Ice Time

Full Text COPYRIGHT 1995 Maclean Hunter (Canada)

Paul Wylie is no dummy. The American figure skater, who won the silver medal at the 1992 Olympics, also has a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and had been accepted into the institution's vaunted law school. But late last year, forced to decide between the security of an Ivy League law degree and the mercurial life of skating, he did not flinch. He chose skating. Since then, asked over and over to explain his decision, the 30-year-old has repeatedly insisted he is not suffering from a case of arrested development. "Fiscally, I would be irresponsible to quit right now," he says. "I'm earning 10 times what I would earn if I had my law degree. It's unbelievably huge--you can make $100,000 in two nights of competition. I don't do it for the money, but it's pretty hard to ignore those heady numbers. You have to make a living."

Once the repository of faded Olympians, professional skating today is glitzy, glamorous--and highly lucrative. Its stars--from Canada's Kurt Browning and America's Nancy Kerrigan to Germany's Katarina Witt and Ukraine's Oksana Baiul--not only headline major theatrical shows but also compete in a dizzying series of made-for-TV events. Fans pack arenas: last year, the Stars on Ice tour drew 160,000 fans in 10 Canadian cities--up from 22,000 in three cities in 1991--and is selling out again this year. The CBC television special on the tour drew 2.4 million viewers in 1994--nearly one million more than for the average Hockey Night in Canada broadcast. "And the ratings for the competitions have been great," says former Canadian ice dancer Tracy Wilson, now a CBS skating commentator. "The sport is growing and it has not topped out yet."

But the boom has also created confusion. After the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway--with its attention-grabbing, Kerrigan-Tonya Harding affair--promoters, TV networks and agents rushed to cash in on the sport's exploding popularity. Suddenly, people who knew little about figure skating were running competitions. The judging standards were inconsistent. Events were often broadcast months after they were actually staged. The schedule was disorganized: last fall, promoters shoehorned four competitions into one two-week stretch. And there is no relief in sight. Only last week, Browning and Elizabeth Manley, who now skates for Ice Capades, were supposed to compete for Canada at a pro team event in West Palm Beach, but it was postponed at the last minute because Witt and Ukraine's Viktor Petrenko pulled out due to injuries. "I think it is going to be even less under control next season," says David Dore, director-general of the Canadian Figure Skating Association. "Promoters did so well with it this year that they are coming back even harder, and some other people want to horn in, too."

Just a decade ago, top performers went straight from the amateur ranks to big ice shows. There, surrounded by a cast of furry creatures on skates, they watched their skills decline under the weight of exhausting schedules. "On some of those tours, they skate 10 to 12 shows a week," says Toronto-based agent Kevin Albrecht, who represents Kristi Yamaguchi, Browning and Scott Hamilton, among others. "How can you keep your skating level high under those conditions? You can't." By the time skaters got around to the few existing competitions, most were unable to summon the skills they had as amateurs. Audiences were not impressed.

While Canada has long been a strong skating market, the sport, predictably, did not become a big-bucks phenomenon until it caught on in the United States. Skating has always had a small but devoted U.S. following, and every four years the Olympics would make celebrities of such gold medallists as Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill. But the real boom began at the Calgary Games in 1988, when media hype--and a more athletic style of skating--sent the sport leaping and spinning into a brighter spotlight. In the so-called Battle of the Brians, America's Boitano narrowly defeated Canada's Orser, while Witt outduelled Manley and American Debi Thomas--and the public was hooked. The momentum continued into 1992, when the women's final won by America's Kristi Yamaguchi in Albertville, France, was the second-highest-rated U.S. sports broadcast that year, behind only the Super Bowl.

Going into Lillehammer last year, the reinstatement of such longtime stars as Boitano and Witt again turned the Olympic focus towards skating. Then, Kerrigan was attacked by a thug linked to another American skater, Harding. "Figure skating was already the main course for television at the 1994 Olympics," says Wylie, who worked the games as a CBS analyst. "But that was magnified enormously by the Tonya-Nancy thing."

As the audience has grown, so too have the skaters' options. Browning has starred in several TV specials, including 1994's top-rated You Must Remember This, which won five Gemini Awards. As well, skaters can now choose from a range of major professional shows, including Stars on Ice, Disney's World on Ice and the venerable Ice Capades. Then, there is the Tour of World Figure Skating Champions, which annually assembles a cast of top professionals and amateurs. This year's tour to 70 U.S. cities started on April 1 and features two-time world champion Elvis Stojko of Richmond Hill, Ont., and Baiul, the 1994 Olympic gold-medallist. Stojko, though still technically an amateur, also stages his own fall mini-tour. To keep fresh for amateur competition, Stojko will only do about 40 of the World Champions shows. "We put together a schedule that's workable," says his coach, Doug Leigh. "A lot of people want his time these days, and we have to be selective."

There is no telling when the skate mania will end. But there is no shortage of new competitors to meet the demand. In Canada, enrolment in figure-skating clubs has jumped by nearly 30 per cent since 1988, spurred by the international success of Orser, Manley, Browning and Stojko. Wylie, ever-businesslike, says professional skating is secure as long as TV needs it. And since it lost the rights to televise football, CBS has needed programming for the weekend audience that remained untapped--mostly women. "Skating was just what they wanted," Wylie says. "It is easy to watch, easy to cover, you don't have to be an expert to enjoy it. It's athletic movement set to music. That fusion," he adds with a smile, "is irresistible."