Orser, Browning, Stojko toe-to-toe

This afternoon, if they're lucky, an audience will see Brian Orser do his first triple Axel in more than 11 years.

And maybe then they will comprehend what else they are witnessing. Living history. The lineage of leapers. The members of the best relay team this country has ever known.

Orser to Browning to Stojko.

Today, for the first time ever, Orser, Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko will compete against each other.

There are a couple of other noteable men (Todd Eldredge, Steve Cousins) in the Sears Open, but for Canadians it's all about the trio which changed the sport in this country.

Canada has won 10 men's world figure skating titles and eight of them will be represented on the ice in this pro-am, which is a hybrid of "eligible" and "ineligible" (nee, amateur and pro) skating.

Browning has won four, Stojko three (plus two Olympic silvers), and Orser just one (also two Olympic silvers).

But it was Orser who blazed a trail through the barrens Canadian skating had become in the 1970s, and built that first road to the podium. Browning paved it, and Stojko increased the speed limit.

The way it will be remembered by history is that when, after four years of knocking on the door, Orser won Canada's first men's title in 24 years in 1987, he showed Canadians they could win. Browning showed Canadians how to win often. And Stojko showed them how to win with everything stacked against you.

Each rocketed to the top on his technical strength and innovation, then added showmanship.

Vern Taylor, also Canadian, may have done the world's first triple Axel, but Orser did the next half dozen or more and made the jump synonymous with his name.

Browning did the world's first quad. Stojko did the world's first quad-double and quad-triple combinations.

But by the end of their "amateur" careers Orser and Browning had become better known for their artistry than technicality, an alchemy Stojko has still to perfect.

Besides, the envelope he prefers to push most is the technical one.

Orser, Browning and Stojko have combined to make figure skating a widely-respected male sport in this country, where once it was greeted only by a nudge-nudge, wink-wink cynicism. Because of them, tickets for the one-day Sears Open at the Hershey Centre were gone only hours after they went on sale.

And think of that delicious irony for a moment: Figure skaters almost instantaneously selling out the rink most closely associated with Donald S. Cherry.

All three were not only participants in Canadian sport history, they were passionate observers of it.

"In our country it all started with the guy with the balls to go against the world and win," said Browning, who was at his second Worlds when Orser won in 1987.

"I was more emotional when he won in Cincinnati than I was for any of my wins. I think it set something off in me that needed to be finished. I just saw someone ... really close to me, a real human being, someone who talked to me . . . teach me how to win. He was probably my hero without my knowing it. I've said Scott (Hamilton) is my hero, but now that I'm older, I recognize that Brian was one of my heroes.

"With Elvis and me there was kind of a crossover, which really sucked for me, because I didn't want to lose in my own country.

"But for the sport I thought it was kind of cool to have that blend rather than, 'you're next, you're next.' It's a lot easier to take now, though, than it was then."

Stojko once told Browning that he appreciated his leadership in their head-to-head battles -- most notably at Hamilton in 1993 -- and recognized how hard it must have been to be the established champion with this challenger quadrupling on his heels. He still gets a little choked up recalling Stojko's respect for his forerunner.

"Brian was always the guy I had looked up to and trained with," said Stojko, who moved to Orillia at the age of 13 to work with Orser and his coach Doug Leigh.

"Then this guy (Browning) shows up and follows Brian from there, and then picks up the world title the next year. I come into the picture a couple of years later and follow Kurt along the way. I don't know if there was as much of the rivalry with Brian and Kurt as what we (he and Kurt) had. I think that pushed the sport to another level.

"The three of us did a lot of changing and helped the sport in a lot of ways."

For Orser, perhaps more than for his successors, today is special. Since the day he turned professional in the spring of 1988, he has not performed the triple Axel in public.

Rarely, in fact, in private. But for six months, he's been training for today's event, has trimmed down, and has been landing the King of triples that once bore his stamp, and his alone.

"I'd love for the audience to see the three generations and the passing of the torch," Orser says. "But I don't want to be the old man out there. Poor, sad old Brian. So I've worked hard for this.

"We started a roll, that's for sure. I guess getting on the podium in '82 with Brian Pockar and me eventually winning in '87 was the start.

"They just kept the ball rolling. There was some momentum here. Kurt sort of fed off of that, because he got to witness that and I think he thought that was kind of cool. Plus, he was in a position to take the bull by the horns and do something, as Albertans do, pardon the pun.

"Then Elvis did the same thing. But Elvis also had a taste of it because I was training with him. He saw all the behind-the-scenes stuff and five or six years later learned what it was I was going through and maybe could learn from it.

"That it's stressful, that there's a huge weight on your shoulders, and that it's important."

Orser had no one from whom to learn how to become a champion. But perhaps he's learned from the generation which learned from him. He's in better shape than he's ever been as a pro, is creating more time in his schedule for practice and is nailing Axels fairly consistently in workouts.

And his thirst for competition has been revived. Stojko and Browning each remarked how much Orser wants to win today.

"Did they say that?" he laughs. "That's funny."

And then, pausing for a moment, he nods his head.

"They're right."

SEARING THE ICE

WHAT: 1999 Sears Figure Skating Open

WHERE: Hershey Centre, Mississauga

WHO: Kurt Browning, Todd Eldredge, Brian Orser, Elvis Stojko, Nicole Bobek, Jennifer Robinson, Josee Chouinard, Elizabeth Manley, Bourne-Kraatz, Berezhnaya-Sikharuldize, Sargeant-Wirtz and more.

RULES: Combination of international skating union regulations (short programs) and professional-style free skate (interpretive program with limited jumps)