'Star' quality

Center ice, Scott Hamilton once said, is the best view in the world. He should know; he's spent much of his life there. Fittingly, then, it is where he will end a large part of his skating career. On Saturday at the Allstate Arena, Hamilton will make his final Chicago appearance with "Target Stars on Ice," a star-studded revue that he co-created in 1986. On April 7, when the 65-city tour officially ends, he will step down permanently--as permanently as an icon can.

"I've had a great time just playing and having fun," Hamilton said. "I've done it for a long time and I appreciate every moment. But I'm trying to free up time for other things, and I can't with good conscience and effort and energy do another tour like this. [Laughs.] I don't think it would really enhance my life at all."

Aside from his many championship titles and his widely publicized bout with testicular cancer, Hamilton would probably list "Target Stars" as his greatest achievement. It has raised much money for charity, and in the process made its founder famous and wealthy. Or at least wealthier than he was before its inception. Most significantly, it has allowed him to skate for his supper, which he loves even more than a subpar round of golf.

He has always had show business leanings, and he began honing them in earnest after metamorphosing from amateur athlete to professional entertainer following his gold medal performance at the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo. Slight in stature only, when he takes to the ice, he takes to the ice. Gliding and smiling, eyes agleam, he is Goliath on gold seal blades, a presence who craves/demands his fans' undivided attention. But he demands it so cleverly, so gleefully, that they are powerless to resist. Not that they ever do.

They will watch his deceptively effortless displays of agility--the salchows, the lutzes, the triple toes--and when he whirrs past he will watch them watching him. He will goof, he will woo, he will do whatever he must to make their experience more real, more tangible, more now. That is, above all, Hamilton's most enduring and endearing quality. He knows how to connect.

"That's the best part," he says, "trying to communicate and get into the seats and get the seats on the ice with you."

He has been dubbed "maniacally energetic," "relentlessly upbeat" and any number of variations thereof. But the hyperboles are true. His joy, his zest--it is largely undeniable and intensely palpable. Even on television, distanced and diminished, it is palpable.

Live, though, with music pumping and spotlights searing and thousands of rabid fans applauding, well, some might tell you (or maybe you've experienced it for yourself) it's downright religious. Even his colleagues are awed. Said skating champ Kurt Browning not long ago, "Scott Hamilton is `Skate God for Life,' and that's no joke."

The reality, though, is that very soon, and for who knows how long, there'll be a bit less Hamilton to go around. And while he is mostly mum about what's next--or even if there is a next--probably because he is sick to death of the question, he surely is not, he declares, hanging up his custom-made Harlick boots for good.

"A lot of people look at this farewell tour and think it's about retiring," he says. "It's not about retiring. It's about teaching and [charting] the next course in my life."

By teaching, he means mentoring, passing along that which he has learned from countless bruises and breaks and heart-wrenching disappointments, from flawless routines and Olympic glory and nights he wished would never end.

Skating, he explains, was once about artistry. And although, to some extent, it still is, times have changed, the sport has changed, and now he sees more emphasis on spectacle, especially among the younger skaters. Some of these greenhorns with their aerial acrobatics, they're talented, often amazingly so, but they need someone to show them that skating is as much or more about what's done on the ice as in the air. In short (he's too modest to admit this), they need someone like Scott Hamilton.

"It's just a different world with different rules," he says. "And I'm not saying that as a grumpy old man."

Unlike his hard-headed, limber-limbed counterparts, those with careers on the make, Hamilton's long-lived success affords him the luxury of focusing solely on artistry. Besides, at age 42, he has, he admits, nothing left to prove, and so he is content to be skillful, subtle, campy. But these are good things.

His physical limitations, especially of late following cancer recovery and ankle reconstruction, have forced Hamilton to think increasingly out of the box. As a result, he, along with choreographers and costume designers, has created some classic routines (a skating Charlie Chaplin and a hapless golfer come to mind), memorable not for their quintuple axels or flying camels, but for their ingeniuty and comedy, their overall theatricality.

Acting, it seems, comes naturally for Hamilton. Within the jock exterior throbs the soul of a thespian who once flexed his chops at, among other venues, the Chicago Theatre. But that was years ago, before he developed a cult following and became--excuse the overwrought phrase--Lord of the Rinks.

Presently, however, he is in the present. He's trying to be, anyway. All this talk of moving on and bowing out has forced him to dredge up the past. He'd rather avoid such dredging. Not out of fear that horrible, repressed thoughts will come flooding back, but simply because it's an act that is contrary to his way of thinking.

One subject that comes up quite frequently is the cancer. He'll talk about it, but he refuses to dwell on it.

"I try not to let that episode of my life dictate everything else," he explains. "I look at that as a learning experience and go forward from there."

By and large, Hamilton is a one-day-at-a-time type of guy. For this reason, he ducks the future as well. Why sweat what you can't control?

When the skater takes a final bow amid cheers and tears--there are bound to be tears--he'll stand humbled, gazing over the crowd, waving and smiling, perhaps blowing random kisses and mouthing the words, Thank you, and I love you.

"It's going to be tough every night," a choked-up Hamilton said during rehearsals, "but in a positive, beautiful, phenomenal way."

And as he soaks it all in, he'll know all the while what he's known forever, what he reminds himself always, what he hopes his successors, fearless kids, will never forget: Center ice is the best view in the world.

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`Target Stars on Ice'

* 7:30 p.m. Saturday

* Allstate Arena, 6920 N. Mannheim, Rosemont

* Tickets, $35, $48, $60 (a portion of proceeds benefits Target House at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.)

* (847) 635-6601 or (312) 559-1212

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TAKING TO THE `ICE'

`Target Stars on Ice" is by no means "The Scott Hamilton Show." In addition to the renowned skater, the evening will feature a cavalcade of figure skating's best athletes, along with some high-tech special effects, glitzy costumes and a bevy of familiar tunes by pop superstars such as Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell. Each of the show's 170 overhead lights has its own computer system, and the music is synched with the lights to create a near-flawless spectacle.