The Ice Capades was a traveling entertainment show featuring theatrical performances involving ice skating.

It was founded in 1940 in Pittsburgh by John H. Harris , who noted the popularity of ice skating displays during the intermissions between periods of hockey games. In the early days, Ice Capades shows were highly theatrical, with vaudeville elements, including scantily-clad showgirls.

Ice Capades shows were extremely popular for several decades — virtually a household name — although criticized by some as kitsch. Shows would often feature former Olympic figure skaters who had retired from amateur competition.

Harris sold the company in 1963 for $5.5 million; in 1986 then-owner Metromedia sold Ice Capades and the Harlem Globetrotters as a package to International Broadcasting Corporation for $30 million. However, a decline in popularity began in the 1980s and the parent company went bankrupt in 1991. In 1993 Dorothy Hamill bought Ice Capades assets in a bankruptcy sale and attempted to revive the company with the critically acclaimed Frozen in Time: Cinderella on Ice, but attendance figures remained stagnant. In February 1995 she sold the company for $10 million to television evangelist Pat Robertson's International Family Entertainment, Inc. , but they announced plans to sell in August 1995, and Ice Capades went out of business permanently a short time later.

Analysts believe that on the one hand, the increasing popularity of the sport of figure skating meant that more sophisticated audiences came to prefer straightforward Olympic-style ice-skating exhibitions and competitions; and on the other hand, shows such as Disney on Ice (featuring Disney cartoon characters) successfully competed for the child audience.

A similar ice-skating entertainment show was the Ice Follies .

Curiously, sitcom episodes with a plot involving tickets to the Ice Capades were still being written years after the demise of the company, including episode 208 ("Drew Hunts a Silver Fox") of the Drew Carey Show (broadcast in 2004) and episode 157 ("The Thought That Counts") of Everybody Loves Raymond (broadcast in 2002).

External links

• Slate.com: The Ice Capades: Requiem for the ice carnival
• http://www.billcasselman.com/wintergram_archive/ice_capades.htm