Other Tonya Web sites & Newsgroups

Websites

• David House's Tonya site is located in Texas. The original Tonya site. Includes a message board, info on Tonya's pro debut in Reno, Nevada, details of Tonya's feature film debut in "Breakaway", and a mirror site of "The Portlandian".

• Long-time Tonya enthusiast Charlie Main from New England has run this Tonya site for many years. A regular poster to the Tonya newsgroups for several years, Charlie's site features one of the most extensive collections of Tonya photos on the Internet.

• Friends of Tonya Harding site. Operated by Paul Dizadji out of Illinois and formerly known as the Puppetland site, this one is no longer actively maintained, but there is useful info about Tonya's past activities here. An archive of columns by Joe Haran, who edited the original Tonya fanzine "The Skater", appears here too.

• Blades of Gold is run by Kim White & Stacey Howe. Kim was a member of Elaine Stamm's Tonya fan club back in '94 and has met Tonya on several occasions. Has a section where fans can share their Tonya-related experiences, along with samples of some songs that have been written about Tonya that you can download. Doesn't seem to have been updated recently.

• Swan Lake - this one surfaced around the time of the Nagano Olympics. Unfortunately, despite a promising start it doesn't seem to have been updated for some time and mail to the contact address usually bounces.

• Two New York-based comedians have set up a Tonya/Nancy museum in the hallway of their Brooklyn apartment. But don't be fooled - they say they are serious. After setting out to raise a mere $75 for the project on Kickstarter, they were flabbergasted to get over $2000 and worldwide media attention. This is the only full-blown web site devoted to both skaters that we're aware of.

There are also the following Tonya-oriented Web pages that we've come across. Although not full Tonya sites, they are certainly worth a look:

• "The Lilly and The Hammer" - Not so much a Tonya site, but a page devoted to both skaters, "The Lilly and the Hammer" has been developed by Valerie Smith of Olympia, WA. It's a pleasure to find another site that doesn't treat Tonya as skating's cross between Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and Charles Manson.

• The land that gave us Sonja Henie is the home of this next Tonya Web page: Eventyrplassen Vannførelag (which roughly translates to "Adventure (or Fairytale) Square Water Supply Team") is a community service group in Oslo, Norway, who have appointed Tonya as patron of their organization. You'd better bone up on your Norwegian if you plan to visit, though - but hey, they're Tonyaphiles, so why complain about trivia? From several hours of analysing it and consulting a Norwegian dictionary, we've determined it appears to include resolutions of a meeting and a Tonya song or poem . Several months ago they added an open letter to Tonya (in English) which tells more about their organization.

A site operated by Per Persson in Sweden several years ago is now defunct.

A former official site at www.tonyaharding.com is still functioning, but is no longer endorsed by Tonya after an investigation by members of the PortIce Special Duties Section disclosed some rather unpleasant facts about the guy who was running it. We would like to make it clear that this site no longer has any connection to Tonya, nor is it in any way associated with anyone here at PortIce, no matter what the operator may try to make out. A spokesperson for Tonya asked us to post the following disclaimer on her behalf:

"She in no way endorses that site. It is not her site and her name is being used without her permission, as well as her image. The person running it is doing so with full knowledge that she wants nothing to do with it".

We don't believe that the person behind this site has Tonya's true interests at heart. For this reason we also don't link to it anymore.

Needless to say, we would be eager to learn of any other sites (NOTE: we're only interested in real FAN sites or SKATING sites - not the hundreds of porn sites that feature Wedding Night Video stills).

Newsgroups

In years gone by, Usenet newsgroups used to be a vibrant community of discussion about every topic under the sun. Today it's largely a wasteland of spam and dodgy porn and most ISP's don't even provide a news server service anymore. For the sake of completeness, however, here's a rundown of Tonya-related newsgroups:

• alt.fan.tonya-harding.whack.whack.whack - the main newsgroup devoted to Tonya. Although useful material is occasionally posted here, it's now mostly full of spam and endless requests for Wedding Night Video jpegs. Largely a write off like most alt.* groups. The websites listed above offer far better discussion for those seriously interested in Tonya. You can access this group through your local news server (if available), or Google.

  
  

• rec.sport.skating.ice.figure, the main Internet skating news group. Discussion here was generally of a very high standard, though rarely sympathetic to Tonya. Now largely dead as the regular posters have moved to moderated bulletin boards, but Google's archive of past posts are interesting. Access this group through your local news server (if available), or Google.

  
  

• alt.fan.tanya-harding appears to be to do with our Tonya, in spite of the spelling. We suspect it may be the work of the notorious "Chuckie" Newman, who specializes in mis-spelling skater's names. Nothing much is posted here in any case. Access this group through your local news server (if available), or Google.

  
  

• alt.fan.tonya-harding, the only Tonya group that isn't a joke ironically isn't widely carried by news servers because it was never configured properly! You can access it, however, via Google.

  
  

• alt.skate.figure is mainly just a venue for the abovementioned Mr. Newman to spread his falsehoods about various skaters. Local news server (if available), or Google.

  
  

There are other joke groups such as alt.spank.tonya-harding and alt.tonya-harding.scrub.scrub.scrub that existed at one time but these are not widely carried and rarely receive posts - usually spam in any case. For this reason we haven't listed them.

Mailing Lists and Forums

If you want to keep up with the latest about Portland's most famous skater, we recommend that you subscribe to "The Portlandian", our own Tonya newsletter and the Internet's leading source of Tonya news. Note that "The Portlandian" list is one-way, i.e. you can't post messages to other subscribers.

If you want to interact with other Tonyaphiles, the best way is via the forum at David House's Tonya site. You can also set up your account to notify you by e-mail of replies to messages you post there.

There are also several mailing lists that have been set up concerning Tonya on Yahoo! Groups over the years. In most cases they are now defunct, though some have useful archived information. Registration with Yahoo! is required if you are not already a Yahoo! member and you will also have to subscribe to the groups themselves in order to post or receive list messages by e-mail. You may also in some cases be able to read messages via the Group's web page without subscribing, but this varies from group to group - some have policies that only allow members to access their archives.

• The Blades of Gold site started up a Yahoo! Groups Tonya mailing list called tonya_harding. No updates since 2005

• tonyaharding - note that this one has the words run together, with no underscore. Prospective members must apply to join before posting is allowed. Nothing useful posted here since around 2005.

• The Puppetland site (see above) operated tonyaboxing, which covered Tonya's attempt to switch from the rink to the ring. Now defunct

• fansoftonyaharding - seems to be dead.

Other skating-related Websites

It is not our intention to reinvent the wheel by providing large amounts of information about figure skating in general; there are heaps of other sites that do that far better than us (we'd rather devote our efforts towards Tonya). Here's some of interest, though:

• Bobek Maniacs - dedicated to Nicole Bobek, the world's second sexiest figure skater. Hasn't been updated for many years. Also see Nicole's official Twitter feed, and nicolebobek.com, which is run by a fan.

• Sandra Loosemore's SkateWeb - the mother of all figure skating websites. Heaps of links to just about everything connected with ice skating. Not updated for several years, though.

• The Figure Skating Corner - large German-based skating site, but with alot of info in English. Useful if you want a European view on skating-related issues (as opposed to the others, which are all U.S. based).

Olympic corruption

• transparencyinsport.org - in-depth investigative expose of the Dark Side of the Olympic Force by a top British journalist, Andrew Jennings. Contains alot of info on other corrupt outfits like FIFA, too. Many of Jennings' books, now out of print, can be downloaded as e-books from this site.

• The Secret Life of Juan Antonio Samaranch - The former Olympic leader's fascist past exposed. Or, "Yes, young Samaranch; I am your father..."

• The Olympic Hall of Shame - your handy guide to IOC skullduggery. "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy...".

More cases of sporting injustice

• Pete Rose and "Shoeless Joe" Jackson are two other American sports people (in this case baseball players) who their supporters say were also given bum deals by the sports establishment. Read about their treatment at these sites.

Other goodies from the Special Duties Section

• Our PortIce Sid & Nancy tribute.

• Happy Birthday Tonya! - Tonya Birthday Cake.

• Notes From The Subtropics - the coolest site in southern Florida; politics, anime, and of course, figure skating.