Above: Will and Adriene Ott, in France with Disney on Ice
By Ed Rabinowitz
They met on the ice. Got engaged on the ice. Even married on the ice.
For Will and Adriene Ott, currently performing with the European tour of “Disney on Ice: Mickey’s Search Party,” the ice has been their home, and the centerpiece of their storybook romance.
But in May of 2019, Adriene was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma, and their world was turned upside down.
“When you’re in your 20s and you hear cancer, your first reaction is an over-reaction,” Adriene says. “You think, ‘Oh, I’m going to die.’ That was the hardest part.”
Will and Adriene came to their love for skating from diverging paths: Adriene through figure skating, Will through hockey. And both had excelled at their craft — Adriene as a U.S. Figure Skating double gold medalist and Keystone State Games gold medalist, and Will as a hockey goalie whose youth hockey team won the Central Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League Viola Cup in 2009, and the CanAm Tournament in Lake Placid, New York, in 2011.
But their love for being on the ice — and doing so together — was the common denominator.
“When I met Adriene I told her she should learn how to play hockey since she was such a good skater,” Will says. “She told me, ‘If I’m going to play hockey, then you have to figure skate.’ So I agreed.”
They began figure skating together, as well as coaching, often spending up to 14 hours a day at the local skating rink in York, Pennyslvania. Transitioning from hockey to figure skating was challenging, but Will — who was still skating competitively at the time — says it was great to do something new.
“I loved [figure skating]. It made me a much better skater. There’s a lot hockey players can learn from figure skating.”
Will proposed to Adriene on the ice following a competition prior to the start of her senior year at York College of Pennsylvania in August 2013. The following April they auditioned for Disney on Ice, and within weeks of her May graduation were offered a contract. They were soon part of an East Coast tour of Disney on Ice presents Frozen.
“It was great to be part of a show that was so popular,” Adriene says. “But it was hard because we came to the tour engaged, and we didn’t know when we were going to get married because we were never home.”
That problem was solved in 2016 when a British skating colleague, captivated by how an individual could become ordained online for $30, took the plunge and married Will and Adriene on the ice during a tour stop in Pittsburgh with their respective families present.
But three years later, Adriene began experiencing back pain during a tour in Asia.
“We didn’t think it was anything big,” she says. “I figured it would be fine, and I would get it taken care of when we got home.”
An MRI revealed a tumor in Adriene’s back, and the subsequent diagnosis of stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma. Six months of chemotherapy followed, during which Adriene was able to skate and perform periodically.
“For me, it feels most natural being on the ice,” she says. “Getting to skate was more of a release from all the other stuff going on around me. I didn’t see it as a challenge, like, ‘Oh, I’m so tired and I have to skate.’ It was more like, ‘Wow, I get to skate.’ So to me [skating] was more like freedom.”
Adriene explains that show skating as a pair is all about timing and repetition. Being married helps because she and Will are always together and can make the time to practice — even during her chemotherapy regimen. That repetition, she says, builds confidence as well as muscle memory.
“It gave me the confidence that, OK, if I can still do this, then I’m still myself,” Adriene says. “I’m not letting cancer define who I am. If I can do that, then I’m fine.”
Adriene has been in remission for a little over three years, and she looks forward to the five-year mark when her oncologist will consider her cured of the cancer. And while she acknowledges that the lymphoma is always in the back of her mind, it motivates her to live life to the fullest and not take anything for granted.
Whatever lies ahead, Will and Adriene know that skating will always be part of their lives.
“There are five staff members on each Disney on Ice show, and most of them are former figure skaters and former show skaters,” Will says. “We want to skate as long as we can, but that’s the good thing about figure skating. You can branch out and do so many things. It’s something we can do for our entire lives.”
