Stars on Ice end long tour on a high note

A decade ago, Scott Hamilton brought his fledgling Stars on Ice tour to Orono.

The Alfond Arena date was the first stop of a five-date tour. It wasn’t a propitious start, as an electrical wire exploded, shooting sparks everywhere, which led to an evacuation of the building during the show’s finale.

Yet Stars on Ice not only has survived, but it also has prospered. The show wrapped up a 58-date, 55-city tour Sunday afternoon in Portland, the end of a grueling season for the dozen skaters.

The show’s biggest loss came before the tour even started on Nov. 20, 1995, when Olympic champion pairs skater Sergei Grinkov, 28, died of a heart attack during a practice session. He and his wife-partner, Ekatarina Gordeeva, were Stars on Ice’s top pair.

His absence was alluded to several times during the performance, first during the opening number, the jazzy “Ice Cream,” when the skaters formed a circle at center ice and bowed their heads for a minute.

Despite the ordeal of Grinkov’s death, a lengthy tour, and many competitions over the past year, the skaters put on an enjoyable two hours for the sellout crowd of 6,600.

Hamilton was the event’s ringmaster and chief ham. He took the crowd on a journey through the tour’s 10 years, as well as introducing acts and interacting with the audience.

His skillful spins, jumps and footwork, on the comical number “Hair” and the bluesy “One For My Baby,” showed that Hamilton, 37, won’t be hanging up his skates anytime soon.

The afternoon’s star was the show’s headliner, Kristi Yamaguchi. In the first act, she was balletic grace incarnate to the classical “The Seasons” by Glazunov. A more childlike Yamaguchi, with pigtails and in a daisy-fringed outfit, frolicked to “It’s Oh So Quiet” by Icelandic pop singer Bjork.

The show’s other solo performers also captured the crowd’s fancy. Kurt Browning, in a clingy white shirt and vinyl black pants, got the females in the audience screaming while boogieing to the Commodores’ “Brick House.” Katarina Witt, garbed in a hot-pink blouse and black hot pants, got the same reaction from the males while sashaying to Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m the Only One.”

Topping the pairs was Canada’s Christine Hough and Doug Ladret. The pair, dressed in purple, performed to Prince’s “I Hate You,” capped by a spinning Ladret lifting Hough overhead with one hand.

At the show’s end, an emotional Hamilton called Portland “our favorite stop.” The skaters stayed on the ice after the Beatles-oriented finale, snapping photos, crying and hugging, none of them wanting the season to end. It showed a human side to the skaters that couldn’t be seen anywhere else.