Harvard, Hotels House Skaters

Many skaters scheduled to perform in this weekend’s benefit show, An Evening With Champions (EWC), will eschew the Charles Hotel for “Hotel Harvard” and spend their weekends as guests in the upperclass Houses.

“Some skaters stay in hotels and some on campus,” said Sasha D. Kukunova ’08, one of the liaisons between EWC and the skaters performing in the show, who is in charge of organizing this weekend’s housing.

This year, EWC was able to obtain eight hotel rooms for seven of the skaters and their guests, and about 17 of the skaters will live in the Houses.

EWC tries to accommodate the skaters as much as possible, according to Kukunova.

Certain skaters requested hotels because of special needs. For example, Ilia Kulik, a 1998 Olympic champion, and two-time Olympic gold medalist Ekaterina Gordeeva wanted hotel rooms because they are coming with their children.

“If we can give it to them, we give it to them,” said Kukunova. “If not, we ask if they would mind staying with a master or in a guest suite.”

Guest suites exist in each House to accommodate visitors and come with maid service.

Other skaters will be staying with masters in Leverett, Eliot, and Lowell, and in the Winthrop, Kirkland, and Eliot guest suites.

Two of the skaters, Morgan Matthews and Maxim Zavozin, will be staying in an Eliot student suite, which has been vacated for the weekend.

Two other suites had previously agreed to house the skaters, but had to back out, leaving the EWC committee with something of a housing crisis.

Luckily, three girls in Eliot agreed at the last minute to give up their suite.

“They just stepped in really when I needed them,” said Kukunova.

The residents were scheduled to move out on Friday at 7:45 a.m. and return on Sunday at noon.

A group of volunteers will ensure that the rooms are prepared for the skaters, making the beds with sheets rented from Harvard Student Agencies, one of EWC’s few expenses.

Some of the students who volunteered to donate their rooms said they didn’t mind moving out for the weekend.

“I mean, it’s an inconvenience,” said Rehema Kutua ’07, who lives in Eliot. “But, I feel like I would rather give up my suite than take out the money for the hotel from the Jimmy Fund check.”

Her suitemate Laura E. Stafford ’07 agreed that it was for a good cause and added that EWC is “very much a bonding activity. It builds House spirit.”

The Eliot suite residents are each receiving free tickets to the show and a Nalgene bottle and t-shirt.

EWC was started in 1970 when John Misha Petkevich ’71, a figure skater and former Eliot resident, met a group of children being treated for leukemia.

Within a few weeks, he organized the first EWC, welcoming national figure skaters to perform at Harvard to raise money for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

This year 24 skaters will perform. Many of them are Olympic or national medalists.

“We try to do everything as professionally as possible,” said Kukunova. “An Evening with Champions is all student-run. Skaters who are here really become a part of Harvard.”

An Evening with Champions will take place on Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Bright Hockey Center.