"Life is about cycles, and in skating we have circles, and my circle is coming to an end... Tonight, perhaps, I come full circle."

Immortalized in the words of the man the performers and the fans had come to honour, the Tribute to Toller Cranston was a night of cycles, circles, and skating; of endings and beginnings, of goodbyes and hellos. At Varsity Arena in Toronto, a comparitively small audience (several hundred fans, as opposed to the 16 000 Torontonian skating fans are used to seeing at Stars on Ice ther shows at Maple Leaf Gardens) came to pay their last respects to skating legend Toller Cranston. The enraptured fans were not disappointed. In one of those rare nights of magical skating, all present knew they were witnessing something special - a moment of skating history.

With a cast that included many of the sport's greatest stars - Kurt Browning, Underhill and Martini, Josee Chouinard, Roz Sumners, Caryn Kadavy, Brian Orser, Scott Hamilton, Liz Manley, and on-ice host Tracy Wilson - as well as some lesser-known but equally talented skaters, such as Gary Beacom, Katherine Healy, and Chris Nolan, this was a show that just couldn't be less than great. And it was more than that - it was spectacular.

Built around a premise of the past meeting the future - Toller representing the past, twelve-year-old Shawn Sawyer of Edmonton representing the future - the skaters brought forward the lessons they'd learned from years of expertise in a sometimes cheesy, but often humorous, way. Although any fan of Toller's may have wondered how on earth the Patineur du Siecle had allowed his final performance to have such a produced, scripted element to it, the magic moments of skating far made up for any cliches.

Rare performances by Katherine Healy - known to many young skating fans as the subject of the book A Very Young Skater, and to others as a prima ballerina of some renown - and Chris Nolan, one of "The Great Unknowns" mentioned in Zero Tollerance, were a delight to watch, as was a number Toller skated with young Shawn, in which the two skaters interpreted various colours of light. Underhill and Martini shone in what may well have been one of their last performances in the city, and Scott Hamilton, returning to Toronto ice for the first time in almost two years with a powerful number that strayed from his usual crowd-pleasing humour, received a standing ovation from the appreciative crowd. As Toller took to the ice for his final skate, he spoke of his career - "You pass the baton of knowledge and experience and intelligence to other people... I've done things even I can't believe. Even though I never won a World Championship, I've had such a fortunate career," - and then skated to Don't Be Sad For Me in vintage Toller style. In his own words, the program was a perfect ending to a magnificent career" "This number... is what I wanted to say about skating, because it's about losing something, and then getting it back, for a moment."

Even though he may never step on the ice again, Toller Cranston's legacy will live on, through youngsters such as Shawn Sawyer and others who have had the privilege of working with one of the skating world's greatest artists. That is what the Tribute to Toller Cranston was all about - about a career that stretched far past the ice, and a skater whose influence will be seen in the sport for years to come.