Ice Capades Skating Away

The North American tour of Ice Capades Mystika has been canceled and a dozen performers were subsequently stranded in British Columbia when show creator Niles Garden reportedly skipped town without paying them.

The show was expected to play in Prince George, Prince Rupert, Alberta and other North American stops but that changed at about 4 a.m. April 7 when a letter was pushed under a hotel room door at the Stampeder Motel in Vancouver, according to the Williams Lake Tribune.

Performers were told the Ice Capades shows were canceled, investors would be settling accounts by the end of April and the skaters should send their bank information with account numbers to receive payment.

“They owe us money,” performer Gabor Balint, from Hungary, told the Tribune. A few performers had plane tickets but others did not.

“[Garden] called the cops because we wouldn’t let him leave,” Balint said, but nothing could be done and the show creator eventually left, reportedly in a “big yellow Ice Capades truck with all of the props.”

Niles Garden’s company, Garden Family Shows, based in Sarasota, Fla., has apparently gone bankrupt, Const. Matt Shearer of the Williams Lake RCMP told the paper.