Hamilton set for final Stars On Ice show

Copyright 2001 Pacific Press Ltd.

Vancouver skating fans may well look back on 2001 as the year the city hit the jackpot.

The recent world championships - which attracted a record 214,000 paying customers - will probably always be memory No. 1. However, the fact Vancouver will also be the venue for Scott Hamilton's final performance with Stars On Ice will likely rate a fond remembrance as well.

Earlier this year, the 42-year-old American ice icon announced this would be his final season with the touring show, now in its 15th year of operation. With Vancouver slated to be the final stop on a 77-city North American excursion, it's likely tonight's performance at GM Place will be a particularly poignant time for the cast and crew.

"A couple of times I've been kind of caught up in some sadness," Hamilton said recently. "But on the whole, my idea was to make the final year fun, one where I can savour every moment.

"However, I imagine near the end it will become more emotional. I guess by the time we get to Vancouver it will be pretty tough. It's going to be a special night. I've even got some friends coming up from L.A. for the final show."

Bidding adieu to show skating is one thing. Saying goodbye to Stars On Ice another. In many ways the show is his baby. Understand, he's not just another hired hand but the tour's founder.

Following the 1984 season in which he won both Olympic gold and his fourth consecutive world title, Hamilton turned professional with Ice Capades. Two years later - in what may have been the worst marketing decision in the history of skating - Ice Capades decided not to pick up his option.

"Ice Capades was going through a sale at the time," explains Hamilton, recalling what must have been an ego-crushing blow. "The individual who was buying it didn't feel men sold tickets. Fortunately, Bob Kain at IMG, my agent at the time, thought it would be a good idea for his company to get into the skating show business."

Adds Hamilton: "The idea was I'd put the show on the ice and they'd put it in the buildings. We put a group of skaters and production people together and, slowly, we built something that has become huge."

Nevertheless, after more than a dozen years as the tour's headliner - as well as surviving a battle with testicular cancer - the native of Bowling Green, Ohio, began getting appeals from his body to try something else.

"Last year, I really felt like it was time to shift gears," he says. "To do another tour of 77 cities past this season personally didn't make sense."

Not surprisingly, this year's tour has been billed the 'Scott Lovefest' by close friend and fellow four-time world champion Kurt Browning.

Browning, who shares the spotlight when the show hits Canada, admits Hamilton's retirement has made it an emotional time.

"There's two ways we could all look at this," says Browning. "We could party our way across the the country, or we could skate the lights out. I think it's been the latter. I mean Scott's doing two triple Lutz's in his programs."

As usual, the show picks up talent when it swings north of the border. This year, former Russian world champions Alexei Yagudin and Maria Butyrskaya are additions along with Canadian favourites Brian Orser, Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz and Josee Chouinard. Continuing from the U.S. tour along with Hamilton are Browning, Steven Cousins and former U.S. pairs champions Jenni Meno and Todd Sand. Olympic gold medallist Ilia Kulik, who is expecting the birth of his first child with new partner Ekaterina Gordeeva, isn't doing Canada this year.

"I like this year's show," says Hamilton. "You always have favourite individual numbers from other years. But pretty much as a whole it's better than anything we've done before."

So what's in the future for Hamilton? There's talk of a Broadway show with a skating theme somewhere down the road.

"I'd really like to develop something like a theatre thing for a couple of years from now," he says. "But that's going to take a lot of time and creativity.