Ice Princess

Set in the fictional city of Millbrook, Connecticut, Casey Carlyle (Michelle Trachtenberg), a very smart and talented science student, pursues a scholarship to Harvard University. For the scholarship, she must present a personal summer project about physics. While watching a figure skating competition with her mathematically inclined best friend Ann, Casey realizes that her favorite childhood hobby, ice skating, would make a perfect project. She decides to try to improve her own skating by applying physics and what she has discovered from watching other skaters.

Casey becomes proficient and skips two levels to become a junior skater, following a recital. She helps junior skaters Gennifer "Gen" Harwood (Hayden Panettiere), Tiffany Lai (Jocelyn Lai), and Nikki Fletcher (Kirsten Olson) improve their skating by using algorithms generated by her computer. Torn between her Harvard dream and her growing love of skating, Casey has difficulty juggling schoolwork, skating, and a part-time job. Joan Carlyle (Joan Cusack), Casey's mother, attempts to prevent her daughter from skating due to her declining academic performance. Meanwhile, tension arises between Casey's mother and her coach Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall), a disgraced former skater.

Tina, who manages the rink where Casey trains, has Gen on a strict training program. During a competition where both Casey and Gen compete, Tina sees Casey may outrank Gen and sabotages Casey's performance by buying her new skates. Unaware of the danger of unbroken-in skates, Casey's resulting long program is riddled with poor jumps and several falls. Upon being informed of Tina's intent behind her seemingly kind gesture, Casey lashes out at her and mistakenly assumes her children were equally involved in the plot. She ranks fifth in the competition and can only qualify for sectionals if any of the top four back out. As a result, Casey loses interest in skating and returns to her studies and goal of attending Harvard.

Upset at her mother's sabotage and frustrated by all the restrictions of training, Gen quits. While Casey and Gen reconcile, Casey can now qualify for sectionals as Gen quit. She declines the Harvard scholarship competition to devote herself to skating, to her mother's dismay. Casey asks Tina to be her personal coach and train for sectionals. Her mother, upset at this change of direction in her life, refuses to watch her skate.

At Sectionals, Casey is not fully focused on the competition, and falls while attempting a triple salchow jump. To her surprise, she sees her mother in the audience. Inspired, she gives a highly rated artistic performance. Sectionals ends with Nikki earning gold and Casey placing silver, both qualifying to go to Nationals and potentially the 2006 Winter Olympics. Gen's brother, Teddy (Trevor Blumas), gives Casey flowers to congratulate her; and they kiss. Later, Joan and Tina bicker about how many college courses Casey should take, her and Teddy's budding love, her sponsors, and her future in figure skating.