Champions on Ice: Twenty-Five Years of the World's Finest Figure Skaters by Christine Brennan


Champions on Ice: Twenty-Five Years of the World's Finest Figure Skaters
Title : Champions on Ice: Twenty-Five Years of the World's Finest Figure Skaters
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0771016484
ISBN-10 : 9780771016486
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 224
Publication : First published October 15, 2002

This book celebrates 25 years of the touring skating show Champions on Ice, with an up-close look at the 2002 Olympic Tour, featuring Salt Lake City gold medallists Sarah Hughes, Alexei Yagudin, and Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, and many others. Christine Brennan of USA Today has travelled with the tour and spent time with skating’s superstars behind the scenes to learn what makes them special and what makes them tick. She follows the tour to present a “day-in-the-life” view, from wake-up call to tuck-in at night, from quiet moments to clowning around, to a packed arena and showtime on ice.

In addition to this year’s tour, Brennan brings moments alive from every year, presenting a “Who’s Who” of modern figure skating. The story of Champions on Ice mirrors the development of figure skating itself, and Brennan brings this to life when she describes fan passions, the art and craft of selecting the right music for a routine, the changing role of coaches and choreographers, and the impact of the “Russian invasion” that changed the face of North American figure skating in the early 1990s.

Also profiled is Tom Collins, the impresario who created Champions on Ice when he put together the first tour of Olympic-level skaters in the mid-1970s. Today, his 2002 Olympic Tour will play 93 dates from coast to coast, with a further winter tour booked for early 2003. Collins attributes his success to creating a comfortable family environment for his talented skaters, and it is this sense of fun and the sheer joy of skating that comes through on every page of Champions on Ice.

Champions on Ice: Twenty-Five Years of the World's Finest Figure Skaters Reviews

  • Lisa

    This book is a history of sorts of the "Champions on Ice" tour of figure skating champions. (The tour is now defunct.) Although the book has a couple of pages on each of the tours they did (they started out doing a tour every 3 years, then every year at the height of skating popularity), the emphasis of the book is the 2002 post-Winter Olympics tour. My daughter and I happened to see two dates of the 2002 tour so it was of particular interest to us.

    I was disappointed that our favorite skater, 2002 Mens' Gold Medalist Alexei Yagudin from Russia, was absent from nearly all the photos in the book. However, it is a nice overview of the skating season and since I was familiar with the skate routines they were discussing, it was fun to reminisce. I read this book quite a few years ago when I first bought it, but as I'm downsizing my books (not enough room!!) I just re-read this. Enjoyable book for the skating fan.


    **#18 of 100 books I've pledged to read and review during 2015**

  • Surreysmum

    A picture book from the Collins tour, which started as the North American part of the amateur post-World tour, and has morphed into a curious pro-eligible amalgam. For a Canadian production (published by McClelland and Stewart), it is rather light on Canadian content (only one performance photo of Brian Orser, for instance, despite the years he spent on the tour), and panders shamelessly to the American stars & American buying public. Lots of candids, and inoffensive text by Brennan. Fun to leaf through for a few minutes.