January 14, 2006
SOI 20th ANNIVERSARY SHOW

transcripted by bunnyhopper

The show had many little quick comments from the skaters stitched together. I did not do a transcript of everything Katia said throughout the whole show…but rather did a transcript of only the portion that was titled “Sergei”. She did make a few other comments about the show being unlike any other show, etc. But this entire transcript is the section that was bookended by commercials, and started with a title bar marked “Sergei”

Roz: the day that Sergei died is really still so vivid in my mind.

Scott: It doesn’t get any tougher than that. I’m..I’ll never get over that. I’ll never get over the loss of Sergei Grinkov. Ever.

Kristi: You know, it was just such a difficult time. We were all in Lake Placid together.

Scott: I was with him five minutes before he died talking to him about Daria coming that weekend.

Roz: I can picture exactly where we were on the ice. The opening costumes we were in.

Scott: The next thing you hear, is he collapsed. And…I went back…and I was in a dressing room. I wanted to stay out of the way. And I saw the EMT guy come in and he was walking….and I go “RUN!”…”This is, this is…this is something BAD. Run.”

Roz: And when he was wheeled out…I mean at that time I don’t think any of us knew he was already gone.

Scott: And I immediately went into one of the dressing rooms and I just prayed. I said, “Don’t do this. Whatever it is. Don’t do this”

Paul: I know that all of us reassessed where we were. I can remember going to The Cottage, which is this little pub in town, in Lake Placid and everybody just sitting around and saying “Oh my Gosh.”, you know? “What just happened?”

Roz: You just can’t believe that this strapping, gorgeous, athlete…… that something like that could happen …..and certainly it can’t happen to one of us.

Paul: And we were all hoping that there’d be…that they would find a way to bring him back.

Roz: I remember that night, having dinner, all of us together, and it was just like…I mean, you just wanted to cling to each other and not let go.

Kristi: Being together was the best thing because we were able to…you know….be there for Katia, be there for Daria….her family. Feeling helpless and just in shock but wanting to do all we could, to make things as right as we could with the situation.

Brian O: Scott had a horrible time with it because he was particularly very close to Sergei.

Scott: I was bitter and angry for a long time. Just…just seemed so unfair for a 28 year old man to die of …of an older person’s condition. You know? It just didn’t seem right.

Brian O: You know what? It’s like losing part of your family.

Scott: I still don’t understand it. But…you know, its….we were there for her and tried to support her and give her every opportunity to go beyond, and to get back on track. It’s something that I think the whole cast participated in.

Katia: Scott was always a very good friend with Sergei. And uh…he help me a lot to go through the time when Sergei passed away. But, it was just very important for me to know that they…. what they feeling for me. They all came to Russia even…Like, Paul Wylie, and Scott came.

Scott: To be at his funeral in Moscow and say goodbye to this Giant of a man, and someone that I thought was just…. Nothing would ever take him…and to see how, …his life …you know….was over….it just…still…I’ll never get over it.

Katia: This is very special moments which will stay with me always and they will be very special. Scott will be a very special friend for me.

Scott: They were in such a wonderful place in their relationship. You know? With their daughter growing up, and with them being kind of competitive with each other….you know, as much as they supported…they were always competing a little bit you know? It was like ((and here he mimicked a little conversation between Sergei and Katia))…”Where you going?” …”uhhh…I dunno…”….”You’re going to the rink aren’t you!? You’re gonna skate…Well I’m going too!” …..

Scott again: You know? It was really cute. I adored them as a couple.

Kristi: When Sergei and Katia were on the tour, I think for two years in a row, I skated right after them, so luckily I got to stand in the curtain and watch them perform every night.

Paul: To see them, up close and personal…um…just the way that they related to each other, the love that they showed for each other on the ice and off the ice.

Kristi: I just loved to watch them. They were just amazing. (Here Kristi talks about the quiet moment during the opening of SOI 1995-96 after Sergei died.) There was a spot in the opening number that was set aside for Sergei and Katia’s announcement, you know, the lights kind of went to center ice, and there is a brief pause and whether the audience got it or not it was for us, and we knew that was for Sergei and Katia.

Katia: I saw how the dedicate a little opening number for Sergei too. There was like a moment….of silence. That was all very very special to me.

Kristi: We could all just…remember him. And that was, I think, part of the healing process for us as we went on with the rest of the tour.

Roz: And really we were there for Katia, and we just honestly couldn’t wait for her to come back…in whatever capacity, we just wanted her back with us. So that she knew, that even though she’d lost Sergei, she still had this family that …we were gonna take care of her for the rest of her life.

Scott: And to see her come back as a solo performer was inspiring for us because it was so tough…to see them together, and then to see her go out there by herself …was really hard.

Katia: The transition to go from pairs to start skating by myself was pretty difficult, and when it’s all happen I didn’t even know if I gonna skate or not. Then I thought that maybe I can skate too. And when I started it just felt much better about …like a healing process.

Brian O: It was great to see her. As she went through the season she was healing, it was nice (His lips tremble here. So sweet).

Katia: So…difficult transition but good…in a good way.

Roz: It was very interesting to watch her just blossom into something that she never dreamed she would have had to do.

Kristi: To watch her is just effortless beauty out on the ice. You know..I still sit there in amazement watching her.

Roz: I don’t think there was any way, even with the tragedy that Katia could have walked away from skating. I mean, that’s what made her who she was and that’s where she found her solace, and that’s where she found her strength, that’s where she’s grown into this beautiful woman.

Scott: To see Katia and Dasha now…and Liska, Ilia’s daughter…Ilia and Katia’s daughter….is so beautiful, and to see how they’ve taken life, and taken it to another level really honors Sergei’s life.

I forgot to add, that there were also a couple comments in other parts of the show, when they were saying “still to come”. that weren’t actually in the “Sergei” part…..

One was Christopher Dean at the beginning after a clip of Reverie, saying that tragedy unites them.

Kristi said that one of the times they had to be there for each other was the loss of Sergei Grinkov.

And Roz said :There is still something about going back to Lake Placid that even to this day that really just goes right to your heart. I mean, I can look right over onto the ice exactly where Sergei collapsed and that whole day just comes back.