"Bourne and Kraatz"
By Beverley Smith
"Skate
Six", premiere issue 1996/1997 season
They defy gravity, with their eyeball-to-ice moves, their disregard of ice dancing's traditional erect posture. They glide over the ice with sof-kneed grace. Their blades make no sound.
Their skating adventures have never been boring, not since they were joined together as partners in the summer of 1991. They won the national junior title, right off the bat, even though Shae-Lynn had resorted to wearing a helmet at practices. She had suffered a head injury in a fall during practice shortly before the Canadian championship.
Bourne and Kraatz won the senior title in their first try, a stunning win in which they quickly leap-frogged over more seasoned senior competitors, some left in tears.
They have won a total of three national senior championships. They have also changed coaches three times in as many years. And with each change has come a drastic move, each time to a different corner of the continent.
Last year, they bounced between longtime coach-choreographer Uschi Keszler's home in Philadelphia to Lake Placid, where they worked with Russian coach and technical consultant Natalia Dubova.
After winning Canada's only world championship medal, a bronze, at the event in Edmonton, the pair left Keszler, opting for stability and the chance to work exclusively with Dubova. The move was difficult, but Keszler gave them her blessing.
"You have to follow your heart," she said. "It is never wrong to follow your heart."
This, after a season that was an annus horribilis of doubts, injury and illness. Bourne contracted a mild case of mononucleosis late in the summer of 1995. Then, during the final move of the final practice for Sun Life Skate Canada in Saint John, N.B. last year, Bourne's knee was accidentally slashed by Kraatz's skate and required 17 stitches. It was a serious injury for a couple who have made their deep knee bends the envy of the world.
Bourne hobbled around for a week, could do little in practice, but miraculously she and Kraatz skated anyway-and won the event.
It might almost be expected that the engaging couple-she born in Chatham, he in Berlin, Germany-will find a few more wild and dramatic roadblocks on their path to the Nagano Olympics.
The 20-year-old Bourne and 25-year-old Kraatz are rubbing the slate clean for the coming season and competition at Sun Life Skate Canada, the Nations Cup in Germany and the NHK Trophy in Japan.
"We will have another style, another look," Bourne said. "We're very versatile, because you have to be in ice dancing."