Gold-medal winners take to the ice

Flash back to Salt Lake City, 2002. As even the most casual skating fans will recall, charges of Olympic-scale collusion were raised when judges gave the gold medal in pairs to the refined Russians (Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze) instead of the charismatic Canadians (Jamie Sale and David Pelletier).

It quickly became the ugliest judging controversy in the history of Olympic figure skating - tempered only when a second gold medal was awarded to the Canadians.

These days, in true show-biz fashion, the two pairs are sharing not just gold medals but also featured billing in Smucker's Stars on Ice, which skates into Omaha's Civic Auditorium Arena on Wednesday.

But don't expect a war on ice.

Stars on Ice, which was created in 1986 by U.S. gold medalist Scott Hamilton as a sophisticated alternative to glitzy ice shows, has a long tradition of big-name medalists working as an ensemble to create a theater-style revue of quality skating.

In this year's version, created with the theme of "Power," the music ranges from Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" (for 2002 Olympic men's champion Alexei Yagudin) to Barbra Streisand's "The Rest of Your Life" (for 1984 and 1988 gold medalist Katarina Witt). Other cast members include six-time U.S. champion Todd Eldredge and Canadian star Kurt Browning.