Golden pair 2002 Olympic champs Sale and Pelletier head Stars on Ice tour

It was a pivotal moment in recent figure-skating history.

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, even the casual fan could tell that Canadian pairs skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier had been robbed. Russian pair Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze were given the gold medal and Sale and Pelletier had to settle for silver, purportedly the result of some vote swapping by members of the French and Russian judging delegations.

After the resulting uproar, the Canadians were upgraded to co-gold medalists. But what most Americans remember is the dignity and class they displayed, chins held high despite the injustice of the moment.

Today, four years later, Sale (pronounced SA-lay) and Pelletier (PELL-tee-ay) are teammates with Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze on the Smuckers Stars on Ice tour, which comes to the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland Thursday, April 13. Also part of the troupe are single skaters Alexei Yagudin, Todd Eldredge, Yuka Sato, Steven Cousins and Jennifer Robinson and pairs skaters Kyoto Ina and John Zimmerman and Jason Dundgen.

Despite what happened in Salt Lake, the two pairs teams get along well, Sale said.

“It’s awesome, having the best two pairs teams on this tour,” she said from a stop in Buffalo. “It’s never been strange. We’ve always had a healthy competition, and would wish each other good luck.”

In their fourth season of skating on both the U.S. and Canadian legs of the tour, Sale and Pelletier, who were married in December, perform two numbers.

One is “Elite Syncopations,” choreographed by Olympic ice dance gold medalist Christopher Dean for a piece by Scott Joplin. “It’s a character piece, with both dance and pairs moves,” she explained.

The other, which she described as “a strong, powerful program,” is soundtracked by Wynonna’s version of the Foreigner hit “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

Sale’s favorite part of Stars on Ice is “the performing. I get such a rush when the curtain opens, and you can feel the energy from the audience.”

She also enjoys the camaraderie of being with the other skaters.

“It’s a very close-knit family,” Sale said. “Everyone is there for each other. Also, it’s a smaller tour, so it’s an honor to be chosen. I feel lucky to be on this tour.”

This year marks a decade since Sale and Pelletier first started working together.

Since they first had a trial period in 1996, Sale said, “I knew it was the right partnership, because everything was easy. But neither one of us was ready to make a move then. I called him in 1998, when I heard that he was thinking about quitting, and said, ‘Let’s try it.'”

Over those first few years, the pair faced a number of hardships, including injuries, homelessness and theft. Still, they came back to win gold at the 2001 World Championships. Then came their coming-out party in Salt Lake City.

“It was a long road to get there, a lot of hardships and down times,” Sale said. “But we chose to learn through those, to build character and keep working toward our common goal – being on the Olympic podium.

Sale and Pelletier served as analysts for NBC during the 2006 Torino Olympics. She thinks the new scoring system, changed in part because of what happened to her at the previous Games, is something of an improvement.

“There’s less room for bias by individual judges,” she said. “But so many of the skaters look the same. It’s like they’re skating with a calculator in their hands, trying to do the right moves to earn points. We had more creative freedom. They’re on the right track, but they still need to fix things up.”

Still, Sale doesn’t miss the competition.

“I like just the performing,” she said. “We do 60 to 70 dates a year with Stars on Ice, and do some other shows. We’re very, very busy. But we can make our own schedule.”

Does that schedule include a family soon for Sale, 28, and Pelletier, 31?

“We’ve talked about family down the road,” she said. “But it has to happen at the right time. We want to enjoy skating as long as we can, because we can’t tour as much when we have a family. Maybe in another year or two.”

For tickets, call the Civic Center box office at 775-3458 or Ticketmaster at 775-3331. Dale McGarrigle can be reached at 990-8028 and dmcgarrigle@bangordailynews.net.