Ex-skate champs dazzle crowd

Copyright 1999 Southam Inc.

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. -- It was a colourful figure-skating first.

Brian Orser, Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko shared competition ice for the first time at the $420,000 Sears Open pro-am meet yesterday.

''It's a party out there,'' Browning said after wowing a cheering Hershey Centre crowd, and hugging as many of the girls thrusting roses across the arena boards as he could reach.

The three won eight of the 11 world championships contested between 1987 and 1997.

Orser skated to big-band music in his short program yesterday. He tried a triple Axel jump and fell, but for a man who turns 38 next week, there was an abundance of energy and flair in his 2 1/2-minute skate.

''I haven't landed one in a long time,'' Orser said of the Axel, which he could produce with his eyes closed during his prime.

Browning, 33, captivated the capacity audience of 5,000. He stepped out of one jump landing, but was clean on three other triples, including two in combination. He even threw in some improvised footwork sequences near the end.

''When I finished, I went, 'I'm not tired.' Usually, during a short program you get tired because you're just wasting energy everywhere. But I wasn't,'' Browning said. ''It was like, let's keep going.

''There are not many moments like this, skating close to home, in Canada, with Brian Orser and Elvis Stojko.''

Stojko, 28, competing in his first pro-am event, landed a triple-triple combo to begin his Cirque du Soleil routine. Then he fell on an attempted quadruple toe loop.

American Todd Eldredge, the 1996 world champion, upstaged them all by earning top marks in the short program. ''It's great to be in the same event with those three guys,'' he said. ''You've got three generations of top world-champion Canadian skaters out there.''