The Boston skating community hosts the world championships even as it mourns plane crash victims

NORWOOD, Mass. (AP) — The chairs where Jinna Han and Spencer Lane used to sit are still there, and covered with gifts: cards and cookies, plants and pictures — anything that might have sparked a connection for their friends and fellow skaters.

Photographs, drawings, a South Korean flag, hearts cut from construction paper or bent out of pipe cleaners and so many stuffed animals that they are in danger of spilling off the white plastic folding chairs just like all of the others in the hallway outside the main rink at the Skating Club of Boston.

Except these are roped off.

“The kids have insisted upon that,” said the club's CEO, Doug Zeghibe. “It’s their own remembrance of Spencer and Jinna.”

It has been not quite two months since American Airlines Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington, D.C., collided with an Army helicopter and fell into the Potomac River, killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft.

Among them were six members of the Boston club: Han and Lane, their mothers and a pair of married former world champion skaters who were coaching at the club, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov; their son, Max, had taken an earlier flight home.

And as the skating community gathers in Boston for this week's world championships — an event planned long before the city again became the center of the sport's grief — organizers are planning a tribute to those who died in the icy waters of the Potomac.

“The kids we lost — across the country — were the future of the sport,” Zeghibe said. “So it’s really nice to see this being acknowledged.”

First chartered in 1912 — the same week that the Titanic sank — the Skating Club of Boston for more than a century has trained recreational skaters and Olympians alike, including gold medalists Dick Button and Tenley Albright, runners-up Nancy Kerrigan and Paul Wylie and scores of U.S. junior and senior champions.

The awards and trinkets from the club's history fill a trophy room (named for Button) overlooking the main performance rink (named for Albright). A few steps away in the members' lounge is an even more poignant collection: an impromptu memorial for the crash victims, which moved upstairs after it outgrew a table in the lobby.

There are pictures — everything from professional-looking pastel sketches of the skaters to a cheerful grade school scrawl with the message: “I HoPe You Gis FeL BeDr.” Framed photographs of Han and Lane have signatures spilling off the mats.

An origami swan. Knit angels and flowers. A certificate for 15 trees planted in the memory of the lost skaters. Fresh flowers arrived from the Japanese skating federation just Tuesday morning. The Missoula (Montana) Figure Skating Club sent a note, too.

On the rink below, a Zamboni cleans the ice. Skaters wander the hallways preparing for practice.

“The kids are definitely back on the ice," Zeghibe said. “A lot of them say they’re skating with renewed purpose and they feel the sport a little bit differently now, knowing that they lost two of their training mates.

“I don’t see anybody quitting the sport over this. I see kids renewing their commitment to the sport,” he said. “So it has brought the community together, which is, I guess, one of the slivers of, you know, optimism to something this horrific.”

The six Bostonians were among more than two dozen people from the skating community returning from a development camp after the national figure skating championships in Wichita when their plane crashed on Jan. 29 on its way into Washington.

Skating clubs in the D.C. area also were impacted by the crash, and a televised tribute was held in Washington this month for a crowd of more than 15,000, including hundreds of first responders who assisted in rescue and recovery efforts.

American skating icons Kristi Yamaguchi and Brian Boitano emceed the show, which featured performances from two-time U.S. champion Amber Glenn, Olympian-turned-TV analyst Johnny Weir and reigning men’s world champion Ilia Malinin.

But it was Max Naumov, a 2020 junior champion and three-time fourth-place finisher at nationals, who brought the arena to tears.

“It was really heartfelt,” Zeghibe said. “To see how many folks come together in support of the skating community, it was a bit emotional. You really felt it, in a good way, that support.”

Another tribute is planned for Wednesday night during the worlds at the TD Garden. Videos will memorialize the skaters, and a choir will sing. Political and skating dignitaries are scheduled to attend, and Lane’s father, Doug, will speak on behalf of the grieving families.

Malinin, who will be trying to repeat as champion, said he would dedicate his performance to the victims.

“As a community, we’ll come together and share the joy we have for skating with one another," said Madison Chock, who along with her husband, Evan Bates, will be going for a third consecutive ice dance world title.

“I’m hopeful this will be a cathartic experience," Bates said.

Zeghibe said he believes some of the gloom is lifting.

“This month has been better than February. And it is all of our hopes," he said, “that April will be better than March.”

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AP Sports Writers Dave Skretta in Boston and Stephen Whyno in Washington contributed to this report.

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