The music started.
Christopher Bowman made the first few gyrations of his routine.The music stopped. Abruptly.
Ten-thousand Salt Lake-area school-kids in the Salt Palace Wednesday afternoon - and Christopher Bowman, the defending national men's figure skating champion - wondered what happened.
No matter.
Bowman used the glitch in the music as an added attraction to his whacked-out exhibition piece to "Woolly Bully," and by the time Bowman's minutes were up, he had 10,000 school-kids stomping their feet, screaming at him like he was a rock star and ready to go home and ask their parents for ice skates and tickets to the U.S. Figure Skating Nationals Feb. 4-11 in the Salt Palace.
After all, Bowman's exhibition routine had him spraying ice chips on photographers and climbing over the hockey plexiglass and into the stands, where he danced with a girl and then kissed her before returning to the ice to finish his skate lying on his stomach waving to the kids for more applause.
"I was getting a little panicky," Bowman said of the false start, "but sometimes you can play off those things."
He did.
It wasn't exactly the routine he uses to win national championships, but it was certainly one that won over the housefull of kids that got out of school to go to the Salt Palace and watch the Campbell's "Soup on Ice" exhibition, a prelude to the national championships in a couple of weeks.
Bountiful's Holly Cook started the day's performances with the routine she'll do at nationaeveryone else skating was a defending national champ. Cook's best so far in nationals has been fourth place.
Next came 1989 national runner-up Kristi Yamaguchi, skating solo, then with partner Rudi Galindo. Those two won the 1989 pairs national title. In between Yamaguchi's two appearances came '89 ice dancing gold medalists Susan Wynne and Joseph Druar, and Bowman's crazed performance.
"Children are a tough audience," said Bowman, "but they share the emotion and the passion.
"The whole message I'm sending out," he said, "is it's OK to get crazy and have fun at skating."
Bowman loves his work as skater and ambasssador. "I owe a great debt to skating," he says, "and whatever I can give back, I want to do it."
Wynne and Druar agreed. "It's our way of giving back," said Wynne. "I remember when I was a little kid and seeing a national champion made me want to skate and do what I'm doing now."
If just 10 kids start skating because of Wednesday's performance, said Druar, the time off from training will have been worth it to him.
Of course, skating on the national-championship rink in front of a crowd 21/2 weeks early wasn't a bad idea for the competitors.
Well, most of them.
"No, it doesn't help at all," laughed Cook, beginning to feel her nerves.
"The ice felt great. It's a good omen," said Druar. He and Wynne debuted their new free skating routine for nationals on Wednesday.