Laurence Owen
February 15, 1961: Sabena Flight 548 crashes near Brussels, Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team and several coaches. This includes 16-year-old Laurence Owen, who had just won the U.S. women's singles championship, and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, dated just 2 days earlier. Her mother and her sister also died in the crash. This was one of the earliest and scariest examples of "The Dreaded SI Cover Jinx."
Later in the year, ABC would begin airing its sports anthology program Wide World of Sports. Throughout its 37-year run, it frequently covered figure skating. But there would be little American presence at major events like the World Championships and the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria.
It would take a long time for American skating to recover. Peggy Fleming’s Gold Medal at the 1968 Winter Olympics, in Grenoble, France, inspired Dorothy Hamill. But it was Hamill’s Gold Medal, in Innsbruck in 1976, that really got things going again.
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February 15, 1961 was a Wednesday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 2 games in the NBA. The St. Louis Hawks beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 135-98 at the Philadelphia Arena. Wilt Chamberlain led all scorers with 28 for the Warriors, but it was far from enough. And the New York Knicks beat the Syracuse Nationals, 129-127 in overtime at the old Madison Square Garden.
And there were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-2 at the Chicago Stadium. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-1 at Maple Leaf Garden in Toronto. The Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.
