Title: Actress Just Wants To Play Hockey
Publisher: Unknown
Publishing Release Date: October 7th, 2002
Byline: Unknown
Related Link: http://www.birdsofpreyonline.com/news.php?article=158

PASADENA, Calif. — I was asked to keep an eye out for Rachel Skarsten.

"You'll love her," promised my actress friend, Ellen Dubin, who had played Skarsten's mother ("her young mother," she stresses) on an episode of Tracker.

"Rachel's adorable. Sweet, smart and an incredible actress. But she's only 17 years old and this is her first press tour ever and she's all alone down there in L.A. So I want you to look out for her. Make sure she's okay."

Well, I did. And she was. But frankly, the last thing this kid needs is any help from me. Incredibly poised and glowingly self-confident, Skarsten seemed entirely unfazed by the fact that she is about to make her U.S. network debut as one of Birds Of Prey's crime-fighting femmes — the very same week she opens in her first major film, Virginia's Run.

Birds Of Prey, a distaff Batman sequel series that casts Skarsten as the psychic daughter of a retired super-heroine, debuts Wednesday night at 8 on The New VR, and again at 9 on the originating WB, and yet again Tuesday, Oct. 15 on Space.

But Skarsten would rather talk hockey. Don't get me wrong — she's excited and all that about her suddenly stellar career. But not nearly as excited as she was about her hockey team, the Leaside Wildcats, winning the Toronto city championships.

"I'm off to training camp next week," the giggling goalie gushed to the captivated critics who buzzed around her at the WB stars party last July. "Hockey is my passion.

"Acting was never part of the plan. I had my whole life planned, and acting was just one of those wonderful surprises that comes up along the road.

"I was singing a memorial to my father, who died of cancer when I was 9, and an agent saw the show and asked if I would like to go on an audition. So I went, and I got it — it was a Honeycombs commercial. And, you know, I thought it was pretty cool, so I kept doing it sporadically. And here I am."

And that's where I left her. When we parted, we shook hands ... and the girl almost pulled my arm from its socket. "I hate it when girls have wimpy handshakes," she grinned mischievously.

So relax those maternal instincts, Ellen. Rachel's doing just fine. It's the criminals who run afoul of the Birds Of Prey that I'd be worried about.