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Music, ice skating offer warm and fuzzy feeling
Hot Ice, Cool Sounds
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Jamiel Sale and David Pelletier 2002 olympic pairs gold medalist.
Hot Ice, Cool Sensations
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A Figure Skating Exhibition at the Chevy Centre, Saturday October 18, 2008. Daniel C. Britt.
By Denise Dick
The program will air on NBC on Christmas Day.
YOUNGSTOWN — Olivia DeSantis, 6, and her sister Natalie, 3, dressed in their warm clothes to take in the cool sounds and hot ice at the Chevrolet Centre.
The girls, with their mother, Chris, and grandmother, Rosalie Smrek, all of Poland, were some of those attending Smucker’s Hot Ice, Cool Sounds event Saturday. The event featured singer Peter Cetera and the Cleveland Pops Orchestra with skating greats such as Brian Boitano, Sasha Cohen and Todd Eldredge dancing on the ice.
“I like when they skate,” Natalie said.
She may decide to try skating when she gets a little older, like when she’s “this many,” she said, holding up four fingers.
“They do good tricks,” her sister said of the skaters.
DeSantis said her daughters love ice skating and the four of them decided to enjoy a girls’ night out.
“I wanted to see Peter Cetera,” Smrek said.
The Smucker’s event will be shown on Christmas on NBC, but many said it was more the show than the fact it would run on television that brought them out.
“I wanted to go, and my husband got me four tickets,” said Tammy Bayer of Canfield.
She invited her niece, Kendal Ginnetti, and Kendal’s friend, Taylor Drummond, both 13 and of Poland, and her nephew to watch the show with her.
“I love ice skating,” Bayer said.
Kendal and Taylor agreed.
Bayer is also a Cetera fan, both of his solo work and his hits with Chicago. She will watch the show if it airs at the right time.
“If it’s on early, when I’m cooking and getting everything ready” and she has time, Bayer said she’ll tune in.
The show started with Cetera’s big hit, “You’re the Inspiration,” to the roar of the crowd followed by “One Good Woman.”
Skaters performing were Cohen, 2006 Olympic silver medalist; Boitano, 1988 Olympic gold medalist; and Jamie Sal and David Pelletier, 2002 Olympic pairs gold medal winners.
Shae-Lynn Bourne, 2003 world dance champion; Eldredge, six-time U.S. National champion; Yuka Sato, 1994 world champion; Michael Weiss, three-time U.S. National champion; Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, four-time Canadian National dance champions; and Jennifer Robinson, eight-time Canadian national champion, rounded out the list of skaters.
Sponsors included WFMJ, the Chevy Centre, the Ice Zone, the Frangos Group, the Skating Club of Greater Youngstown, YSU’s Dana School of Music and the Phantoms Figure Skating Club.
Parts of the city will also get some airtime during the Christmas Day broadcast.
A production crew from Smucker’s, the Orrville jam and jelly company, filmed parts of the Youngstown State University campus and downtown Friday night to use during the show.