Watching 14-year-old Robert Hennings and 11-year-old Elise Middleton perfectly in sync during the U.S. Junior Figure Skating Championships makes it easy to believe the two had been partners for more than three years.

Their winning performance in intermediate pairs was phenomenal. With the exception of a few slipups, every spin, every leap, every flourish seemed to be in harmony — much like the pair themselves.

"You just have to trust your partner," Hennings says. "It's teamwork, and if one person isn't into it, it's not going to work."

Pair skating is an interesting exercise in choreography, timing and trust. The boy and girl in a pair must learn to share the type of confidence that allows them to spin and throw each other across the ice.

Naturally, it's always tricky to match the right skaters with each other, but working with athletes as young as 8 or 9 years old provides extra challenges. Coaches have to worry about down the road, when adolescence could take its course and force a pair apart.

That's what happened to Michael Johnson, 16, who split with his four-year partner and best friend when she got taller and lifts became difficult.

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He says it was difficult to leave her, but he was lucky enough to find a new partner in 14-year-old Caitlin Belt at the University of Delaware Figure Skating Club.

"She was a little shy at first, but we got along pretty well soon," says Johnson, who finished in second place with Belt. "When you train together so much, your partner almost has to be your best friend."

It's one of the key elements in matching the perfect pair, but far from the only one.

"A lot of ingredients go into making the cake," says Peter Oppegard, a pairs bronze medalist at the '88 Olympics and Hennings and Middleton's coach

When Del Conroy turned 90 last year, he figured it was finally time to hang up his figure skates. Before then, nothing, not the birth of his 10 kids or deployment to Europe during World War II or even the hot Minnesota summers had ever gotten in the way of his ice time.

"You have to know when to hold them and when to fold them," cracks Conroy, from his apartment in Little Canada.

That isn't to say he's not keeping busy. Conroy, who served three terms as president of the St. Paul Figure Skating Club in the 1950s, is looking forward to April, when the club hosts its 75th anniversary celebration over the course of three days. The party comes complete with a revival of the storied Pops concert, a popular ice show held weekly during the summer from the late 1930s through the late 1960s.

Conroy's organizing committee is recruiting former club members for a special alumni performance during the Pops show April 9 at the Richfield Ice Arena, with music by the Minnesota Youth Symphony. He's on the lookout for old friends and skaters he's lost track of over the decades. They have until Jan. 15 to sign up for "St. Paul Pops — One More Time."

"It's interesting — I'll get to see some of the people I don't see every day," Conroy said.

The figure skating club formed in 1935 and joined the United States Figure Skating Association a year later. The club launched its first summer Pops concert at the old St. Paul Auditorium in 1937. The events, held three times weekly during the summer, long before Minnesota had televised professional sports teams, soon became one of the most celebrated outings in the state.

By the 1940s, the skaters were joined by a 70-piece orchestra, as well as the city's Civic Opera Association. A news item in the July 18, 1943, edition of the St. Paul Pioneer Press reads: "Nationwide is the fame of the St. Paul Pops Concerts which began as a unique experiment in civic entertainment and which now opens their seventh season with expectation of a total audience of nearly 150,000 persons for the eighteenth show."

The Pops performances drew national and world-class competitors to the ice, as well as behind the scenes doing choreography. Canadian skaters stayed at club members' homes for the summer, eager for a chance to perform with the greats. An ice comedian by the name of Lynn Dwyer joined the show, which was dubbed in 1957 the "St. Paul Pop Musical Ice Revue."

"Skating was huge in the Twin Cities," said Kathleen Ridder, who skated in the 1950s Pops shows with her husband, the late Robert Ridder, a former Pioneer Press executive. "St. Paul was one of the first cities in the country that had indoor ice during the summer, and the pros came and skated there. It was a huge promotion. They had costumes. ... It was like the Ice Follies."

But times changed. The revues were reduced to two performances per week in the 1960s as attendance began to dwindle and then discontinued altogether in 1969, except for special occasions. Organizers blamed home air conditioning and the advent of professional, televised sports teams in Minnesota. The club, however, kept skating and drawing top talents. These days, the club is based out of Pleasant Arena in St. Paul.

Janet Carpenter, then known as Janet Gerhauser, defected from a Minneapolis skating club in the 1940s to take advantage of the summer ice. Her work with the club helped her reach the 1952 Oslo Olympics with skating partner John Nightingale, where they placed sixth in the pair event.

Carpenter, now 78 and living in Minnetonka, still judges national competitions. Every judge must be affiliated with a club, and her club remains St. Paul.

"I think they'll have a good turnout," she said, of the alumni skating event in April. "I'm sure I'll see people I haven't seen in years. Hopefully, they'll come from all over the country."

Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172.

Online

For more information about the 75th anniversary celebration, call "St. Paul Pops — One More Time" co-director Barb Yackel at 651-283-4467; go to stpaulfsc.org and click on the 75th anniversary symbol; or e-mail celebrate75stpaulfsc@gmail.com .