Hometown Holiday on Ice : Entertainment: Champion skater Tiffany Chin is looking forward to rediscovering her roots when she returns to her native San Diego as part of Sea World’s ‘Magic on Ice’ show.

When Tiffany Chin opens in Sea World’s “Magic on Ice” show Thursday night, it will be more than just another guest-star gig for her.

Now 22 and a full-time UCLA junior who primarily skates during summer and Christmas vacations because of school, the San Diego native is also looking forward to her Sea World engagement as a personal experience.

“There’s always something special about going home that you can’t express, that hits you at the core,” she said last week over cappuccino at a cafe near her West Los Angeles home. “I remember when I was 7, people would say, ‘Oh, the skies are so blue, the clouds are so white,’ and I’d think, ‘What’s the big deal?’ Now I’m one of those people.”

Because she was a youngster, Chin added, “I still have this sort of infantile view of San Diego. I mainly remember Scripps Ranch, where I lived, and the rinks in Mira Mesa and La Jolla. When I went to Sea World this summer to see the ice show, I went with a friend from back East, and I was really proud of San Diego. I’m sure when I’m doing the show myself, I’ll be thinking, ‘Gosh, this is home, this is where I grew up, where I’d say, Mom, take me to Sea World.’ ”

The 1985 U.S. National Ladies Figure Skating Champion and 1985 and 1986 World Bronze Medalist was born in San Diego and discovered skating here as an 8-year-old after her mother bought her a pair of $1 skates at a garage sale. She trained in San Diego for several years.

She represented the San Diego Figure Skating Club for much of her amateur career, even after moving north to the San Fernando Valley city of Toluca Lake in 1981.

The Sea World program features solo and ensemble skating and feats of illusion by magician Steve Wheeler. Chin will skate two numbers.

“One is Michael Jackson’s ‘Smooth Criminal’ from his ‘Bad’ album, a very contemporary, quick and sharp piece that’s a change of pace from my amateur style (which combined a graceful elegance with sheer athleticism). I work with a hat and jacket--I’ve never worked with props before. I’ve always projected up and outward, and this is very self-focused.”

Her other song is “You Can Always Count on Me,” from the Broadway musical “City of Angels,” a duet by two 1940s women frustrated by romance and career.

“Ice skating is pretty much glamour and glitz--you wear rhinestones a lot. But from my perspective as a professional, that gets to be mundane,” Chin observed. “This number could be done as a sexy, come-on type, but I’d rather express it as someone down on her luck, an average girl going through tough times, feeling frustration and a moment of release, emotions that may not be honorable but are passionate.”

The Sea World engagement, Chin’s first here as a professional, holds more than nostalgic appeal for her.

“I love skating in smaller places because you have more control--you can play to just one side of the audience, which is a lot more effective than just skating around (a large arena). I love the intimacy, being close to the audience, where they can see your face and you can see theirs. And since this is a family-oriented crowd, it’s always packed, which is nice because you become inspired by that.”

Chin plans to take advantage of her stay to become reacquainted with the city.

“I really want to see San Diego. As a child, my scope was very limited--if you were to ask me to draw a map, it would be pathetic! I don’t see myself as a tourist, though, but as someone re-discovering home. I know I’ll go to my old rinks, and I’d like to see the house I grew up in.”

Chin’s more recent past has been somewhat less placid than her childhood. Much has changed since her triumphant visit home in 1984 after she placed fourth in the Winter Olympics and became the unexpected darling of the games at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. In 1985, she won the U.S. National Championship, but that was also the year that her mother, Marjorie Chin, provoked considerable controversy in the skating world by keeping Chin off the ice for three months because of a muscle imbalance affecting her legs, arms and hips. The condition was barely noticed by anyone else.

Marjorie Chin, who helped guide her daughter’s amateur career, was later proven correct, but not before the family endured a steady stream of rumors--some true, others unfounded--about mother-daughter dissension over the decision to keep the skater of the ice.

In 1986, Chin lost her U.S. title but retained her World Bronze from 1985.

In 1987, she placed fourth nationally and could not compete in the World Figure Skating Championships because only the top three skaters that year made the national team and competed internationally.

After falling out of the Top 3 in the United States, which severely hurt her chances for making the 1988 Olympic team, Chin turned professional. Also contributing to that decision was the fact that Chin was not in peak form after the 3-month layoff.

She has guest-starred with Ice Capades, Holiday on Ice in the Orient, Knott’s Berry Farm’s Christmas ice show and the “Celebration on Ice” show at Bally’s Hotel in Atlantic City.

Chin’s indirect references to the troublesome period of her life are strictly positive.

“In the skating world, there are always a lot of rumors--what can be better than talking about the people in the spotlight? I know what’s happened, but it hasn’t stopped me. There are some painful memories, but those are the ones I treasure most, because they really pushed me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have stopped to question: ‘What am I going to do in 20 years?’ I don’t think I’d say it was a blessing in disguise, but you can turn bad into good.

“I can never forget my past--it’s what’s formed and shaped me. I can probably say I’m my own person now. A lot of my friends from school say I have a lot of security because I’ve already proven myself.”

Realizing there was more to life than skating, Chin entered UCLA.

“I love skating. It’s a form of expression, a way of communicating that I treasure deeply and I’ll always need--but I always knew there was something else, too.”

She is contemplating a double major in English and political science. She recently interned at the Dean Witter stock brokerage firm but has no set career goal.

“I do know that I’d like to get my MBA and go into business.”

Away from school and the ice, Chin loves theater, European films, long walks and especially reading, because, “I really feel at peace with myself then. Through reading, I can feel as if I’ve lived so many lives, seen so many things.”

Which evokes other favorite memories of her San Diego childhood.

“Thinking about that time brings back an innocence, a total naivete to the whole world. I’ll be glad to be going back to San Diego like that. It will bring back a whole flood of memories.”