With the addition of Platov, Floyd Hall has a coaching team with credentials few can match and the kind of reputations that should attract the best skaters in the world. He is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and considered one of the greatest ice dancers ever. Platov, 38, joined him at Floyd Hall in July. He has won bronze and silver medals in the Olympics and a gold medal in the 1993 World Championships. Zhulin, 42, was the first to arrive at Floyd Hall, setting up shop here in 2001. Few have been better at it than Zhulin and Platov, both of whom grew up in the former Soviet Union. Unlike the more traditional form of pairs figure skating, throws, lifts and jumps are not allowed and the dance spins must be performed in tandem. Ice dancing, an Olympic medal sport since 1976, combines pairs figure skating and ballroom dancing. People like to go to a university to learn. The people here could not be nicer to us. "There is a very nice track behind the building, two ice rinks and they tell me they are planning to build a third one in the future. "We have all the facilities we need here, including a beautiful ballet room where we also train," said Zhulin, who is not only Navka's coach but her husband. In Floyd Hall, where they are allowed as much ice time as they need on a spacious rink, they believe they have found just the place where they can make that happen. Meanwhile, the skaters need an ideal spot to train, and Zhulin and Platov need a place where they can fulfill their vision - creating an ice dancing academy unsurpassed by any in the United States. Neither are their coaches, Sasha Zhulin and Yevgeny Platov, Olympic medalists, or the 11 other skaters training with them. But Tatyana Navka and Roman Kostomarov, the 2004 European and world champion ice dancers and favorites for gold at the coming Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy, aren't looking for fanfare. Maybe that's because a typical American skating rink and a crew of world-class skaters from places like Russia and Israel and their Eastern European coaches seem like an odd fit. Suburban skating rinks tend to be pretty much the same.Įven the hockey moms scurrying about or the young children creeping on their first pair of skates don't seem to notice or care that something special is going on here on the campus of Montclair State University. LITTLE FALLS - THERE doesn't, at first, appear to be anything out of the ordinary about Floyd Hall Arena, where North Jersey comes to skate, play hockey, buy equipment and munch on nachos, fries and other snack-bar staples at the food stand.
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