Paul Wylie comes out of retirement to join the "Stars on Ice" tour, reconnecting with his fellow skaters and with the passionate artist in himself.
By MICHELLE JONES
Published February 12, 2004
TAMPA - Olympic silver medalist Paul Wylie has a new baby, a fledgling Internet venture, a Harvard MBA and a home on Cape Cod. So why, at age 39, is he returning to "Stars on Ice"?
"I'd been skating a little bit, but everywhere I went people would tell me they missed seeing me skating," Wylie said in a telephone interview from his home in Hyannis, Mass. "When the show asked me to return for two dates around Boston, I told them it would be too much preparation for just two shows. We hung up the phone, and within two minutes they called back and offered me 22 dates on the tour."
Wylie will be among the guest stars when the "Smucker's Stars on Ice" tour comes to Tampa on Sunday.
Since he retired from skating and left the tour in 1998, Wylie has completed his master's degree, worked in promotions for Walt Disney Holding Co. in California, done color commentary for Fox Sports and Turner Broadcasting, and started an online travel business.
He also met his wife, Kate, at their church on Cape Cod. Daughter Hannah was born two months ago.
"Hannah brings me such joy," he said. "Anything to do with her puts a smile on my face."
Wylie, who won silver in Albertville, France, in 1992, says it is great to be back with the tour and with some of the friends he performed with from 1992 to 1998.
"There is no tour quite like "Stars on Ice,' " he said.
Producing the show is 1984 gold medalist Scott Hamilton, also a new father. The director is Christopher Dean, who won Olympic gold in 1984 with partner Jayne Torvill.
"They have made it a close-knit group," Wylie said. "It is almost like a ballet or dance company."
The passion and emotions he felt on the ice are something he missed during his retirement, he said. "I lost that part of myself when I stopped skating. I really missed that artistic element of my life."
Always regarded as a classical skater, Wylie says his signature style has been theatrical.
"I try to make things very balletlike, with a lot of dramatic interpretation," he said.
In this show, he will be skating to Long Time by Boston and to Hero by Enrique Iglesias, chosen because, he said, "The theme of the show is "Time,' and I'm hoping to be Hannah's hero."
Preview:
"Smucker's Stars on Ice," with Alexei Yagudin, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, Todd Eldredge, Yuka Sato, Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman, Oksana Baiul and Paul Wylie, 4 p.m. Sunday, St. Pete Times Forum, 401 Channelside Drive, Tampa. (813) 301-6500. Tickets start at $27.
