ICE-SKATING STARS PICK NEW ARENA

After 14 years of athletic competition and an Olympic silver medal, the brother and sister team of Kitty and Peter Carruthers finally have their first job--skating in the Ice Capades.

“It’s icing on the cake,” Peter Carruthers, 26, said. “It’s always been in the back of our minds to join this show. We’re getting paid for what we love to do. You can’t beat that.”

The Carrutherses, who took silver medals in pairs skating at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics in 1984, are the featured attraction in the Ice Capades, which opens Wednesday at the Inglewood Forum for a 12-day run. They follow a long line of Olympic ice skating stars who opted for a career on the road with the entertainment-on-ice show.

“It’s everybody’s goal as an amateur to be in a show like the Ice Capades,” Kitty Carruthers, 24, said. “That’s why I started skating; I knew I always wanted to do this.”

For the Carrutherses, who spent the better part of their youth and adolescence training in an ice rink, with their parents footing the bill, the chance to skate professionally supersedes education, TV specials, selling cereal and other ways of spreading their celebrity status around. The duo signed a multi-year contract for an undisclosed amount with the ice show a month after the Sarajevo Winter Games ended in 1984.

“After the Olympics, I felt I had enough of competition and I was ready to turn pro, to try something new,” Kitty Carruthers said. “I will go to college someday. I can only skate for so long. Eventually, I’d like to coach and commentate.

“Ice Capades gives you an opportunity to keep performing. There aren’t seven judges watching you. You can be yourself and have fun.”

As is the case with most Olympic sports, ice-skating offers little in the way of long-term job security. Coaching, broadcasting and professional competition aren’t considered by most skaters to be steady employment like the ice shows are. Although skaters relish the opportunity to have a stable job, they must adjust to the breakneck pace of the shows. By the end of the Ice Capades tour in April, the Carrutherses will have performed eight to 10 times a week for 32 weeks in 29 cities.

“Sure, the road is difficult,” Peter Carruthers said, “but playing for the Rams (the Los Angeles professional football team) is what I consider a tough job. To keep skating, you’ve got to keep in good condition so you don’t burn out. You’ve got to get enough sleep and not party too much.”

Peggy Fleming, 37, has skated in “just about every ice show,” including the Ice Capades, since winning a gold medal in 1968. She is well versed in the triumphs and frustrations of life on the road.

“To go and watch it (an ice show) is fun, but being there--it’s a lot of pressure. It’s quite an endurance test. Sometimes you go out there and you’re a robot and sometimes you put your heart and soul into it.”

The Carrutherses concede that sometimes the Ice Capades is more a job than it is sport, but they maintain enthusiasm for a career that can never eclipse their Olympic glory.

“There was a little bit of a letdown after the Olympics,” Peter Carruthers said. “We had a great goal, and then it was ‘now what?’ Now, my goal is to be a great entertainer. It’s as much of a goal as winning the Olympics.”

The Carrutherses hope they have at least 10 years of skating left in them. If they follow the legions of Olympic-ice-skaters-turned-Ice-Capades-stars before them, chances are they will remain with the ice show for an additional season or two and then join one of Ice Capades’ competitors.

Former world pairs skating champion Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner left Ice Capades after three years with the show and are now touring with Dorothy Hamill’s show, Fantasy on Ice. Babilonia says that their decision to leave the Ice Capades in 1983 was expected because of the high turnover rate Ice Capades experience in order to lure fresh Olympic talent.

“Working in the Ice Capades never really got boring,” Babilonia said. “There’s always something to work on the next time to perfect the act.

“When our contract was up, we wanted to try different things. There are people behind you who are waiting to come in like the Carrutherses. The Capades bring in a whole new crop after the Olympics. Now, it’s their turn.”