A Brief from NAL publisher Doug Draper
He never won an Olympic Gold Medal – the most he won was a Bronze – yet he may very well have had more of an impact on his sport than anyone over the past 40 years.
Toller Cranston in 1976 and at the top of his sport.
Toller Cranston, who was born in Hamilton, and who died this January, 24th, 2015 of an apparent heart attack at age 65 – has been credited by many in the sport of figure skating of changing it in to a form of artistry up to this time, even while he did not earn the respect of Olympic judges and others for being ahead of his time.
That became all too obvious during one Winter Olympic Games held in Austria in the 1970s and Cranston did not win Gold for what was clearly a flawless and brilliant free-form single men’s performance. I can still remember hearing the collective ‘you have got to be kidding’ from so many who watched his performance on TV. And it seemed so clear, even to many of the Olympic commentators at the time that he was rushing beyond pure technical skills, to an artful extravagance that the judges of the day could not yet come to terms with.
Gold Medal or not, Toller Cranston, more than any other, changed his sport then, and possibly for decades to come. He was to modern-day figure skating, what Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis were to jazz, what Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Beatles and Bob Dylan were modern-day rock and pop music, and what Vincent van Gogh, Pascoe and Andy Warhol were to transferring genius on canvas.
When I heard this January 24th of the sudden death of Toller Cranston, I thought of my mother who died more than a year ago, and who fell in love with watching figure skating on the tube because of this man. From his prolific performances on, , she would often call me and say; ‘Oh Doug, are you watching the figure skating’ on channel whatever.
Multiply that and millions of others who are now forever captivated by those in the sport who have been inspired by Toller Cranston’s artistry on ice.
He was a great Canadian and all of us, in this great white north, ought to be proud.
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Niagara At Large 
I too was so taken with Cranston’s creativity. As a child figure skater who had to learn all the technical bits, I became fairly adept, I always loved to watch the skating contests. Once the technical parts were dropped, I sort of fell away, but, that said, Cranston could do the technical requirements, and then added the gorgeous, ground-breaking creativity to his work.
Much admired, much missed.
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Toller Cranston did more for figure skating, I believe, than anybody else. As a classical/modern dance junkie, I had little interest in figure skating until Toller came along…he was a great artist.
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As a young man he dazzled the world with an artistry and grace that first baffled the inert judges who were unaccustomed to the beauty he, the consummate skater displayed with so much elan..
CBC did a follow up documentary of his life after skating and he did a few exhibitions but this gentle young man lived on, never truly understood by the “THEN” skating world and he became a legend in his own time and on moving Mexico where he continued his artistry on canvas…Please .God take care of this gentle man for in many ways his life was truly Godily
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