Plot

A temperamental figure skater and an arrogant former hockey player attempt to win the Olympic Gold Medal as a figure skating pairs team.

Doug Dorsey is a hockey player for the U.S. team in the 1988 Winter Olympics. After a vicious game against West Germany, he was forced to retire after an injury. Kate Moseley was doing her program and fell during the same Olympic games. Both have fought hard to get to the Winter Olympics, and suddenly their dreams have been shattered. A temperamental but talented figure skater, Kate has had many partners, until her coach recruits Doug as a potential partner. Through the difficult training of 15 hours of skating a day, they finally prepare for the nationals and the Olympics. A romance blooms, and their final show could make or break them as they attempt to achieve their dreams of the Olympic Gold Medal.—Pat Delin <jscott@iastate.edu>

Doug Dorsey is a blue-collar hockey player who was injured in the 1988 Winter Olympics, leaving him unable to play professional hockey. Kate Moseley is a prima donna figure skater who no one will pair up with after a fall during the same Olympic games. With nowhere else to go, Kate's Russian coach brings Doug in as a potential partner. Though Doug has no figure skating experience, Kate is none too happy about this arrangement and attempts to antagonize Doug into leaving, but his strong work ethic and lack of options convinces him to remain. The pair undergo grueling, rigorous training to finalize a program for the U.S. National Championships - and from there, the Winter Olympics and a possible gold medal.—medic249a2

Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 1988.

During the Winter Olympic Games, at 1:00 p.m., Doug Dorsey (D.B. Sweeney) awakes in a panic, late for hockey practice with the U.S. Olympic hockey. As he rushes to dress, he addresses the girl in his bed by her wrong name. Meanwhile, Kate Moseley (Moria Kelly) practices her figure skating routines. Kate's coach, Rick Tuttle (Barry Flatman), criticizes her performance, and Kate complains that her skating partner is inadequate. As Doug races through the team entrance to the ice rink, Kate's father, Jack Moseley (Terry O'Quinn), urges his daughter to apologize to Rick, but Kate ignores his plea. As she rounds a corner in the hallway, Doug runs into her, knocking her down. After a snippy exchange with the haughty figure skater, he continues on, leaving Kate on the floor.

That night, Doug scores a goal against the German team, but is deliberately knocked senseless by an opposing player. Meanwhile at her performance, Kate's partner drops her on the ice without warning and loses any chance at a medal. As a result of his accident, Doug loses 18 degrees of peripheral vision in his right eye, and learns from his doctor that he cannot expect to become a professional hockey player. Doug is forced to retire from the National Hockey League after he received a letter from Minnesota State University that his scholarship has been cancelled.

Two years later, 1990.

Doug is back in his hometown in Minnesota, working in a steel mill and as a carpenter on the side. After work, he goes to his older brother Walter's (Chris Benson) bar, Dorsey's Penalty Box, to grab a sandwich. Walter is short-handed and asks Doug to help out, but Doug is on his way to an amateur hockey game. Walter follows and informs him that a letter from the Detroit Red Wings has arrived. Even without opening it, the implication is clear: the last professional team that has not already rejected Doug has turned him down.

At skating practice, Kate has trouble with her latest partner, her eighth in two years. Her new skating coach, Anton Pamchenko (Roy Dotrice), seeks out Doug Dorsey as a potential partner for Kate. Although disappointed that Anton is not a hockey coach, Doug agrees to a tryout. After a disheartening practice session with the antagonistic Kate, Doug is approached by Jack Moseley, who tells him that Anton Pamchenko is a world-class judge of skating talent and that Doug should be honored to have been selected to try out with Kate, but Jack and his daughter see no future in her skating with a hockey player. Jack hands Doug a check to cover his time, and a return plane ticket home.

As Jack lists the resumes of 35 potential skaters who have failed to meet Kate's standards, he tosses the bunched-up documents at a coal scuttle near his fireplace, and misses every shot. Doug tosses his own resume into the scuttle without looking, and Jack declares this to be a lucky shot. In response, Doug balls up Jack's check, and bets double or nothing that he will make the shot. Doug stays and continues practicing with Kate, who humiliates him during their skating rehearsals. However, when he challenges her to play hockey, Kate discovers that the game is more demanding than she assumed. Frustrated, she swings at the puck as though it were a golf ball, and hits Doug directly in the nose. When she feels guilty about bringing down Doug, Anton suggests that she has found her new skating partner.

After grueling weeks of rehearsals, Doug presents Kate with a Christmas gift of a game sweater worn by famous professional hockey player Bobby Hull, a souvenir he has owned for 15 years. She seems not to know who Bobby Hull is, and Doug attempts to take back his gift, but she insists on keeping it and in return gives him a copy of Charles Dickens' classic novel "Great Expectations".

At her family's New Year's Eve party, Kate introduces Doug to her fiancé, Hale Forrester (Dwier Brown), who is visiting from London, England, where he works in finance for Kate's father. When Hale notes that he does not like to see Kate upset, Doug suggests he get a blindfold. Although Kate sticks by Hale's side during the party, she becomes jealous when she sees Doug interacting with other women. At midnight upon turning 1991, the party attendees exchange kisses, but when Doug and Kate come together, they give each other an awkward peck on the cheek.

Later, as Doug packs to leave the Moseley mansion for the weekend, Kate comes to his room to give him a videotape of their rehearsals to show his family, and informs him that her father has set aside a hotel suite in Chicago, Illinois, for Doug's family when they attend the final skating competition. From Doug's reaction, it is clear to Kate that he has not told his family about the contest, but he assures her they will be there. At Dorsey's Penalty Box, Walter believes his little brother has been away with the Merchant Marines, but Doug finally admits to the crowd that he has been figure skating. He later explains to his brother that figure skating is tougher than playing hockey, and he will be doing something new and revolutionary.

When he returns to rehearsals, Doug rebels against the frilly costumes being designed for the team, and insists on using modern, popular music, instead of a classical piece by Mozart. At a dinner just before the finals, Hale announces his engagement to Kate, and Doug is secretly devastated. As Kate skates solo on her ice rink, she is visited by her old coach, Rick Tuttle, who suggests that Kate should have come to him in case she wanted to get back into competition skating, and that she would be better off retiring than appearing in the Nationals with a hockey player. Doug overhears as Kate bravely defends his skating to Tuttle. He later asks Kate to remove her engagement ring while they are on the ice, because it is cutting into his hand.

Several months later at the U.S. Figure Skating Association finals in Chicago, Kate becomes jealous when Doug has a dalliance with Lorie Peckarovski (Rachelle Ottley), the new skating partner of Kate's former partner, Brian Noonan (Kevin Peeks). Hale realizes that Kate really loves Doug, and leaves town before the competition. At the compulsories, Doug and Kate come in third. The following night, at the long form competition, although their routine is well received by the crowd, Doug and Kate at first fail to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team for the 1992 Winter Olympics, but the team ahead of them in the competition flubs their routine, giving Doug and Kate a default victory.

After a night of celebration, Kate informs Doug that her engagement to Hale is cancelled. She is angry when Doug does not want to take advantage of her while drunk, and kicks him out of her room. Doug later drinks alone in his room. Lorie knocks on his door and suggests they "trade secrets". The next morning, Kate comes to Doug's room, and is angry when Lorie opens the door. In the face of a presumed unbeatable Russian team, Anton proposes a dramatic routine that will transcend anything done in competition before. With five weeks to go, Kate is unwilling, but Doug accepts the challenge. They attempt to train the routine Anton invented, which will assure them the Olympic Gold Medal in case they can achieve this without serious injury.

Several months later in February 1992 at the Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, Doug and Kate perform well in the shortform compulsories, but without passion on account of their personal conflicts. Afterwards, a reporter asks about their coming longform routine, and while Doug brags about their altered routine, Kate insists the new moves are not ready and will not be attempted. At dinner, Doug and Jack Moseley argue over Kate being unwilling to do the new routine. Kate intervenes and blames herself for their failure; Doug and Kate both discover that she is the fallible partner after all. She had always hoped her father would love her, win or lose, but now she is sorry to have disappointed both Doug and her father.

In the morning, Kate prepares to leave after their routine and retire for good. Before they go on that afternoon, Anton urges Doug and Kate to go out on the ice and enjoy each other. Just as they are about to go out on the ice, Doug confesses his love for Kate. Kate is overcome with emotion from hearing this, and she decides they are going to do Anton's routine. They proceed to skate with a passion neither has shown before, performing Anton's routine flawlessly and winning the Olympic Gold Medal. When Doug asks Kate why she decided to do this, she confesses her love for him, and the two share a kiss on the ice directly before the crowd.