From June 15, 1999 to the present, IDC has been the leading resource for ice dancing information on the worldwide web. Below is a timeline highlighting some of the important dates in IDC history.
November 1998: Emma Abraham and Daphne Backman toss around ideas to create an ice dancing website which would serve as a reference hub for ice dancing as well as a hosting point for several of the creators official and fan sites.
June 12, 1999: Emma and Daphne decide to purchase icedance.com, but find that someone else had registered the domain name several hours prior to their registration attempt. After careful consideration, ice-dance.com is purchased.
June 15, 1999: Ice-Dance.com debuts!
September 1999: Permission is received from USFS and the ISU to quote information and scan patterns from the rulebooks, and a technical section is created.
January 2000: Profile, link and results pages were added to the site.
December 2000: The Partner Search section is created.
Spring 2001: Ice-dance.com began designing, maintaining and hosting additional official web sites for ice dancers. The individual sections of the web site (technical/events/results/ links) continued to grow.
Fall 2001: Partner Search evolved into four pages separating over 70 U.S., Canada, International and Adult listings.
Spring 2002: All of the sections continued to expand, and the design used colors to more clearly define them. It was at this time that the administrators learned a valuable lesson about the cost of bandwidth during the Olympics.
Summer 2002: Ice-dance.com began conducting “getting to know” interviews with coaches and athletes.
Spring 2003: Sherrie Hiner becomes the Partner Search administrator; the service reaches over 200 listings.
June 2003: To celebrate four years online, Ice-dance.com was reorganized and redesigned into the ‘gold’ format.
August 2003: IDC unveils exclusive content of its first event: the 2003 Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships, an event the staff continues to cover to this day.
February 2004: The ice-dance.com message board is launched.
August 2004: IDC expands coverage for its second Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships.
March 2005: Ice-dance.com covers its first major international event – the World Junior Figure Skating Championships – in Ontario, Canada.
August 2005: IDC takes its exclusive event coverage to a new level. The 2005 Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships receive their own sub-site, greatly expanding the amount of information and photos available to the fans.
November 2005: The “Life Beyond the Blades” feature begins with an entry from Adrienne Koob-Doddy. Over the years, more skaters give readers insight to life after competitive ice dance.
January 2006: IDC covers its first U.S. Figure Skating Championships – St. Louis, Missouri – which doubles as the qualifying event for the Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy. Every competitor at the novice, junior and senior levels is highlighted through event reports, bio information and photos.
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uly 2006: Mombo #9 begins her weekly blog.
August 2006: IDC surpasses previous coverage of the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships, increasing both the reporting and the photography of the 2006 event. To accomplish this, the IDC staff requests the assistance of parent/fan/athlete volunteers, who provide extensive reports and photos both on the ice and behind the scenes.
October 2006: “Recycle Bin,” a quarterly newsletter listing costumes for sale, publishes its first issue.
January 2007: IDC covers the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane, Washington, for the second time, creating a more extensive event website and coverage.
August 2007: IDC celebrates five years of coverage of the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championship with the most expansive coverage yet. The staff and volunteers are more than tripled in number, bringing exclusive reports and photos from pre-juvenile through adult. Multiple blogs highlight the action both on and off the ice, and a photography workshop allows interested athletes and parents a chance to hone their skills with professional equipment provided by Canon. Melanie Hoyt and Katie Weigel join Team IDC.
2008: Coverage of international events continues to grow. Photographer Liz Chastney joins Team IDC.
2009: IDC celebrated 10 years online with a birthday party at our favorite event, the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships. Journalist Robin Ritoss joins Team IDC as a photographer after attending LPIDC and getting bitten by the camera bug.
2010: Ice-dance.com continues to grow. With a brand new design, IDC is ready to bring you more event coverage, exclusive interviews, blogs, and unique features than ever before. IDC’s Partner Search section celebrates its 10th anniversary and continues to be a tool for solo ice dancers who are searching for partners. The mother-daughter team of Jean and Katie Wyble joins Team IDC to manage the profile and event calendar sections.
2011: Jacquelyn Thayer joins Team IDC as a journalist. With her daughter’s retirement from skating, Mombo #9 bids adieu, but not before publishing a book containing her best entries.
2012: Julia Komarova & Natasha Ponarina join the IDC staff as photographers and Team IDC covers over 30 events and shows during the season – the most in its history.
2013: Team IDC welcomed Katie Tetzloff and Ashli Meynert to the journalism team.
2014: IDC celebrated 15 years of being the online resource for all things ice dance.
2015: Anne Calder joined Team IDC as a journalist and Danielle Earl began sharing photos with us for the gallery.
2017: Harumi Akabane joined Team IDC as a photographer providing photos from international events as well as domestic events in Japan, starting coverage of lower level ice dancers and teams in Japan.
2019: IDC celebrated 20 years of being the online resource for all things ice dance.
2020: Matteo Morelli joined Team IDC as a journalist writing features and covering international events. The COVID-19 pandemic halted most in-person competitions for the year, including the cancellation of the 2020 World Championships in March. In October, Robin Ritoss attended Skate America where the audience was comprised of spectator-created cardboard cut outs.
2021: Melanie Heaney and Robin Ritoss attended the 2021 U.S. Championships where strict masking and COVID-19 protocols were in place and in-person spectators were prohibited. Robin Ritoss traveled to Stockholm, Sweden for the World Championships.
Augie Hill, the creator of IcePartnerSearch.com, the leading resource for dancers and pairs looking for on-ice partners, transfers ownership of the platform to ice-dance.com. IPS becomes a joint venture between Figure Skaters Online and IDC.
2022: Yoriko Suzuki joined Team IDC as a photographer covering international events. Team IDC returned in force for the 2022 Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships, which was the first time Lake Placid hosted the competition in three years.
Gina from Figure Skaters Online and Daphne started a weekly figure skating podcast called “This Week in Skating.”
2024: IDC begins to celebrate 25 years online!