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Center Christmas show to be televised nationally
Shots of Youngstown will be interspersed throughout the program.
YOUNGSTOWN — The city will be in the national spotlight on Christmas Day when an ice skating show at Chevrolet Centre will be televised nationally.
The Oct. 18 show will be taped and then broadcast on NBC from 3 to 5 p.m. Dec. 25. It will feature a host of former world and Olympic figure-skating champions, performing to live music provided by the Cleveland Pops Orchestra with guest vocalist Peter Cetera, the former lead singer with the band Chicago.
The skaters will include Sasha Cohen, Brian Boitano, Todd Eldredge, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, Yuka Sato, Michael Weiss, Shae-Lynn Bourne, Caryn Kadavy and Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon.
The show — titled “Hot Ice, Cool Sounds” — will include a 60-second segment on Youngstown State University, which is one of the sponsors. Short clips featuring shots of Youngstown and Mayor Jay Williams will be interspersed throughout the broadcast. Neither the YSU segment nor the city segments has been created.
The show is sponsored by Smucker’s, but is not part of the Smucker’s Stars on Ice Tour. “It’s a one-time deal,” said Eric Ryan, executive director of Chevrolet Centre, where a press conference took place Thursday to announce the show.
“A world-class orchestra, world-class skaters and a world-class singer will convene in a world-class city,” is how Williams described the event. “It’s good for Youngstown, and if it’s good for Youngstown, it’s good for the whole Mahoning Valley.”
Eldredge, who was at the press conference, said, “I’m excited to be skating with the pops orchestra and Peter Cetera ... and it’s a great fit for me, because I live just up in Detroit, and my wife is a YSU graduate.”
Eldredge and the former Megan McCrae of Alliance married three years ago. They met in San Antonio, where she was working as an entertainer at Sea World. A friend of his wife’s introduced the two, Eldredge told The Vindicator. He added that his wife occasionally accompanies him on skating tours.
Eldredge has skated in Chevrolet Centre before as part of the Smucker’s Tour that came to town two years ago.
The story of how Youngstown became the site for a nationally televised Christmas special began in December.
Ryan and Cleveland businessman Lou Frangos, who is involved in several Youngstown business ventures, approached George Veris, a Cleveland entertainment producer, about doing a holiday skating show in Northeast Ohio.
Veris contacted Steve Disson, who regularly produces skating specials for NBC.
“The whole thing snowballed once Steve Disson got involved,” Ryan said. “Steve took it to Smucker’s, and they liked it, and they took it to NBC, who loved the idea.”
Smucker’s is based in Orrville, in Northeast Ohio. “That helped,” said Ryan.
Disson said the Youngstown show is “probably the strongest skating cast that I have ever put together for one of my NBC skating entertainment specials.”
The Frangos Group, as well as the Skating Club of Greater Youngstown, are also sponsors of the event.
Cetera, whose hit songs include “Glory of Love” and “The Next Time I Fall,” will sing eight songs for the televised segment, and one just for the center audience, Ryan added.
The arena will be set in typical concert configuration for the show, Ryan said.
The Cleveland Pops Orchestra, led by Carl Topilow, and Cetera will be on an elevated stage at one end of the ice, with the skaters performing in front of them. No seats will be sold behind the stage.
“We want to show the nation what we’re all about,” Ryan said. “We need to pack the place.”