When figure skaters Tatiana Totmianina and Max Marinin began training in earnest for the 2002 Winter Olympics, they were attracted from Russia to the Oakton Ice Arena in Park Ridge, which has become a landing place for former medal winners and a training ground for skaters with Olympic ambitions.
Totmianina, 20, and Marinin, 24, finished fourth in the figure-skating pairs finals Monday in Salt Lake City, after training for the last year with Oleg Vassiliev, a Park Ridge Park District skating instructor who works at the Oakton arena.
It’s likely that other Olympic hopefuls soon will follow the Russians to Park Ridge, mostly because the Park District’s new facilities director–himself a former two-time national figure skating champion–has been taking advantage of his reputation and connections in the close-knit skating world to raise the rink’s profile.
Part of this effort included hiring Vassiliev, a former Olympic gold (1984) and silver (1988) medalist who has been on the staff in Park Ridge for three years and remains well-known in international skating circles.
During a trip to Russia more than a year ago to visit his family, Vassiliev was approached by Totmianina and Marinin about becoming their coach.
“I’m very excited,” Vassiliev said from Salt Lake City about his return to the Olympics after 14 years. “I feel very comfortable because I know what I’m doing. I feel pretty confident. I know what to expect.”
The Russians are not the first world-class skaters to grace the ice of the Park Ridge site. Others include four-time Olympian Nancy Swider-Peltz, who skated there as a youngster and now coaches the Park Ridge Speed Skating Club.
The Oakton rink was also an early training ground for Olympic skater Nicole Bobek, and Latvian national champion Valeria Trifancova trained there under Vassiliev for the European and World Championships.
While Totmianina and Marinin were training for the Olympics, they lived much like exchange students, stayingwith families and learning about life in the U.S.
Vassiliev said the adjustment was difficult at times. Totmianina spoke little English and had never lived apart from her mother, and neither Totmianina nor Marinin knew how to drive. Most of their time was spent practicing at the Oakton arena and other ice rinks in the area. At its most intense, practice on and off the ice lasted up to seven hours a day, several times a week. But the pair said they enjoyed skating at Oakton.
“It is a warm place to skate,” Marinin said. “The people are friendly.”
Many of the Oakton Ice Arena’s recent claims to fame arrived with Jimmie Santee, who recently was promoted to facilities director for the Park District.
Santee, a Park Ridge native, is a two-time national figure skating champion and a six-time member of the U.S. international figure skating team. He performed for 11 years with Disney on Ice and currently shares duties as Skates, the mascot for the Chicago Wolves hockey team.
In 1995 Santee joined the Park Ridge Park District, where his brother David–who skated in two Olympics and won a silver medal in World Championship competition–was running the skating program. Jimmie Santee took over the skating program a few years later, when his became a general manager in the Niles Park District.
Park Ridge Park District spokeswoman Renie Schreiber credited the Santee brothers and their reputation in the skating community with building a skating program known far beyond Park Ridge.
“Jimmie brought in Oleg, and now that he’s our facilities coordinator hopefully he’ll bring in more instructors and improve the program,” Schreiber said, adding that some of Santee’s students are from Tennessee, New York and Wisconsin.
The Santee brothers both skated at the Oakton rink as youngsters, and when Jimmie Santee returned to Park Ridge he was grateful for the years of encouragement he had received from the community.
“I wanted to come home,” he said. “My roots are here, and I just thought that I owed it to the city to come back and hopefully give back to them what I learned here.”
As a way to give back, Santee has tried to build the skating program by recruiting people like Vassiliev.
Santee and Vassiliev met years ago, when they were performing at a dinner theater, and became fast friends.
When Vassiliev turned up in Chicago three years ago as a skating instructor, Santee coaxed him into working for the Park District.
“It’s kind of hokey, but I really felt some obligation to the community,” Santee said. “They were always really supportive of us.”
