Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer

ISCC event will be a night to celebrate, reflect

By John Fitts Editor

Maxim Naumov, current U.S. Figure Skating National Pewter Medalist and Team USA member, at a previous Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer ™ show in Simsbury. During a Legacy on Ice performance in Washington, D.C. on March 2, Maxim gave an emotional performance in honor of his parents - Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova - and other victims of the Jan. 29 D.C. plane collision. Submitted photo

SIMSBURY – It could be the most poignant, exciting, visually stimulating, fun, yet somber evening the Farmington Valley will experience in 2025. 

On the evening of May 3, the Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation’s Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer ™ comes to the International Skating Center of Connecticut in Simsbury for the third year running. 

With high-production values, local talent, and some of the best skaters in the world, the show is designed to dazzle with lights, music and theatrics while raising funds for the CARES Foundation and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. Two years ago, the show raised $50,000 and organizers hope to at least match the some $40,000-plus raised last year.

“This has a whole production with lights and everything. This year we’re going to have on ice seats as well, so it’s going to be an even more fun experience for the audience. We’re trying to really create this kind of fun environment that people remember from the past and bring it back to life,” Daniel Petrenko, Director of Figure Skating at ISCC, said referring to both the show and a time when the facility was home ice for several Olympic level skaters. 

Hamilton, cancer survivor and Olympic and four-time World Champion, will be on hand to personally emcee the show, which also features Katia Gordeeva, 2-time Olympic and 4-time World Champion; and Victor Petrenko, past Olympic, World, and European Champion.

Katia Gordeeva 2-time Olympic and 4-time World Champion, at a previous Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer ™ show in Simsbury. Submitted photo

Gordeeva and Petrenko, both former Simsbury residents, were on the ice at ISCC in March of 1995 when the facility held its first high-profile show after opening the previous fall. Also slated to be at the upcoming show is U.S. Figure Skating National Pewter Medalist, and Team USA member Maxim Naumov, who lost his parents in the recent D.C. plane collision. 

The show will also feature young skaters from the area that are busy raising funds for the event. The top 8 fundraisers will be skate individually and the others in a group number. Registered participants will also participate in a Public Sk8 to Elimin8 “Frozen 5k” on Friday, May 2. Additionally, there will be Co-Ed 3v3 Youth hockey games on April 27.

The show comes as ISCC celebrates its 30th Anniversary, an upward trajectory, and an in-progress expansion. And yet, the community is mourning profound loss after the recent aircraft collision over Washington, D.C.  

“There will be a lot of laughter and tears,” Daniel Petrenko said. “It’ll be a big mix of emotions for sure.” 

Those in the skating community know tragedy all too well. In 1961, the entire U.S. team perished in a plane crash in Belgium. 

Tragedy has also struck close to home as well. 

In November of 1995, Gordeeva’s husband and pairs partner, Sergei Grinkov, collapsed on the ice in Lake Placid while the then Simsbury couple was practicing for the Stars on Ice Tour. 

And the figure skating community is reeling from that Jan. 29, 2025, collision of an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk Helicopter over Washington, D.C. It claimed the lives of 28 with ties to the sport, including 11 young skaters and four coaches. They and many family members were returning from a development camp in Wichita, Kansas that followed the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. 

Among them were Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, highly decorated pairs skaters, spouses, coaches and parents. From approximately 1998 to 2017, the couple called Simsbury their home and were an integral part of ISCC, first with training and later with coaching, planning and outreach. Vadim Naumov was ISCC’s Director of Figure Skating from 2011 to 2016.

“[Life] can throw things at you that you feel is beyond what you feel is your capacity to withstand or to comprehend,” said Hamilton. “With this plane crash, I was completely overwhelmed and smothered in sadness. I just couldn’t believe anything like this could ever happen. Those children that were on that plane from the development camp - their lives were just beginning and to see them taken in a second, was more than I could bear.

Scott Hamilton at a previous Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer ™ show in Simsbury. Submitted photo

 “I’m still struggling with it all but there’s two things you can do,” said Hamilton, who also noted that his faith plays a large role. “You can allow it to completely consume you or you can do something about it – the best you can - to push back and to help support the people that are suffering the most.”

During a Legacy on Ice performance in Washington, D.C. on March 2, Maxim Naumov gave an emotional performance in honor of his parents and other victims of the Jan. 29 D.C. plane collision. He skated to “The City that Doesn’t Exist,” one of his parents’ favorites, and video of his emotional performance has gone viral. 

Hamilton was there for that powerful moment, and it reminded him of how Gordeeva also returned to the ice after her husband’s death. 

“Katia’s first skate as a solo artist after Sergei’s death was beyond description,” Hamilton said. “What Max did that night was comparable in so many ways in that he just lost his parents and he skated to one of their favorite songs and the pain must have been overwhelming but that’s kind of where skating is special in all the Olympic sports. In skating, you can articulate, represent your grief, your pain… You can present in a choreographic form to allow other people in and that’s what Max did on that night. I went and I sat with him right afterwards and told him it was one of the bravest, most inspiring things I’ve ever seen. He allowed everybody in that audience to come into his pain and that’s where healing starts, and it was a generous, generous thing that he did.”

At the same time, Hamilton, said, he and the others would not have missed the event. 

“I think that’s where you feel like you honored those lives, and you honored those families, and you honored what happened as best you could because that’s the only thing you could do. And, in many respects, that’s why we do Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer. You know so many people have lost loved ones to cancer, and they don’t know what to do.”

 Hamilton lost his mother to breast cancer in 1977 and his own battles with the disease started with a testicular cancer diagnosis 20 years later. Brain tumors were discovered in Hamilton in 2004, 2010 and 2016 and he became involved in many cancer-fighting efforts, including the 2014 establishment of CARES. Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer events have taken place for nearly 10 years, he said.

CARES funds research “in the immunotherapy or targeted therapy space,” said Hamilton, who said the advancements in cancer treatment have been amazing. 

“I survived cancer 28 years ago,” Hamilton said. “If you go back 22 years before that my cancer had a 5% survival rate. When I went through it was 80 to 90% and now it’s 95%. That’s what research does.”

Hamilton also said the beauty of the Sk8 event is people working together, sometimes skating for a loved one, but all to lift up each other. 

“So many people that do these Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer events – they’re there to skate for their departed relative or a friend and it’s really remarkable that, when they do that, it gives them power where they felt powerless before. They’re a part of the solution because every everything that we’re trying to do with CARES is to fund the next miracle….This is a solvable problem. We just need to elevate funding for the science.”

As of press time, tickets to Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer ™ were available but the May 3 event is expected to sell out.

To purchase tickets or learn more about sponsorships and other ways to participate and support the efforts, including the Frozen 5K and youth tournament, visit https://www.isccskate.com/ and click on special events or use a specific link below. 

Tickets: https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/international-skating-center-of-ct/sk8-to-elimin8-cancer-celebration-ice-show

Participate and Fundraise: https://fundraise.scottcares.org/simsbury

Donate: https://fundraise.scottcares.org/simsbury/Donate

Sponsorship Opportunities: https://fundraise.scottcares.org/simsbury/Static/sponsors

Those without internet access can also call 860-651-5400.  VL

The 2024 check presentation in Simsbury. Submitted Photo