By Karen Wolitzer
They're all appearing in the17th annual Stars On Ice show at Nassau Coliseum, along with Jamie Sal, David Pelletier, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze who caused such a stir at the Salt Lake City Olympics. Kurt Browning has been with the show for almost a decade. He got his first pair of figure skates when he was 11-years-old. Due to the fact that he'd worn only hockey skates up until this point, he spent a lot of time falling down. It was the social aspect of the sport that kept him interested. People began to take notice of his skating abilities when he was around 16. "They began saying weird things like 'your sons got such talent. You should really consider getting a coach,'" says Kurt. "A few months later, I moved away from my mom and dad, to the big city, and started getting real coaching lessons. We didn't really know what we were getting into, but I was having fun and staying out of trouble...anytime your kid is learning to work hard and not hanging out on a street corner...it's a good thing." His hard work paid off. At the age of 22, he found himself representing his country in the Olympics, which took place about two hours away from where he grew up. "That was really, really, really exciting," he says with a smile. Since then he's won four world championships. This is his ninth year performing in Stars On Ice. "I enjoy it. We rehearse for about a month and then we're on the road for about four and a half months."The theme of this year's show is power...athletic power, star power and the power of a dream. "I think the power idea came from the fact that we have a lot of new athletes in the show," explains Kurt. "We have seven skaters who just came out of Salt Lake City. Alexei Yagudin won the gold medal. He's one of the most charismatic strong athletic skaters that this sport has seen in a while. And we're very excited to have him in the cast. He's so good. "And not too many people on the planet don't know who Jamie, David, Elena and Anton are. We have both teams. That's exciting because the dynamic of what happened at the Olympics is now within our show. And people are very excited to see how the two couples interact. It's a lot of pressure on those two teams, but they're handling it well and they skate together in a number. They're good friends. "Rene Roca and Gorsha Sur have been with Stars On Ice before and now they're back-God, they're good! They're kind of what perfect skating is...and three-time U.S. National Pair Champions Jenni Meno and Todd Sand are with us. "We all get along very well. Scott Hamilton has had a big influence on my career and I learned a lot traveling with him. He's like a big brother and a really good friend. Todd Eldredge is funny. He bought a ping pong table and it travels with us. When we have a couple of hours of dead time before a show we gather around the ping pong table, laugh and joke and hang out. "It's really fun and it comes down to the fact that I'm doing not only something that I'm really good at-but something that makes me happy. My dad summed it up. He said, 'at the end of your workday people clap...how bad can that be?' I think of that a lot. You have to be really aware of how lucky you are. "It's easy to get down because traveling is hard and I'm away from my wife and family a lot--and when I have a bad day at work thousands or millions of people know about it-that's a lot of pressure-but when it goes right...it's so sweet."
