Story on ice

By tonight, six-time U.S. National Champion figure skater Todd Eldredge will have already tested the ice in the Spokane Arena.

Champion skaters from around the world will be rehearsing for the 20th Anniversary Smucker’s Stars on Ice on Friday night at the arena.

“It’s kind of an exciting year for us,” Eldredge said.

Spokane will be the first of 48 stops nationwide for this year’s performance, called “A show … about the show.”

The event will feature 13 skaters in choreographed numbers that highlight past performances and explore the show’s origins and development.

“They kind of tell you how the show got started 20 years ago,” Eldredge said.

A host of accomplished skaters will perform including Olympic gold medalist Alexei Yagudin and Olympic pair champions Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada, and Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia.

Jennifer Robinson of Canada and Jason Dungjen of the United States will join other national and world champions in Stars on Ice for the first time.

“It’s an amazing show,” Eldredge said. “It’s probably the most interesting and exciting show in skating.”

Scott Hamilton, Stars on Ice co-founder and Olympic champion, will host the two-hour event from large video screens. He will lead the audience behind the scenes from concept to auditions to opening night.

“We sort of tell a story throughout the show,” Eldredge said.

The story of finding and showcasing professional skaters will include group and solo performances mixed with Hamilton’s narration and music.

Eldredge said the show will be set to a wide variety of music from classical to rock. He will be skating two solo numbers to “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Bolero.”

His favorite number involves all of the skaters at the end of the first half.

“It’s good music to skate to and everyone’s on the ice,” he said.

At one point, the performers will skate with luggage to represent the traveling from city to city.

The tour is scheduled to move around the country until mid-May with a break in February for the Olympics.

After the Spokane show, the skaters and crew will pack into their two tour buses and head to Portland before going to Seattle.

This week, Spokane Arena crews pulled up the floor, moved seating and cooled the ice to an exact temperature and viscosity in preparation for the event’s 10th visit.

Marketing director Matt Gibson said skaters want perfect ice, just like skiers want fresh powder.

“We’ve got this down to a pretty exact science,” he said.

The arena is expecting to fill 6,000 to 7,000 seats. Gibson said the audience should be a little more than last year.

“Spokane’s a pretty big figure skating town,” he said.

Eldredge said he plans to go out on the ice and have fun with the crowd. Stars on Ice isn’t about beating the competition; it’s about putting on a good show for the audience.

“We’ve got a lot of good skating, a lot of fun and a lot of good music,” he said.