On a cold winter night in 1907, a 10-year-old Saint John boy waited anxiously at the starting line of his first ice-skating race. As he crunched down, waiting for the starter’s pistol, the young lad impatiently dug his skates into the ice. The white breath pumping from his nostrils looked like smoke from a blast furnace. His chest heaved in anticipation.
The boy was Charles Gorman, who would grow up to become one of the world’s most respected speed skating champions. At the peak of his colourful career, the man known variously as the human dynamo and the fastest human in the world, would say of his victory in that first race: “…the echo of the starter’s gun that night never left my ears.”
That first race was at the Victoria Rink in the north end of Saint John. The rink, affectionately called the Old Vic by local fans, was a breeding ground for many of the city’s outstanding speed skaters.
During the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th, ice skating was more than a popular pastime in the lower Saint John River Valley. It was an efficient way for people to cover long distances during the cold winter months. It was no wonder Saint John became an important centre for the sport of speed skating, so much so that it was nicknamed the Speed Skating Capital of the World. In fact, in 1926 the World Speed Skating Championships were held at Lily Lake.
By the time Gorman skated to victory in his first race, Saint John had produced a number of top-quality speed skaters. Hugh McCormick and Fred Logan were two of the names that dominated the sport. Watching them, and hearing stories about their feats, inspired Gorman. Every chance he got he strapped on his speed skates, went down to the Old Vic and pushed himself harder and harder.
He was dedicated, and his dedication was to pay off. At the age of 15, Gorman won the Maritime Speed Skating Championships, a record for his age group. Determined as he was however, within a few years, fate was to deal him a hand that would change his life. But in the complicated poker game of international affairs, World War I would deal many hands, and many lives would change.
Sometime in May 1917, after fighting at Vimy Ridge, Charles Gorman was wounded seriously in the Battle of Arras. After being hospitalized in England for two months, he was sent home, one of his legs filled with shrapnel. Although doctors said he would never skate competitively again, the 20-year-old Gorman was determined to prove them wrong. Even blood-drenched memories of machine-gun fire could not silence the echo of the starter’s pistol he heard the night he first skated to victory.
Over the next few years, Gorman put himself through an exhaustive rehabilitation and training schedule. By early 1921, he tied for third at the Canadian Outdoor Championships, and on Feb. 11, 1921, in Lake Placid, N.Y., he broke the world record for the 440-yard dash. Commenting on the race, a reporter for the Lake Placid paper, wrote: “It was the most spectacular finish ever witnessed in an ice skating contest.” Charles Gorman was back….with a vengeance.
Between 1921 and 1925, he had many successes. In 1924, he represented Canada in the Olympics, where he finished in second place. Later that year, in Saranac Lake, N.Y., Gorman broke his own record for the 440-yard dash. Despite these impressive accomplishments, Gorman’s most successful year was 1927 when he chalked up 16 firsts, five seconds and five thirds.
The firsts included another record breaking 440-yard dash, the tying of the world record for the 220-yard dash and the winning of the 1927 International Indoor Championship. In his book, The Story of Charles Gorman, published in 1952, Roy Lawson wrote: “In the history of skating, there never was a cleaner, more decisive succession of victories.”
Although he was primarily as a speed skater, Gorman was also a superb baseball player. In 1925 was invited to play with the New York Yankees, the team of the legendary Lou Gehrig, but declined, choosing instead to focus his talents on skating.
In 1928, the man who was known as the fastest human in the world retired from competitive speed skating to go into business with K.C. Irving. When he hung up his famous skates, he had a total of 159 medals, seven world records and the admiration of speed skating fans around the world.
Despite an impressive skating career, after his premature death from cancer at the age of 42, many would say Gorman’s greatest accomplishment was his ability to inspire others to overcome adversity. That would be a fitting epithet for a man who was able to put behind him the pain and horror of the sound of the guns of war and remember only the inspiring sound of the crack of the starter’s pistol.
[Image: From left to right, Valentine Bialas (from Utica, New York), Charles Gorman (from Saint John, New Brunswick) and Ferrell and Lela Brooks (from Toronto, Ontario) at Lily Lake, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Bialas, Gorman and Lela Brooks would all be Olympic speed skaters. From the New Brunswick Museum via Wikimedia Commons.]
