As Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca...

The champion glowed. Trading slapshots with an 8-year-old victim of Cystic Fibrosis at hockey's Maple Leaf Gardens arena, Kurt Browning seemed as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Kess than a week earlier he had waged war with [the world's number two ranked male skater], Elvis Stojko, and Browning won. Regaining his Canadian national title may have been sweeter than we ever will know.

Often considered the hottest thing on blades, Browning faltered in the crucial 1992 Olympic year. A serious back injury robbed him of valuable training time and a disappointing sixth-place finish in the event stunned sports fans and casual observers alike. A month later Browning stepped on the world podium as the silver medalist in Oakland, California, and with the retirement of Olympic and World gold medalist Victor Petrenko, back into the number one ranking, although without the title Browning had worn so well for three years.

Browning admits that before the Albertville Olympics he had assumed that 1993 would be his first full year of professional work, but after careful consideration in the summer of 1992, he made some major changes. A move to Toronto, a change of coach and a commitment to train towards the 1994 Games were all part of the new plan.

For a coach, Browning looked no further than Louis Stong and the facilities of the the Granite Club of Toronto to help him find what he still had to give. It's a feeling that there is something more, a development of style, that motivates him to continue in the competitive ranks.

By far his biggest strides have been in producing two competitive programs that don't seem like competitive works. Choreographers Clarence Ford and Sandra Bezic have helped mold a Browning that taps into what he does best -- react with a crowd in exhibitions.

"I was just trying to tap into what happens when I do Stars On Ice," Browning explained.

His technical program, skated to Led Zeppelin is a drum solo and his free program offers a bit of acting while interpreting the soundtrack of the movie, Casablanca. Browning takes a turn at becoming Humphrey Bogart mid-program, including stopping for an imaginary cigarette. Both programs are totally unique and were artistic hits of the Canadian championships.

When BLADES caught up with Browning, he was in an environment both comfortable and foreign to most figure skaters. It was hockey skates that adorned his feet this day and a hockey stick that graced his hands. Wearing a "Sunlife Stars on Ice" sweatshirt and baggy faded blue jeans, he seemed totally at home despite the huddle of reporters at the boards.

The scene was the press conference to announce the upcoming April dates on the Canadian leg of the tour and to reveal the names of the cast. Joining Browning on the Canadian tour, which will play 10 cities, are Kristi Yamaguchi, Brian Orser, Michael Slipchuk, Toller Cranston, Josee Chouinard, Hough and Ladret and a special guest appearance by his Canadian championship nemesis, Elvis Stojko. Besides entertaining and exciting Canadian fans, the tour will raise funds for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Talk of the Canadian championship, which has been the most successful in the Canadian Figure Skating Association history, dominated. The atmosphere of the 17,000 people in Copps Coliseum to see the men's final, billed as the "battle of the giants" grew to almost rock concert proportions.

Signs showing loyalty to the Browning or Stojko camps more than dotted the crowd and cherring for both men was long, enthusiastic, and near eardrum shattering. Had Browning ever experienced anything like this before?

"Yeah, but not at Canadians," he responded. "I keep pinching myself 'this is Canadians.' Can you imagine being novice and your first Canadians and thinking they are all going to be like that.

I went to the Cincinnati Worlds and thought all the world championships would be like that. Brian Orser wins. There were big parties. Open your door every day and there was a present for you. Slipper [Michael Slipchuk] and I were going, 'Hey, let's go to the Worlds every year.'"

Despite the geographic separation of Browning and his old club in Edmonton, the Royal Glenora, he still says they keep in touch.

"They usually phone me at five o'clock in the morning when they're getting home from a party. 'Hey, we miss Kurt, so let's phone him.' So they wake me up," said Browning, who obviously does not mind the intrusion.

Browning will have company at the World Championships this year with his former training mate Marcus Christensen. "I was pulling for him, confesses the athlete. though long-time friend, clubmate and 1992 Canadian champion, Michael Slipchuck will be watching and not competing this year, it seems clear that Browning will enjoy Christensen's presence to fill the Glenora void.

The champ could use a familiar face in Prague. This year's Canadians saw Browning alone at the competition for the first time.

"It was the first time I had done a big competition without family, excluding the NHK," he explained. His father, Dewey, who has been battling cancer was unable to make the trip. Browning Sr. hopes to see his son compete in person in Prague. "He's training hard for Worlds," Browning said.

Relaxed and joking there was little hint of the man who months earlier on a CTV broadcast had hinted that he felt that some people were writing him off. Wearing the gold medal at this year's Canadian championship has changed all that.

"I really felt like they thought I'd had this huge comeback and I thought that kind of happened already in Oakland [Worlds 1992]. People didn't seem to register that. That's okay, and I can understand the thought that went into it, but that's when I thought the comeback was. If I could come back and be basically healthy for that and then I thought it was okay.

The hype before Canadians had been intense with media campaigns more in keeping with a prize fight than a figure skating contest.

"The first time I heard the commentary, I was warming up in a room with just a curtain between me and Rob Black's (CTV commentator) voice and I looked up at Bernie Ford and said, 'This is wild - 17,000 people out there waiting to see who is going to win this thing.' It was so exciting," Browning remembered.

Browning accurately assessed the situation at Canadians by saying, "There were two expectations. Can I come back and can Elvis handle the pressure when it was absolutely applied to him. It's always been secondary to Elvis. He skated great in Oakland, but again the priority wasn't on him. He did the Olympic Games and then he faltered a bit at NHK this year, but not much, and then this was it. In his own home town, could he handle the pressure and the answer is obvious."

Stojko skated clean to earn higher technical marks, but Browning was also brilliant. Although he had a few errors, Browning's long program performance was so artistically strong, it earned three perfect marks. The sixes did, however, become the controversy of the competition.

Browning saw the scores as a tribute to the exhibition-style combined with the technical tricks that included two triple-triple jump combinations. "That is why the [marks] were so high," he explained. "I was surprised at three sixes, I wasn't sitting there thinking, 'Is there going to be a six?' It just came up so fast and I looked up and saw two sixes near the end. I just froze on them and didn't see anything else."

The new Browning that creates a character also makes competing enjoyable. "When it came time to pretend I was "Humphrey [Bogart] and just have a really good time and really start to create that character, I really wasn't thinking triple Axel. I was really relaxed and thinking just like I would if this place were full for Stars [On Ice]. Each little character, the way you smile, or the timing...the wink is all important when you are doing an exhibition. Somehow when I was competing it wasn't that important."

Competition this year will have a new twist with a qualifying round where each competitor will perform their free program for a judging panel that will be different from those in the final competition. Explaining his approach to the rule change, Browning said he just goes with the flow.

"On a business level, we have to save energy and realize that you're going to have to come down a little bit to come up for the short program. Not expect to stay up and not to do 100 percent of your program. It won't be triple/triple, I don't think. Elvis and I aren't even in the same competition. Just qualify for the last event, like lap time for a race car driver. We are assuming that it shouldn't carry forward."

Once world competition is copmleted this year there is a busy schedule that will likely keep Browning north of the border this season.

"I'd like to go down to the States for some singular events," Browning said. "but when I leave for Woorlds I'm not done until the middle of May, and then I need a holiday and then I have to start training for the Olympics."

His commitments include a new CBC special to be taped in May and continued work with his sponsors Diet Coke and Pringles, which include a point of purchase campaign. His paperback edition of his autobiography Kurt: Forcing the Edge has hit Canadian newsstands and a poster of Kurt on ice with a white horse was available for sale at Skate Canada and the Canadian Championships. Business is booming.

Life now is good for Kurt Browning and his once troublesome back. The spark that some had feared was lost has changed back into a roaring fire. Staying healthy is his number one priority to keep the competitive flame glowing and continuing a dazzling career both as a technician and an artist. So, as Bogart would toast to Bergman in a classic film of love and glory, "Here's looking at you, kid."