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Video: Learning to skate with the legendary, Robin Cousins
Olympic gold medallist Robin Cousins came to Peterborough recently, to promote his new Holiday On Ice show. At Planet Ice in Bretton, he met up with Phantoms player Maris Ziedins, also a former Olympian, and gave features writer Hannah Gray an ice skating masterclass.
Olympic gold medallist Robin Cousins came to Peterborough recently, to promote his new Holiday On Ice show. At Planet Ice in Bretton, he met up with Phantoms player Maris Ziedins, also a former Olympian, and gave features writer Hannah Gray an ice skating masterclass.Since his Olympic victory in Lake Placid in 1980, Robin Cousins has gone on to have a successful career as a choreographer, stage star, and judge on the hugely popular ITV show, Dancing On Ice.
But here in Peterborough, we had some rather different challenges in mind.
We decided that he should not only give me an ice skating lesson, but also have a bit of a go at skating like an ice hockey player.
Now, we're not short of those in Peterborough, and Maris Ziedins, who was part of the Latvian Olympic ice hockey team in 1996, volunteered to help us out, and also to have a go at wearing Robin's skates.
More in this feature:
Ice skating: It was back to basics for Phantoms' Maris
Phantoms forward Maris Ziedins admitted it was almost like starting again when he tried on Robin Cousin's figure skates.
Video: Hannah is more elegant on the ice now thanks to Olympians
Features writer Hannah Gray gets an ice skating lesson from Olympic gold medallist Robin Cousins and Peterborough Phantoms ice hockey player Maris Ziedins.
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After doing his best to bring out my inner Jane Torvill, Cousins bravely swapped his skates for Maris's.
He explained that while the boots are quite similar, the blades on skates made for figure skating and those made for ice hockey are very different. Hockey skates are flat and have no heel and a flatter blade. Figure skating blades have a heel and a curved blade.
Both men are very used to their own individual skates, so switching was no mean feat.
Robin said that as a skater, you become very attached to your skates.
"These are my tools of the trade, and in some respects I'm probably happier when I have these on my feet on the ice than I am walking down the street in shoes," he added.
"It is a very very difficult thing, it was fun to switch because I've not been in hockey skates for a good 30-odd years and Maris says he hasn't been in figure skates since he first stared, so it was just a bit of fun to try.
"It was interesting. What I found was the minute I put his ice skates on, in order to be able to accommodate the blade, I started leaning forward, I was a bit more hulk-like. "He had the figure skates on and because of the heel and the blade, it made him stand up and he might have been showing off, but he was looking pretty cool."
Challenges aside, Robin was in town to promote his new Holiday On Ice show, Mystery. He is the co-director and choreographer and Anthony Vaan Last, who also choreographed both the stage and film version of Mama Mia! is the artistic director.
The show promises a delve into the mystical imagination, with everything from an enchanting goblin forest to Alice and the Mad Hatter's tea party.
Robin said: "It's a wonderful mystery tour of theatricality and dance and skating and comedy, and sort of harks back maybe to the glamorous days of big production shows.
"Fortunately the venue that we're going to be playing here in Peterborough, the Showground, is big enough to be able to accommodate the vast set and the scale of the show we have, but will be small enough, with 3,500 people, that it will be quite intimate for an ice show.
"Obviously with some of the venues we play in Europe it's huge, but here people will be able to see faces, feel the breeze and feel the snow off the skates as it's happening in front of them.
"I'm very proud of the show, it's a very beautiful show and I think the quality of skating in it is probably the strongest we have of any of the Holiday On Ice productions right now."
Aside from his gold medal, Robin is probably best known today for his role as the head judge on Dancing On Ice.
Robin said that the soar away success of the show, which returns for a new series in spring 2009, came as a bit of surprise to everyone involved.
He said: "I don't think any of us, whether it be the production team at Granada or Jane Torvill or Christopher Dean or myself expected it to be the big hit it was. I think we thought it would be fun, and there's skill involved and ITV thought 'great, a bit of carnage going on, people crashing'. Car crash television has a spectacle about it but they've been very very good.
"Last year we had Kieran Bracken, a year later he was skating with Holiday On Ice with me.
"I was able to choreograph a routine for him and show him off, obviously not to the level of my other performers, but he really was able to contribute something and people were really able to connect with him, not only from the ITV show but also to see him a year later and say: "Oh my God, he can actually skate properly".
Robin revealed that Dancing on Ice competitors need to put in around 100 hours of training before the TV show even kicks off.
He said: "They have to be committed and they have to make that commitment to the run of the show. I'm hoping for another good series."
What he will also be hoping for, not doubt is a boost in the popularity of ice skating because of the series, which has happened before.
"At a rink like this you have to bring in extra staff, you have to be able to cope with the masses of people and kids who come in through the doors on the weekend when Dancing On Ice is on," he said.
"I think with a lot of things, it's trying to maintain that interest with the kids once the series is done and once the season's over, and know that ice rinks are open year round and in the summer they're empty, you have them to yourself.
"You can go on to the ice and skate any time of year. Skating's not just for Christmas."
Elsewhere online:
Robin_Cousins from Wikipedia.com.
Robin Cousins career overview - cousinsentertainment.com.
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