By Staff
NILES – The top ice carvers competing at the 2007 Hunter Ice Festival are known internationally for their skills.
Most of them have competed, and won, international ice carving competitions. Others are known for producing sculptures for a wide range of celebrities. They will all display their skills for free on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 12, 13 and 14 in downtown Niles.
The newest addition to the 3rd Annual Hunter Ice Festival is the "Fire and Ice" carving show at 6 p.m. Friday at the north end of Riverfront Park. The show features Dan Rebholz and his team from World Class Ice Sculpture of Chicago.
In the live ice sculpting performance, Rebholz and others will be wielding high-powered chainsaws as the "worlds fastest ice carving team" to create amazing sculptures in ice.
Guests can watch as frozen blocks of ice are transformed into crystalline works of art, and fast paced, high intensity themed shows are choreographed to music.
This year, Hunter Ice Festival will feature the talents of six world class professional carvers, 12 professional carvers and six student carvers working with more than 100 pieces of 450-pound ice. That's more than 22.5 tons of ice.
Rebholz is a certified master carver by the National Ice Carving Association (NICA), a four time international champion ice carver and has 18 years of professional ice carving experience, including two stints with the U.S. Olympic team. He has completed 10,000 ice sculptures using 4 million pounds of ice.
Jeffery W. Stahl, owner of Artic Diamond of Cincinnati, is on the NICA board of directors. He has 20 years experience of national and international ice sculpting competitions and was national champion in 2002 and 2003, and was on the 2002 Olympic team.
Derek Maxfield and Randy Finch are co-owners of Ice Sculptures, Ltd. of Grand Rapids, the first computerized, full service ice sculpting company in the U.S. Their work has been featured on "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" and they have produced ice sculptures for the Discovery Channel, the Ryder Cup and "The Polar Express" movie premier. Maxfield and Finch have also been hired to carve sculptures for multiple celebrities, including Bruce Springsteen, Kiss and AC/DC.
Richard D. Bubin, owner of Ice Creations of Pittsburgh, is also an international ice-carving champion and was named the world's fastest ice carver after going through 61 full block sculptures in four hours, 22 minutes, 50 seconds. Bubin boasts 25 years of ice carving experience in the Pittsburgh area, more than 15,000 sculptures completed with more than five million pounds of ice. He, too, was a member of the 2002 Olympic team.
Kevin Roscoe comes to Niles from Seattle, where he and his wife Stephanie have owned Cascade Crystal Ice Sculptures since 1991, and where he has been a partner in Fear No Ice performance sculpting worldwide since 1996. Roscoe has been featured on "Good Morning America" and has also appeared on the Discovery Channel series "Travelers."
On a competitive note, this will be Kevin's third time representing the U.S. at the Winter Olympics. Kevin won the Bronze Medal at the 1994 Olympics in Lillihammar, Norway, and he and his partner Steve Brice captured the Gold Medal at the 1997 World Championships in Fairbanks, Alaska, and in doing so won the right to represent the United States at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
The Professional Carvers will be coordinated by Andrew Thistlethwaite, Executive Chef of Elcona Country Club. NICA Judges will include John Kartje of Mundelein, Ill.