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Kurt Browning bids adieu to Stars on Ice and its loyal fans
The four-time World champion is retiring from the show after 30 years of popular performances
| Source: |
The Orange County Register |
| Date: |
May 19, 2023 |
| Author: |
Scott M. Reid |
When Kurt Browning was 12 he was in an Alberta grocery store with his
mother Neva when they ran into one of her friends.
The woman asked Browning, already a rising star in a country obsessed
with any sport involving a frozen sheet of ice, about his figure
skating.
“I didn’t respond in the way my mom expected,” Browning recalled this
week. “And she turned to me and said when someone asks about your
skating you answer them and you respect that they respect your skating
enough to ask.
“She also demanded that if I did an autograph you should be able to
read it. So things like that have rubbed off. My dad was very, very
clear about the fact that cars in the parking lot outside the arena
don’t get there on their own, that people decided to drive them, pay
for parking, pay for gas, pay for food, pay for a ticket. So yes,
there has been ingrained in me the responsibility to anybody who not
only buys a ticket to a show but says hello.
“They’re giving you time from their life and that’s pretty darn
precious stuff. So I try really hard to be open with people who love
skating and I damn well try hard every time I step on the ice to give
them a good show.”
For 30 years and more than 1,000 shows Browning has brought that
Alberta prairie ethic every night to Stars On Ice, a sort of traveling
Broadway meets the Hall of Fame extravaganza that crisscrosses North
America each spring.
Now at 56 going on 57 next month, Browning is retiring from Stars On
Ice, stepping out of the spotlight that has followed him from his
hometown of Caroline, Alberta, pop. 470, to triumphs at four World
Championships, to three Olympic Games, a very public divorce, and a
‘Wait, did I just see what I think I saw?’ skate in Budapest 35 years
ago that forever changed the sport.
The Stars On Ice show at Honda Center Saturday will be one of
Browning’s final performances on a tour he has been synonymous with
through parts of four decades.
The tour has been a journey through his past.
“My final year of doing a job I’ve done for over three decades has
made me super aware of my past and when we do autograph sessions after
the show people are pulling out photographs of 1991, 1989,” Browning
said. “And I’m getting messages from some skaters telling stories
about things I did on tour in 1993 in the United States and ‘remember
that time when we went and played paintball?’ So I’m having a
blast.”
Although he strained an elbow shoveling snow at his Toronto-area home
this past winter, Browning said it was not so much his body talking
him into retirement as it was his heart.
“I’m skating really well and that’s the way I’d like to remember it
and that’s the way I’d like to be remembered and quite honestly this
is approximately a decade longer than I ever thought I’d skate so, but
it’s all good,” he said. “Honestly between you and me, my body feels
great but I am more susceptible at 57 to almost anything. My eyes are
older and sometimes the lights play tricks on me in the show. It just
doesn’t take as much to knock me off my game. So when people drive
five hours and spend a lot of money to see Stars On Ice, I want to
give myself the best chance to give them the best show they’ve earned
by buying a ticket. So there is a responsibility to the show that we
make sure we’re professional skaters, we show up, we do our job and I
don’t want my age to be why I don’t skate well. I’m having fun. Every
night I’m having a good time. We’ve done 10 shows. I have one that was
a little squeaky and that’s about it. Doing great.”
But a life lived with the “ON” button on since junior high has weighed
on him.
“I’m not going to miss the expectation I have on myself,” he said. “I
won’t miss that. Because I’ve been having that all my life since I was
a teenager and I’m kind of looking forward to waking up in the morning
and not knowing it’s 7:30 and don’t have to” go the skating
rink,
He was still a teenager when he made his debut on the International
Skating Union’s Grand Prix tour in 1985-86. Two years later he placed
eighth at the 1988 Olympic Games held in Calgary, a two-hour drive
from Caroline. It was a promising showing that went largely overlooked
at a Games focused on the Battle of the Brians, the gold medal
showdown between Brian Boitano of the U.S. and Canada’s Brian
Orser.
A month later Browning upstaged the Brians at the World Championships
in Budapest when he became the first person to successfully land a
quad jump in competition, launching the sport’s space race.
Czechoslovakia’s Jozef Sabovcik had appeared to land a quad jump at
the European Championships in 1986 but the leap was invalidated
because of his landing. Browning thought Orser and Boitano were both
capable of landing quads in 1988 but neither was willing to take on a
high-risk jump unless they absolutely had to. Boitano struggled to
stay on his feet while practicing the quad at the Olympics and
Worlds.
Browning, not a medal contender, had nothing to lose.
“I knew what I was chasing and I knew that the two Brians could both
do quads but were busy fighting each other and if either one of them
made a mistake the other one would win,” Browning said. “So it kind of
opened the door.”
And Browning leapt right through it, landing a clean quadruple
toe-loop. It’s often forgotten that Browning, despite the
history-making leap, only finished sixth at Worlds. It didn’t
matter. Ladies and gentlemen, figure skating had lift-off.
“Somebody was going to do it,” Browning said. “I almost did it at the
Olympics a month earlier. So it was a race and it was a really fun
race to be a part of and I was the lucky SOB, can’t say that, lucky
son of a gun, who landed backwards outside edge.”
Browning also had something of a last laugh on Orser in Budapest. In
between programs, the pair had gone shopping.
“Brian Orser was one of my superheroes and he bought a vase, a black,
tall vase,” Browning recalled. “And I thought, what an adult thing to
do. He bought a vase and they’re going to ship it to his house and
it’s going to be there when he gets home from Budapest and I’m like
that’s so cool.”
Browning’s quad landed him a spot in the World’s closing night gala,
an exhibition usually reserved for medalists.
After the show, the skaters were handed gifts by their Hungarian
hosts.
“And it was the same exact vase that Brian Orser had bought and I was
like, ‘Damn, that’s a pretty cool thing,’” Browning said.
“Budapest was making history with the quad. It was an amazing, amazing
journey that week to Budapest.”
A year later Browning won the first of three consecutive World titles,
a feat matched by only three men since then. He captured a fourth
Worlds in 1993, joining Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton as the
only four-time World champions since 1956.
He was the Olympic favorite going into the 1992 Games only to finish
sixth. He was fifth at the 1994 Games. It would be another 24 years
before he really dealt with his Olympic disappointment.
Browning was invited in 2018 to give a speech to 2000 school teachers
in Edmonton.
“I was doing research because I wanted my theme to be about perception
and how I perceived myself until I had an interview with you and that
changes my perception of myself and how fickle that self-perception
can be, and in doing so I wanted to talk about how my Olympic
experiences went down, and to do that I started watching the programs
back and I realized that of the two long programs and the two short
programs I had only seen one of them,” Browning said referring to the
1992 and 1994 Games. “So there were three programs that I don’t
remember ever looking at. So to go back in time was really like
jarring, completely jarring. It threw me off for a little while and it
made me realize that we do sometimes sugarcoat the past and find ways
to deal with it. Because when I watched myself skate (and thought) ‘I
could have landed that jump, I don’t care how bad my back
was.’
“It was good. It made for a really good speech. It was raw and
real.”
Retiring from international competition, he became a headliner on
Stars On Ice.
His rendition of Gene Kelly’s “Singin’ in the Rain” became an instant
fan favorite and one of the tour’s iconic routines.
“I can remember watching it with my mom, so there’s a connection
there, already,” Browning said, referring to the 1952 film. “But
there’s something about the character, Gene Kelly shows us how he just
fell in love. He literally just fell in love. He knows that she loves
him and suddenly his life has changed. And he doesn’t care if he gets
wet, doesn’t care if he opens his umbrella, doesn’t care if it’s
raining because he’s in love. And that sentiment, every time as an
actor as well as a skater is really, really fun. And then the costume
is just as close as you can get to being Gene Kelly. I can’t dance
like him, but on ice, I can kind of emulate his movements. Or his
sentiment. So I think that’s why it’s special. I think lots of people
have that same relationship with Gene Kelly and watching his magic. So
to bring that to life on the ice was nice, it was a good idea from a
very young version of me.”
Browning married Sonia Rodriguez, the National Ballet of Canada’s
principal dancer, in June 1996. They had two sons. The family’s home
suffered a major fire in August 2010. That same year Browning and
Rodriguez were divorced.
“When a marriage ends, and mine ended very, very slowly, it ended very
quickly one day and then took a long time to figure itself out after
that,” Browning said. “There was a house fire, there were a lot of
things going on. It was really, truly, for not only that, but for
other reasons, a really tough, five to seven years of my life. And I
was working extra hard because I was avoiding reality and doing all
sorts of things and I wanted to just feel not even valued. I wasn’t
looking for that. It was just feeling necessary or needed. And it
wasn’t really looking for a life partner at all. It was looking for if
I can be something for somebody that would help me recover”
He found that somebody seven years ago in Alissa Czisny, a two-time
U.S. champion, 21 years his junior. They were married last
August.
“And so she ended up helping me, I think, a lot more than I helped her
and we just sort of have a pact that our job is to make the other
one’s life better,” he said. “Not make it harder. So that’s been our
pact. Just make each other’s day better and it’s not be everything for
the other person, and be there all the time, it’s not that. It’s
literally, see what you can do to make their day OK.
“And it’s been over seven years now and we have just hummed, enjoyed
each other’s company the whole time. We just get along and so I was
really happy to marry her so it could not only feel more firm, us as a
relationship, but accepted by the community. That’s sort of what
marriage does for couples and it kind of set us on our path. And quite
honestly she’s probably the biggest reason I’ve done the last three
years of Stars On Ice and stayed through COVID to keep doing it, is to
do shows with her.
“She’s changed my life 180 degrees.”
And now his life is about to undergo another major change.
Browning was 10 when Neva turned 50 and he remembered thinking that
was an age when people would soon be dying.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he admitted. “Well, like, will I
do any more shows? Will I just sort of say, ‘You know what, I have my
memories and I’m happy and now I can do choreography for other
people,’ or I can host a show or I can take my skates and …
“It’s not that I don’t love it. I want to remember it. And I’ve worked
really hard to be in this shape.
“I’m 56 going on 57. Fifty-six in 1977 was much older than 56
now.
“But I’m taking stock for sure. Anybody who realizes you’ve got less
years ahead of you than you do behind you, you kind of go, that’s a
threshold, right?
“I’m curious about what my life will be like now without that constant
chasing of that fitness level I need to be at. I certainly want to
stay in shape.”
This much he is certain of: “It absolutely feels like the right time
and the most important thing for me was that I was enjoying the time
on the ice,” he said.
Browning does two solo performances on this tour. One of them is to
David Gray’s “Please Forgive Me.” Czisny both chose the music and
choreographed the performance.
“The joke is I like skating to it because I want you to please forgive
me for lasting, staying around too long,” Browning cracked.
In reality, the performance is a reflective moment.
“It’s filled with space,” he said, “where I’m looking up at the
audience, to give me that chance to literally not worry about skating
as much as I just enjoy this back and forth that will be gone in just
a few weeks.”
A space for the sport’s loyal fans to tell Browning what his skating
has meant to them.
And for the kid from Caroline to say one last time, “Thanks for
asking.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” he said. “Just a calm moment out on the
ice with the Stars On Ice crowd for me to kind of absorb it, uh, yeah,
just absorb it.”
STARS ON ICE
When/Where: Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Honda Center, Anaheim
Skaters scheduled to appear: Olympic champion Nathan Chen, World
champions Kurt Browning, Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier, Madison
Chock and Evan Bates, World bronze medalist Ilia Malinin.
For more info: www.starsonice.com.
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