Scott Hamilton delights in his Stars on Ice twilight

Copyright 2001 Sacramento Bee

Scott Hamilton doesn't really want to say goodbye, "but I'm 42 years old and I've been doing this forever," he said in a recent telephone call from Salt Lake City. The skater is wrapping up a 15-year career with Stars on Ice with a farewell tour that brings him to the Arco Arena on Saturday.

"If I ever want to do anything else in the skating world, now is the time," he said. And now's a good time to leave the show. "This is the best I've skated in years," he said. "Audiences have been wonderful, and it's probably the best time I've had, ever, on the ice."

Hamilton placed fifth in the 1980 Olympics, but won 16 consecutive championships after those Games - and claimed the gold medal at the '84 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. A month later, he won the World Championships in Ottawa, and turned pro shortly after that, joining the Ice Capades.

In 1986, when his contract with the Ice Capades wasn't renewed, he and his manager came up with the idea for Stars on Ice. It was called America Tour that first year and went to only five cities. Renamed Stars on Ice, it has grown consistently. Sponsored for the second year by Target stores, this year's program will play in 65 cities.

Hamilton has survived testicular cancer, which took him off the ice for seven months in 1997, and battled an injured ankle that has plagued him almost as long.

"It's been bothering me since I came back from cancer," he said. "When I came back from Nagano (the Winter Olympics in '98, for which he was a television commentator), I couldn't do anything. All that I'd built had gone away in those 3 1/2 weeks. And the show did 10 cities in 12 days when we came back. My ankle just exploded. I got operated on last summer and it really never came back until now.

"Last year, the ankle was really, really killing me," he said. "I kind of was starting to run out of patience. I hit a huge slump. It was like my ankle was stuck, not moving properly. It created a great deal of pain and I couldn't land on it or take off on it. I dreaded back flips!

"I thought it was arthritis or something terrible, and I thought it would take me out. I mean the audiences were great and the shows were OK. The jumps were one second in the air. They're not curcial, but if you're used to doing what I do, and you're not doing the triples consistently, it bugs you. It bugged me! I was running out of patience."

Haimlton said the show's physical therapist has helped him and now "I can skate without pain."

So why, if he's finally pain free and skating so well, is he quitting?

"I have some life goals, and I've put everything on hold while I established Stars on Ice," he said. "Now's the time to pursue other goals. One goal I've always had is to do something involving skating on stage. I don't know exactly what form it will take. Obviously you'd have movement to music, but whether it would be a skating versino of an existing show, a review or what, I don't know. Maybe it'll be a one-man show; that really fascinates me.

"I'd love to do it on Broadway."

Broadway?

"You can put ice anywhere," he said.

Of all his accomplishments, Hamilton says Stars on Ice is his greatest. "I've had the opportunity to share the ice with such incredible people. I'm proud of what this tour did for Rosalynn Sumners and her life and career ("He taught me to believe in myself," Sumners has said. "I had lost that belief, had lost the love and desire for skating, but he always believed in me.")

"And Kristi Yamaguchi, how much I've enjoyed touring with her. I look at Kurt Browning and it's like he's my brother. We've become great friends and he's become a genius on the ice.

"I look at all that and it's been a gift. It's phenomenal to experience these friendships and to get to polay - or work or whatever you call it - for such wonderful audiences.