Skating rules confusing

RED DEER -- Jamie Sale and David Pelletier are staying Olympic-eligible!

OK. Maybe take off the exclamation mark and put it on at the end of the next paragraph.

"They want to turn pro and they can't!'' marvelled Kurt Browning.

Sale & Pelletier, in addition to a significant appearance fee, won the fifth edition of the Sears Open and the $40,000 pairs prize money with the same status they won it two years ago.

It was the first competition since the Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games gold for the two.

Despite a press conference to inform the world they were turning pro, they officially won it as Olympic-eligible skaters. And the way things are going in this sport, the reality is that they could stay Olympic eligible through to Torino.

LIFE IN THE CIRCUS

Should they get tired of the travel and life in the circus that is the 72-stop Stars On Ice tour which they begin on Boxing Day, they could come back and go for the gold again.

"Boy times have changed, haven't they?'' said Browning, who performed an exhibition before the free skate portions of the event won by Sale & Pelletier in pairs against no credible opposition, by Olympic and four-time world champion Alexei Yagudin in men's with a quality field and American Sasha Cohen in a decent women's competition.

"When I was around you could lose your Olympic eligibility by accepting a Sears gift certificate,'' said Browning.

"Now when you want to turn pro, you can't.''

Actually, it's all Browning's fault.

Browning and his bunch.

Pro competitions featuring Browning and Scott Hamilton had such high television numbers, the International Skating Union opened the rules to allow for these Sears Open type events mixing the Olympic eligible and non-eligible skaters to allow the competitive skaters a chance for a big pay day and yet stay around to win medals.

"It worked,'' said Browning.

"We're down to one pro competition this year - Ice Wars.

"The only way you can lose your Olympic eligibility is to compete in Ice Wars. And they've decided not to have a pairs event.''

Pelletier shakes his head.

"Very confusing,'' he said. "But that's figure skating.''

The two, of course, are still getting over the judging controversy from Salt Lake. And they had fun playing with the fact the Canadian judge gave them a 6.0, the American judge a 5.7 and the other judges all 5.9s in the free skate final here yesterday.

"Maybe he didn't like it. Maybe it was too sexy for him,'' said Sale of the American judge Todd Bromley.

Olympic-eligible skaters don't say stuff like that.

Sale & Pelletier head from here to Columbus, Ohio for the Hallmark, the U.S. equivalent of the Sears Open, and then they begin, full-time, their lives as show skaters.

And Browning thinks they'll do well.

It's an easier transition now, he says, than when he left the Olympic-eligible scene after the Lillehammer Olympics.

"It was a really big adjustment for me. But you look at a guy like Alexei Yagudin and the number of events like this that he's been part of, the number of shows he's skated in after the Worlds and Olympics ... Alexei already has as much experience as I did at this three years after I turned pro.

"But he doesn't have the respect.

"It's too bad. He doesn't understand what guys like Scott Hamilton had to do, what they went through, to make something like Stars On Ice even happen.''

CONGENITAL HIP PROBLEM

Yagudin has a congenital hip problem and while he skated here and plans to skate the other two pre-Christmas eligible/non-eligible the Hershey's Kiss and Hallmark events in the U.S., he's decided not to skate competitively through Worlds.

"I can pull something from myself like I did here but I can't do it forever. I skated here because maybe I'll need this money.''

Maybe he'll jump on and off the Stars On Ice tour, maybe not.

"There is no problem with the ISU but right now I have a problem with the Russian federation,'' he said. "I definitely want to stay Olympic-eligible.''

Whatever, Browning says Sale & Pelletier seem to have the respect and look to him like they'll survive and thrive in the new life they are about to begin.

Olympic-eligible or not, he doesn't expect them back.

"For four-and-a-half weeks of rehearsal they were never late and were going full out. And you can tell they still really like to skate with each other, which isn't always the case.''

Come back for Torino 2006?