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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Training mission Skate promoters champion Spokane

PORTLAND – Toby Steward is like the ex-husband you run into everywhere. At Rosauers, at Blockbuster Video and just when you think you’ve filled your bumping-into-him quota, there he is at Clinkerdagger’s with a woman half his age.

At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships here, Steward is at the Memorial Coliseum moving from aisle to aisle passing out Spokane ticket information, or in hotel lobbies dropping off more ticket brochures, or in the Rose Garden setting up a booth with the Spokane Convention and Visitor Bureau.

All this for an event that isn’t until Jan. 21-28, 2007.

“The engine has to be going all the time,” said Steward, who owns Star USA with his business partner and wife, Barb Beddor, and is the event chairman for the skating championships in Spokane.

The couple is in Portland at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on a fact-finding mission. For 10 days, they will be sizing up the event in preparation for their big show.

“It’s like training for competition,” Steward said. “If you’re not training, you know your competitor is training.”

Steward won the first race nearly a year ago on Feb. 20, 2004, when the U.S. Figure Skating officials announced the Lilac City would play host to the 2007 championships. Next year’s event is in St. Louis. Spokane beat out Boston and Hershey, Pa.

“They’re unbelievable,” Chuck Foster, president of U.S. Figure Skating, said of the energetic pair of Steward, 43, and Beddor, 45. “Even getting the bid they did such a wonderful job they blew everybody away. They are getting the community to embrace the event, whereas in L.A. and Atlanta (past hosts), there are so many things going on.”

Aside from the obvious – selling tickets – Steward and Beddor are studying the logistics of the venues, hotels, transportation services, you name it. Steward also is videotaping everywhere security lets him go, and the two are making mental notes as to what to expect in Spokane.

“I’ve had great reaction,” said Steward, who’s been dressed in his official Spokane 2007 red-and-black gear all week. “When I tell them Spokane, these people are skate fans, and they say, ‘Oh, Spokane. We’ll be there.’ ”

In Portland, skaters are practicing and competing at the nine-year-old Rose Garden, the home of the NBA Portland Trail Blazers, and the 45-year-old Memorial Coliseum, where the Western Hockey League Portland Winter Hawks play. The buildings sit side-by-side at the Rose Quarter complex, making it convenient for spectators to hop back and forth from venues. Because the Memorial Coliseum ice surface didn’t meet qualifications, a company was contracted to expand the surface to 200 feet by 85 feet.

Spokane venues will be the 10-year-old Arena and the Spokane Convention Center, which is in the midst of a 100,000-square-foot expansion set to be finished six months before the event. It will include a walkway connecting the center to the DoubleTree Hotel, an added benefit for skaters and coaches who will stay at the hotel. The Davenport Hotel – a hit with the national skating community during the 2002 Skate America – will serve as headquarters.

Steward said the cost of laying ice on the convention floor will be about $200,000. He and Beddor will decide who will do the work among three companies.

Much like at Skate America – also a Star USA production – the Spokane championships will include a fanfest, most likely at the Convention Center, Steward said. Only, it will be “bigger and better than Skate America’s.”

Portland officials expect to sell about 100,000 tickets to this year’s eight-day event. About 4,500 general admission seats have been sectioned off at the Memorial Coliseum, which has been about half-full for many of the lower-level novice and junior competitions.

The 18,000-seat Rose Garden is being used for junior and championship level competitions and practices.

Steward is predicting 150,000 tickets will be sold for the Spokane event. The Arena capacity is about 10,000. The details have not been ironed out regarding the Convention Center’s seating and capacity. Steward said about 30 percent of the $495 all-event ticket packages have been sold. Aside from working the Portland and St. Louis championships, Steward said he and Beddor plan to make a big push at the 2006 World Championships next March in Calgary, Alberta.

“I always say, ‘95 percent of the work is done before the event arrives and the other 5 percent is physically doing the event,’ ” Steward said. “This is going to be the biggest party Spokane has seen in decades.”