''Hats Off to Ice'' was an ice show originally conceived by
figure skating
Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when contested at the 1908 Olympics in London. The Olympic disciplines are me ...
champion
Sonja Henie
Sonja Henie (8 April 1912 – 12 October 1969) was a Norway, Norwegian figure skating, figure skater and film star. She was a three-time List of Olympic medalists in figure skating, Olympic champion (Figure skating at the 1928 Winter Olympics, ...
, G.S. Eyssell, and
Arthur Wirtz
Arthur Michael Wirtz (January 23, 1901 – July 21, 1983) was an American entrepreneur. He was the founder of Wirtz Corporation, a holding company that owned Chicago Stadium, the Bismarck Hotel in Chicago, the Chicago Black Hawks, and the Chic ...
. The show was presented at the
Center Theatre in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and ran from 1944-1946 for a total of 889 performances. It became Henie's most popular show.
Musical ice shows
As an ice theater, the Center Theatre's initial presentation was of Henie's production ''It Happens on Ice'', the first of the musical ice spectacles by Henie. More ice spectacles produced by Henie and Wirtz soon followed, including: ''
Stars on Ice'', ''Hats Off to Ice'', ''Icetime'', and ''
Howdy Mr. Ice''.
By the end of the 1940s, the novelty of ice shows had waned, and the sensation had all but ended.
References
External links
*
''Hats Off to Ice''at the BWW International Database
*{{Playbill production, /hats-off-to-ice-center-theatre-vault-0000012007
archive
Ice shows