for the sport that Button brought to his commentary.
This book helps to make up for that loss. It is a wonderful account of Button's involvement with sport, of the things he loves about it and the things he doesn't. It uses the conceit that the reader is actually a guest in Button's home, sitting on his couch and watching skating with him. I initially found that annoying, but as the book progressed, I found it increasingly charming. Button punctuates each reflection with a digression on food and drink (popcorn, nachos, beer, scotch...) with the result that if you read the book through in one sitting you're likely to feel you've over indulged.
There's a lot of material here on the work that went into Button's apparently effortless skating commentary. Many readers will be surprised to learn that in fact a great deal of effort went into that commentary, particularly in the beginning. That part of the book makes it a nice compliment to Skating on Air: The Broadcast History of an Olympic Marquee Sport (another must-reading for fans of figure skating).
There is just too much good material in this book for any summary of it to do it justice. You need to read it. There are Button's observations on skating itself and then there are his observations on how the sport is governed. Button, along with Sonia Bianchetti, and other prominent members of the figure skating community were part of the short-lived WSF (World Skating Federation) a valiant attempt to break the suffocating stranglehold the ISU (International Skating Union) has had on the sport. What Button doesn't say (very likely because of a confidentiality agreement) is what spelled the end of the WSF was not simply the incredibly short-sighted failure of U.S. Figure Skating to support it, and the blatantly illegal move on the part of the ISU to disqualify any and all skaters who participated in any WSF events from ISU events (including the World Figure Skating Championships), but the fact that the then wealthy ISU hit the WSF with a SLAPP suit that forced them to close shop before they even got started. Nice, eh?
It is wonderful to see that Button is still going as strong as ever. I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel!
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2014
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- SeanReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 16, 2014
Very entertaining, readable and informative. A "must read" for Figure Skating fans
