Canadians may flirt with whoever happens to be the moguls, bobsled or speed-skating star du jour. But when it comes to the Winter Olympics, it is hockey and figure-skating that provide the most lasting relationships for sports fans in this country.
The enduring popularity of the latter was again evident as 4,189 fans turned out Tuesday at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre to watch the 25th edition of Stars on Ice, featuring Canadian standouts from the 2006 Turin, 2010 Vancouver and 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
When Olympic-medallists Patrick Chan, Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir, Jeffrey Buttle and Joannie Rochette came out for the group opening skated to A Sky Full Of Stars by Coldplay, that soundtrack wasn鈥檛 gussied-up bravado. It鈥檚 been profoundly earned by this group in arenas around the world.
The one constant in Stars on Ice has been four-time world champion Kurt Browning, who has appeared in all 25 tours. Turning 49 next month, he is still a muscular skater and showed it to great effect in leading the male performers in a robust routine skated to Brick House by the Commodores.
鈥淭wenty-five years . . . the mind boggles. This is Kurt鈥檚 show,鈥� said Moir, who with Virtue, emceed Gold Medal Plates at the Victoria Conference Centre last fall to help raise funds for the many Summer Olympians who train on the Island.
Stars on Ice has been an annual fixture on Blanshard in the 10-year history of the Memorial Centre. Virtue and Moir 鈥� Olympic ice-dance champions at Vancouver 2010 and silver medallists at Sochi 2014 鈥� have been part of it the last eight years.
鈥淲e love playing Victoria,鈥� said Moir.
鈥淣ot only is it a beautiful city, we get awesome fans every time.鈥�
The troupe schedules its wind-up golf tournament and dinner annually in Victoria. The 12-city tour concludes Thursday at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.
The Victoria show highlights included the superbly elegant performance by Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford to One Love by U2 and Mary J. Blige. Most of the current Canadian stars took the post-Sochi year off from competition, but not this pair, who have won all six major competitions since Sochi, including the 2015 world championships in Shanghai. They are in competitive trim, and it showed.
Chan, who took a year off competition following his silver medals at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, skated a tight routine to Mess is Mine by Vance Joy.
Before the show, he credited Stars on Ice for helping rekindle his passion for the sport.
鈥淪kating for the audience, and not the judges, helped me find the joy of skating again,鈥� said Chan.
Bring on those judges, as Chan has committed through to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Virtue and Moir also took the year off from competition, but have yet to announce their plans regarding 2018. As for Duhamel and Radford, if Tuesday on Blanshard was any indication, watch out, Pyeongchang.
