What a flashy windup to Toller Cranston's brief Canadian tour with Ice Capades the other night at Ottawa's Civic Centre!

The enthusiastic audience gave him an ovation and went home, unaware that Joni Mitchell was waiting in the wings with a camera crew. She's taping her first TV special for PBS in the United States and flew into Ottawa secretly from Los Angeles to have Cranston as a guest. After the crowd filed out, she and Cranston performed together (him on the ice, not her) until what Cranston says was "the very wee hours of the morning."

Mitchell's a Cranston fan from way back. She used a photograph of him on her Hejira album.

She came to him because he's got such a busy schedule: A solo show this week in Zurich, a headliner spot with Holiday On Ice in Germany from Dec. 4 to Feb. 10, another Ice Capades gig in Philadelphia in mid-February, and again in Germany with Holiday On Ice, starting March 4 for a month.