Pat and Nancy Burley
Nancy Burley
Australia’s first female Winter Olympian and mother of co-founder, Belinda Chambers.
Nancy Burley represented Australia in figure skating in the 1952 Oslo Olympics. She self funded all her travel, training and accommodation expenses. She placed Australia in the top five competing Nations and held the record as the most successful Australian Winter Olympian, of any sport of gender, for the next 22 years.
With our Field Blend Rose, we raise a glass to one of our family’s great trailblazing women!
Pat Burley
Pat Burley is the only person to be inducted into both the Figure Skating Hall of Fame and the Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.
Pat was Nancy were an entrepreneurial pair. During the early 1950’s, while Nancy pursued a glamorous career in Europe, Pat found work backstage, building and maintaining the ice and managing the props. They soon formed their own Ice Show touring Europe and were the first live show to tour Japan after the war.
When they returned to Melbourne they built the first purpose built ice rink in Australia. By the 1970’s they owned seven of Australia’s 11 ice rinks.
Pat had a keen interest in ice hockey. in 1980 he convinced the other ice rink owners to contribute $10,000 per ice rink to the establishment of a National Hockey League. As he owned seven of the ice rinks, his contribution was by far the most considerable. To kick the league off and attract players and spectators, Pat sponsored Canadian ice hockey players and dispersed them among the State teams. Although he couldn’t ice skate himself, his contribution to the sport of ice hockey remains legendary.