The skating show life: 'Home is pretty much on tour'

Gretchen Trowbridge was fresh off of graduating from suburban Park of Cottage Grove High in 1996. She was 18 years old and had started ice skating at age 3.

And she knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life: keep skating and keep performing.

So Trowbridge did what skaters did back then: she caught wind by word of mouth that anyone interested in skating for Disney on Ice should head to Target Center at a specific time on a specific afternoon for an in-person audition. She auditioned and landed a spot on a U.S. tour, leaving home as a teenager.

After that year, the next step on her plan was to attend the U of M, where she studied architecture and graduated in 2001.

And since then? It's been all Disney on Ice, all the time, with her most recent stop leading her back home to Minnesota for the "Let's Celebrate" show that begins Wednesday and runs through Sunday at Target Center.

Well, at least Minnesota is her version of home.

"I still refer to Minneapolis as home," Trowbridge said by phone Monday. "It's where my storage unit is and where my dentist is. Home is pretty much on tour."

"It's 50-50," she said in describing the mindset of young skaters first starting out with Disney on Ice. "Some expect to do 1 or 2 years, and the rest are lifers."

Trowbridge falls into the latter category. She even married a male skater, Scott, from the tour — a not-uncommon pairing of two people committed to the same career and way of life.

"I knew I loved it enough to be a lifer, but I had a very traditional upbringing," Trowbridge said. "My parents did a great job of making sure I was well-rounded. My mom was not a skating mom. I was a competitive golfer and diver as well. I certainly was never pulled out of school to get more ice time. I really wanted to go to college. I didn't just want to educated. I wanted to live in the dorms, have the whole experience. But the tour was always calling me."

And so here she is, 20 years after her first tour and 15 after joining for good. Trowbridge, who said she had never been anywhere farther than Wisconsin before joining Disney on Ice, has now been to more than 50 different countries.

"You just have to, knock on wood, take care of yourself and make sure your joints don't fall apart before your interest does," Trowbridge said. "I would do it for another 10 years if I could. There's a study that says about 70 percent of Americans hate their job. I never want to hit snooze. I can't wait to get to work."