Ice Princess

Michelle Trachtenberg plays Casey Carlyle, a brainy bookworm and physics geek. Casey decides to use her academic skill by pursuing a scholarship offered to the top students in the state. For the scholarship, Casey must do a "personal" project about physics. While watching a figure skating competition featuring Sasha Cohen, Casey realizes that her hobby, ice skating, would make a perfect project for getting her scholarship. Initially, she watches other skaters at the local ice rink, but decides to try to improve her own skating by applying the physics and what she found out from analyzing other skaters. She becomes exceptionally good at skating, even skipping two levels to get a Junior Pass.

Unsure of what she really wants, Casey has a difficult time juggling schoolwork, skating, and a job at a food stand to pay for her skating lessons. Her mother, played by Joan Cusack, realizes that her daughter's constant skating is affecting her schoolwork and tells her to stop skating. Casey refuses and goes to regionals with help from her friend, Gen, and her coach. In the end, Casey turns down the scholarship to Harvard to keep skating, and attains a silver medal in the Sectionals. Casey and her mom reconcile after two months, and Casey finally gains her mother's support.

Meanwhile, there is increasing tension between Casey's coach Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall), a disgraced former skater, and her daughter Gen, played by Hayden Panettiere. In this case, Tina, who manages the ice skating rink where Casey is training for competition, is putting her daughter into a strict training program and an even stricter diet. This irritates Gen, who has already begun to lose interest in skating and simply wants to be a normal teenager and student. Eventually Gen gets fed up and informs her mother and then Casey that she's quitting. Tina then becomes Casey's coach in the Sectionals.

Cast

• Michelle Trachtenberg as Casey Carlyle
• Joan Cusack as Joan Carlyle
• Kim Cattrall as Tina Harwood
• Hayden Panettiere as Gennifer "Gen" Harwood
• Trevor Blumas as Teddy Harwood
• Kirsten Olson as Nikki Fletcher
• Jocelyn Lai as Tiffany Lai
• Connie Ray as Mrs. Fletcher
• Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as Mr. Lai
• Juliana Cannarozzo as Zoe Bloch
• Kristina Whitcomb as Ms. Fisher Le
• Signe Ronka as Emma Flanders

Factual errors

• In the final standings posting of the Regional Championship, Worcester, Massachusetts is misspelled twice -- in the 1st place with Zoe Bloch, and the 6th place with Avril Dishaw -- it is spelled as "Wooster", Massachusetts. There is no Wooster in Massachusetts. It is in Ohio. However, Worcester is often pronounced "Wooster". The 8th place contestant is also listed as "Concorde", New Hampshire, while the town is Concord, New Hampshire.
• The kids and Casey are automatically in Juvenile, which skips Pre-Preliminary, Preliminary, and Pre-Juvenile.
• Music that a skater skates to in the long program and short program must be instrumental, without a person singing.
• As the last skater at sectionals, Casey would not be skating on clean ice; nor would there be theatrical lighting.
• ESPN does not cover junior sectionals (or any junior events).
• In a real test to pass to the next level, the lights are on and there are no spotlights. There is a maximum of two people on the ice at a time, and there is nothing on the ice and no music. You cannot skip two levels, and there are two tests to pass for one level.
• The kids were learning Freestyle 2 and Freestyle 6 moves, not Snowplow Sam.
• While narrating her project video, Casey says "Now, I’m going to increase the centripetal force by tucking in my arms. This will increase my moment of inertia, so I will spin faster." Regarding moment of inertia, this is exactly backward. Bringing in the arms will reduce her moment of inertia. (It is true that she will spin faster, to conserve angular momentum.)
• At the party, Casey states that "velocity times momentum equals acceleration". This is false; velocity multiplied by momentum yields only mv², which is just kinetic energ multiplied by two. This isn't an expression for acceleration, and is not fundamentally meaningful.