Browning finds time for Stars On Ice

KURT BROWNING has just put his baby boy to sleep and is trying to be as quiet as possible as he talks about his next glide through Canada with HSBC Stars On Ice.

"I feel like I've known this guy longer than eight-and-a-half months," the four-time world skating champ says of his son Gabriel.

"That happens when you're a parent, I guess. It's hard to imagine the house without him. We have the cat, the dog and the kid and mother-in-law, sometimes my sister-in-law, it's nice."

With the arrival of Gabriel last July, Browning said it was a coincidence to cut back on some of his touring in the Stars On Ice tour in the United States, doing just 19 cities this season.

"I made this decision four years ago," said Browning, from his home in Toronto. "People say it's because I am a father now. But it's just coincidence that it worked out the way."

His wife Sonia Rodriguez, principal ballerina with the National Ballet of Canada, is also back to work. She is the muse for the ballet company's new Cinderella.

On Thursday, when the 13th Stars On Ice Canadian tour opens, Browning will be on his toes, jumping and moving his fast feet in all 12 Canadian stops.

Earlier this month, he was busy working with his longtime choreographer Sandra Bezic on a new number to Jim Croce's Time In a Bottle.

Bezic, who has taken a break from the Stars On Ice tour, will have her designs on Browning's program.

"I realized I was skating two solos too much. And now that I'm doing Stars On Ice Canada I said: 'I have to come up with something else for my audience.' "

This year's tour, produced by Olympic golden boy Scott Hamilton and choregraphed by Olympic ice-dance champ Christopher Dean, has a "time theme" to it.

Because the Croce tune is a slower one, Dean had to juggle a few of the show's numbers to keep the flow, says Browning, who also does a quick step or two to Ding Dong Daddy by the Cherry Poppin' Daddies.

Halifax has a special place in Browning's heart. He won his second world title here in 1990.

"At that championship, I was so happy because I had so many friends who came from the Royal Glenora Club, like skater friends and my family and a couple of my buddies," says the 37-year-old skater.

"We had a couple of car washes to pay for their way to Halifax and they all went and drank for a week - while I worked. All of us, when we get together and look back we always say, 'That was one of the best weeks of our lives.' "

It will also bring back memories of pairs silver medallists in Halifax, Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, who are skating in their final Stars On Ice tour.

"My biggest memory of Lloyd on tour was a number he wasn't really happy with at first. He was playing that woman," Browning recalls. "I think that was one of the best things that Stars On Ice has ever done. To have Scott and Lloyd play off of each other. Remembering all the subtle things he did, and then he dressed up in that ballroom number and chases Scott around and rubbing his head in his fake boobs. It was outrageous. It was hilarious."

As the time clock ticks on the new Stars On Ice show, Browning and his castmates will say so long to two of his friends, he calls "the old guard."

"There's Josee (Chouinard) Brian Orser, and now Lloyd and Isabelle - the pillars of the old guard. It a rites of passage. We grew up together and been through a lot together," he says.

Browning also has fond memories of the Olympic Games, where he and Eisler would go out on the town and try to keep one another out of trouble.

"We shared so many good times together," he says.

Earlier this year, he also toured with Brasseur and Eisler in the Jean Michel Bombardier-produced show called Celebration on Ice, which stopped in Sydney in February.

"We went to smaller buildings in smaller cities and did a great job and I think Jean Michel made some money," Browning says. "It was really fun, because there are places that don't usually get the skaters in their town. It was a little bit like going back in time, it had that rock star feeling to it."

For this year's Stars On Ice tour, Browning says there are two large cameras about the size of VW Beetles that will splash pictures of Brasseur and Eisler and their career's magical moments on the ice surface.