At the end of his figure skating performance, when the last note of his parents’ favorite song played in an arena packed with spectators and heavy with sorrow, Maxim Naumov dropped to his knees at the center of the ice. He remained there for what seemed like forever, awash in a spotlight, looking lost and sobbing.
And in row after row, section after section, inside Capital One Arena on Sunday in downtown Washington, the crowd of about 15,000 people climbed to its feet, applauded — and cried with him.
Naumov was one of the skaters featured at the benefit Legacy on Ice, held in honor of the 67 people who died on Jan. 29 when an Army helicopter collided with a passenger jet above the Potomac River in Washington. Many of those victims were young figure skaters traveling home with their parents and coaches from a development camp after the U.S. Figure Skating nationals in Wichita, Kan. Both of Naumov’s parents were killed.
On Sunday, he might have looked alone kneeling there in the middle of the ice. He was far from it.
Dozens of stars from the sport, going back decades, were with him. Kristi Yamaguchi and Brian Boitano, both Olympic gold medalists, played host. Peggy Fleming, Nancy Kerrigan, Johnny Weir and defending world champion Ilia Malinin were there, too. Scott Hamilton, the 1984 Olympic champion, led the crowd in a prayer.
“I just had to come here to pray because I just felt so crushed with sadness,” Hamilton said in an interview. “Especially when children are involved, how else do you find the strength to endure these things in the world?”
Hamilton had seen Naumov’s parents — Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov — at nationals in January. Skating is a small world. The 1994 pairs world champions were so happy to be there, he said.
Weir, a television analyst who also coaches young skaters, had retired from performing in 2023, but he donned a black costume and skated to the song “Memory” from the musical “Cats.”
He knew several of the coaches who died in the crash. Looking at the faces of his skating students each day also compelled him to show his support.
“Imagining that it could have been their mom or their family on the plane, it’s just devastating,” Weir said in an interview after his performance. “I could never say that this event brings closure, but it shows the kids I work with every day that great skaters can get torn up about things and still show up for others. It’s OK to be sad.”
He added, “I think the moment of unity is the greatest gift we can give to those people we lost.”
The idea for the event started with Ari Zakarian, Malinin’s agent. He was in Wichita for nationals but had flown to Estonia for European Nationals immediately afterward.
He saw news about the crash on social media and tried to call Inna Volyanskaya, a coach in the Washington area who had been in Wichita and taken a selfie with them before they parted, promising to send it to him. She never had the chance.
“It was like pouring cold water on me because I just knew she was on the plane, and so were two coaches I knew from Boston,” he said. “I started thinking, ‘What can I do? What can I do? I have to do something for these people.’”
He connected with Ted Leonsis, the owner of Monumental Sports & Entertainment in Washington, which owns the arena, the Capitals and the Wizards.
For Leonsis, the loss felt personal. Several of the skaters who died had trained at the Capitals practice rink in Northern Virginia.
All ticket proceeds from the sold-out event will go to the families of the victims, the skating communities affected and the emergency workers in the Washington area, he said.
“I want to make sure every family that has kids and was left without a parent, or both parents, is going to be OK,” he said. “There’s college and other expenses. So we’ve got to raise a lot of money.”
Every skater Zakarian asked to participate in the program said yes. They wanted to show their support. And mourn. And help people heal.
Ashley Cain and Gracie Gold, two Olympians, were coaches at the developmental camp and skated in tears.
“Every time I step on the ice, I’m thinking about them and skating for them,” Cain said of her former students. “One of my last moments with them was them having fun and dancing on the ice, and letting down their walls to show us who they really were. I will never forget that.”
Flying into Washington for the event, Jason Brown, a two-time Olympian, said he thought about what the skaters felt as their plane approached the airport in late January. Giddiness after the camp, perhaps. Excitement about returning to the rink to train. Hope that they would see their skater friends soon.
“Travel is such a huge part of what we do, so it all hit us really hard,” Brown said. He said his grandfather told him that when people come together to celebrate victories, those successes double, and when they share losses, tragedies or grief, those sad moments are cut in half.
Backstage, nearly all the skaters were in tears, including young ones from local rinks who had been invited to perform because they were teammates, family or friends of the victims.
Isabella Aparicio performed to a recording of her father playing Pachelbel’s Canon in D and buried her face in her hands when she was done. Her father, Luciano, and her 14-year-old brother, Franco, were on the plane that crashed.
In the stands, groups of people wore pink in honor of 12-year-old Brielle Beyer, who died in the midair collision. Her funeral is on Monday.
In the past few weeks, scores of parents have brought their children to funerals and memorial services for their peers. “That’s not in the parent handbook,” one of those mothers said. Jenn Rafael’s 11-year-old son, Jesse, was good friends with Brielle, and the mother was close to Brielle’s mother, Justyna.
“What’s helpful is for them to skate and make videos about their friends,” Rafael said. “And therapy dogs. Therapy dogs have gotten us through this.”
Teams of those dogs were posted throughout the arena on Sunday, including near the tunnel leading to the ice. Minutes before his performance, Naumov squatted down to rub the belly of a cuddly blond Norwegian Buhund named Ghost, in silence.
Before Naumov headed out to perform to the Russian song, “The City That Doesn’t Exist,” one of his teammates from the Skating Club of Boston, Jimmy Ma, gave him an extended hug.
“Let’s do this!” Ma said as they parted, both of them wiping tears.
