1987 US Figure Skating Pin: Of Architecture and Foundation.

Last Updated on October 4, 2025 by Netropolitan Museum

The Tacoma Dome was reimagined with compulsory figure tracings

Reviewing the history of lapel pins issued for United States national championships through 1990, there is only one to emerge that blends the shape of the venue with elements of figure skating. It’s an unusual approach, to be sure, to feature the venue as the central element of a pin design, yet it is seen in the 1987 US Figure Skating Championships pin. Held in Tacoma, Washington, in January 1987, the event also can claim another pin-related fact: there was no mascot pin, something done every year since 1982. Although a live-action mascot—a forgettable duck—did preside over the event, it’s probably best the web-footed friend wasn’t memorialized in a pin.

The Tacoma Dome, venue for the 1987 US Figure Skating Championships, was memorialized on the logo pin from the event, with its distinctive exterior slightly reshaped yet expertly blended with the representations of three different compulsory figures: the bracket, the three, and the loop. The overall effect is well done. You might say it was the blending of the building’s architecture with figure skating’s foundation.¹

Pin Gallery: 1987 US Figure Skating Championships

The bracket tracing forms the roofline of the dome, with the turn coming at the structure’s apex, while the three and the loop segment and fill the inner portion to create visual interest. Tucked inside the tight inner turn of the loop is the event year, abbreviated to “87.” On a shiny gold-color base metal, the pin features two different blues and a green, tones that directly reference the proximity of Tacoma on Puget Sound and the local forested areas. The tracings and lettering in gold provide high contrast. Along the bottom, in all capital letters, is the event name: “U.S. Figure Skating Championships.” The 1987 championships was among the first to use the formal event name on the pin, rather than “Nationals” or another shortened form. The pin made for the 1986 US Figure Skating Championships made use of the formal name a step further, “United States” spelled out.

This Tacoma pin is also unusual in that it does not include the city name or state. Today, nearly 40 years after the event, one would need to look up the location of the championship since the shape of the pin simply is not enough to easily identify Tacoma as the host city.

¹Some might argue that compulsory figures were never the foundation of figure skating, but they would be wrong about that.

This blog was originally published at The Netropolitan Museum of Figure Skating Pins on December 31, 2022, and has been updated with new and expanded information.

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