Former Olympians dazzle

The rain falling from the ceiling of Save-On Foods Memorial Centre on Tuesday night would normally be an Alan Lowe heart attack waiting to happen. But thankfully it wasn't the real thing, only another spectacular set piece for the HSBC Stars on Ice show.

It became clear during the course of the night that they don't hand out Olympic gold medals and world championships to just anybody. The professional cast of former international skating medallists was far more finished than SOFMC is even at this late date.

The theme of the show was "Imagination" and there was plenty of it as a big-time ice show finally made its way to Victoria again.

The cast earned repeated ovations from the near sell-out crowd as the show started with Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka and ended with Aerosmith's Dream On. Only a few hundred seats remained unsold in the 7,000-seat facility but temporary extra seats were added in front of the hockey boards.

The patrons got their money's worth as the 2005 Stars on Ice tour ended following shows nation-wide in venues such as the Bell Centre in Montreal, Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Rexall Place in Edmonton, Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary and GM Place in Vancouver.

Eight-year-old Haylee Pelter of Duncan sat transfixed watching skaters who do what most of us can only dream about.

She said her favourite skater was four-time world champion and Canadian sporting legend Kurt Browning, who started with a kid-friendly take as a day-dreaming dad who would rather play with the things in his son's toy box than fix a leaky bathroom pipe.

Little Haylee made the trip down with her sister Chelsea, 22, both skaters with the Duncan Figure Skating Club, to watch some of the biggest names in the sport.

"It's amazing . . . now you know why they're pros," said Chelsea Pelter.

Amazing indeed. And laced with humour. Jamie Sale -- performing with her fiancee David Pelletier and Olympic gold-medal pairs partner from the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games -- held aloft a crystal ball at the beginning of the show and said she knew what was in store for the audience over the course of the evening -- "dancing Smurfs."

Unfortunately, the crystal ball was from an ice show in 1979. "Props!," she yelled, while shaking her head in mock anger.

The cast pretended to hypnotize the audience and had only one command: "You will never again laugh at the word Sowcow."

Sorry, didn't work. That's still a ridiculous sounding jump.

Russian Alexei Yagudin, the defending Olympic men's champion from Salt Lake City who did a high-wire routine above the ice that shouldn't be attempted without at least a couple of crash helmets, could have a job with Cirque du Soleil after his skating career.

Amateur Jeffrey Buttle, the current world championships silver medallist and Canadian hope for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, showed well in professional company.

But maybe the luckiest person in the place was the guy sitting in the front row who got to have Shae-Lynn Bourne -- world ice dance champion with former partner Victor Kraatz of Qualicum Beach -- sit on his lap for a moment during a skit.