Brian Boitano,Las Vegas Sun, Dec. 15, 2000

Boitano’s ‘Spectacular’ makes seasonal return Lisa Ferguson Friday, Dec. 15, 2000 | 9:33 a.m. Just as most people use only one toothbrush and typically drive only one car, Brian Boitano wears only one pair of ice skates. Come to find out, skates are a very personal thing. The figure skating great and 1988 Olympic gold medalist explained -- in a recent phone interview from the San Francisco headquarters of his White Canvas Productions company -- this piece of sports equipment isn't interchangeable the way, say, bowling shoes are. Maybe computer junkies will get it. "If you got a completely new and completely different keyboard with shapes (instead of letters and numbers), it would be like trying to get used to typing on that," Boitano says. "You can't switch skates like that because each (pair) has a different character. It would be like if I could put on (fellow skater) Todd Eldridge's skates and skate as good as I could in another pair of skates. Your feet aren't connected (to the skates), and you would never want to do that. You can't get used to more than one pair of skates" at a time. Instead, Boitano breaks in a new pair each year. Look for his latest blades when he hits the ice Saturday at Mandalay Bay, along with skating celebs Kristi Yamaguchi, Brian Orser and Dorothy Hamill, as part of the "Brian Boitano Holiday Skating Spectacular." This marks the third year the show, which will be taped and broadcast Jan. 1 on NBC (Channel 3), has set up shop in Las Vegas. While last year's "spectacular" featured live vocalists singing tunes to which the skaters performed routines, this year's program will include Misha Matorin, an aerialist from "Cirque du Soleil," who will soar above the rink. "He can fly during our skating (numbers) and do intros and exits of (the) skaters, and stuff like that," Boitano, 37, says. The aerialist, he explains, adds another dimension to the standard skating show. "I think that everything needs to change or people get bored with it," he says. "If they see the same-old, same-old, they're bored with it. "With our different projects, we always try to come up with new things that haven't been seen before, and this really hasn't been seen before -- a flying guy through the entire show. We also have skating acrobats (the team of Vladimir Besedin and Alexei Plishuk) that are really incredible." The production will also feature music by techno-music artist Moby, which Boitano says will help lend "a sort of contemporary, ethereal" quality to the show. Boitano has performed in countless live and televised ice shows since winning the gold in '88, and even earned an Emmy for his starring role in HBO's 1990 production of "Carmen on Ice." It may seem to the average viewer that television has been inundated with a slew of ice skating specials in recent years. Boitano himself has performed in such offerings as "Skating Romance" and its two sequels, "Skating Kicks Back: Country Music & More" and "Masters of the Ice," among others. But Boitano says he hasn't noticed the ice overload. "It seems like they run all of them against each other so it seems like there's a lot more than there really is. It seems like when someone's flipping channels on the weekends, they have three skating shows on three different networks. But I don't think there's as much on as their was five years ago." And he would know. Also an author -- his book, "Boitano's Edge: Inside the Real World of Figure Skating" (Simon & Schuster, 1997) is in its third printing -- he made his skating commentator debut on ABC in 1996. He says, "I don't like critiquing people. I don't like saying negative things. The hardest person to commentate (about) is a person who's not doing well, or you don't like their skating (style). "I don't really believe it's the commentator's job to say who they think is good and bad. I might know a lot about skating, but if I talk to Kristi Yamaguchi, she might think someone is great that I think is horrible. It's all subjective." Still, Boitano says he enjoys observing "solid competitors" at work. "When I'm watching amateur competition, I'm not looking for a story. It's an athletic event, and that's what it boils down to. So it's really fun to see someone who goes out there, and they skate and at the end of the evening, they really just nail it. I just really respect them." archive