A conversation with ... Joannie Rochette
Canada's Olympic hero dishes on achieving her two life dreams, being involved with 2024 Worlds in her home city of Montreal, and how skating ended too soon for her.
Joannie Rochette still remembers the time when a school principal tried to tell her she couldn’t have it all. That the two biggest dreams of her life couldn’t both happen, if she insisted on prioritizing the passion that drew her to the ice and kept pulling her toward every amateur athlete’s ultimate goal.
You see, long before the young girl from tiny Ile-Dupas, Quebec, gained notoriety as a six-time Canadian figure skating champion and an Olympic bronze medallist, Rochette could see herself in a white coat that signified a career in medicine. It would require a lot of schooling, to be sure, something Rochette was prepared for — but she could only attend classes part time when her skating career began to take off in a major way.
“I remember when I sat in the principal’s office in CEGEP (a preparatory school in Quebec for students intending to pursue university studies) and she said if you do part time, you cannot do medicine and I was crying … you can’t make that decision!,” she says now. “I want to go the Olympics but I also want this. I did all my sciences in CEGEP, I kept good grades (most students finish CEGEP in two or three years; because of her skating, it took Rochette five).”
As skating fans well know, Rochette achieved her Olympic dream twice over, in 2006 and 2010 — somewhat famously on the second occasion, but for tragic reasons. And, as it turned out, she need not have worried about the second one. The medicine program at McGill University in Montreal had what she called “this non-traditional pathway (to entry) and that’s how I got in. But doing it 10 years later in life than my co-students was a little challenging (she was 32 when she started med school in 2020).”
Now at 38 years old, Rochette is in the fourth of a five-year residency, spread around several Montreal hospitals, to complete her medical studies. Then she will officially become Dr. Rochette, although she will tell you she does carry that title at the moment (she had to be reminded about that by a colleague).
“When you are a resident, you have the title, but I’m not done (residency) yet. We do have the title and I will introduce myself as that. But officially as a woman in medicine, I learned very quickly that there’s a gender bias. My male colleagues, the same level of training as me, will be the doctor and I’m the nurse,” she explained. “That’s totally okay, but I was told by one of my staff ‘you need to introduce yourself as Doctor. That way you get more respect.’ I said, okay, I’ll try. So the next time I did and it completely changes the dynamic. The patient respects you.”
Medical students have to declare an area of specialty after school is done, and Rochette chose anesthesia care (“I’m putting people to sleep,” she says, adding with a laugh “so if I’m putting you to sleep right now, I’m doing a good job.” Editor’s note: No, she didn’t). But her experiences in medicine have already provided her with a wider scope of opportunities in her chosen field. When her exams in 2020 were postponed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she quietly answered the call to help staff long-term care homes, which were short of personnel (at the time, she declined to do media interviews about the subject, not wanting to focus any attention on herself).
“They said they needed help in the retirement homes so (I did) and pretty much all of my (classmates) went with me. I did maybe a month and a half, then we had to take our exam and start our residency,” she said. “Sometimes, it was just feeding the patients there … Very simple things, but they were missing a lot of workers.”
She has also twice had the chance to venture into remote areas of northern Quebec to help provide healthcare in those communities. It was an enriching experience for her, and very much an eye opener as well.
“The usually send doctors to give healthcare in these communities up north. I went there when I was a med student at McGill, I did one month up north. Then I had this opportunity to go again with one of my staff. You go with a surgeon and any type of surgery they need, you provide it for that week,” said Rochette. “It was the same town, Puvirnituq, so I knew a few nurses already. It’s such a cool experience. I loved it. So many dogs. But besides that, I feel like we don’t know Canada. Especially these landscapes up north and the people and the culture .. it’s very flooring to us. Of course, we hear about it, but it feels like a different country when you’re up there.
“Since then, I have been very interested in learning more about their history. You see some tough things when you go up there and you hear some tough stories. I think some great efforts have been made, but there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done. From a human standpoint, it’s a very cool experience.”
While the days are long in residency, Rochette eagerly answered the call when Skate Canada asked her to be one of the athlete ambassadors (along with Patrick Chan) for the recent World Figure Skating Championships at the Bell Centre in Montreal. It was something that was supposed to have happened in 2020, but that event, as you well know, was wiped out by the pandemic. But four years later, there she was, soaking up the atmosphere at the Bell Centre and also spreading the good word about the city she has long called home (she lives in the historic Old Port neighbourhood).
She admitted to a little bit of envy watching Canadian skaters getting to perform in front of a loud, enthusiastic audience. While Rochette did get to compete in Canada during her time — she was seventh at Worlds in Calgary in 2006 — it wasn’t truly at home for her like this one.
“It would have been amazing. I’m jealous,” she said when asked about what it might have been like to do a Worlds in Montreal herself. “The Bell Centre for me … there’s such a big hockey culture in Montreal and of course, I’ve come here to watch hockey many times. I skated in Stars On Ice here a couple of times. I think doing a World Championships here would have been amazing. But a lot of pressure. I heard the crowds when our Canadians came on the ice, so you have to be ready for that. But it’s great. I think Montreal is such a skating town. The fans are passionate and it’s a great city (spoken like a true event ambassador, right?).”
Rochette last did Stars On Ice in 2016, before med school became the primary focus of her life. She guesses the last time she performed solo was at “a couple of club shows in 2017.” The 2010 Vancouver Olympics, for which she gained international fame — Rochette’s beloved mother, Therese, died of a massive heart attack in the days before she competed, yet she bravely skated to a bronze medal — are 14 years in the past now, something she finds a little difficult to comprehend in some ways.
“It’s crazy. I can believe it, because my life is so different now. But when I step in the ice rink today and I smell the hairspray and hear the announcers, it feels the same.” she said. “But then I see new people, the new generation, and I don’t know the skaters as much.”
The Winter Games of 2010 turned out to be her final competition, though it wasn’t supposed to work out that way. But her mother’s passing changed everything, and instead she spent the next six years doing a whirlwind of shows. Although she says now there was a period of time in 2013 when she considered returning for the Sochi 2014 Olympics.
“I did train for the Japan Open that year. I did quite well in 2013, getting back in okay shape. I got my triple-triple back, a triple toe-triple toe; I was working on the flip-toe. I called Manon (Perron, her longtime coach) and she was like ‘you know, you did well in Vancouver, you had a great career, you’re doing shows. Why not stay like that?’ And she was probably right,” she said. “I don’t think going into Vancouver that I thought that would be my last competition. I thought at least one or two more Worlds. I think I would have liked to maybe get a title. But I don’t think I have any regrets.
“What happened in Vancouver … I couldn’t plan for that and it changed my whole life. I came back home to Quebec and people were recognizing me everywhere. That was weird; I wasn’t expecting that. I did other things. I did this dancing show and things outside of skating, which brought many opportunities which were great. I just wanted to just enjoy them all and I wanted to do more shows. I wanted to say yes to everything for a few years and I did that for six years.”
But Rochette grew weary of the constant travel, and knew it was finally time to start the next chapter of her life. To begin the path toward the second dream she always had since she was a young girl in small-town Quebec.
“It was time to close my suitcase. I was sick of the travelling every week. I would show up at the airport and they would say ‘where are you going?’ And I’d be like ‘I don’t know, you tell me. Check my passport, let me know where I’m going,’” she said. “One time I showed up (at the airport) and they said ‘oh, your flight was yesterday, Miss Rochette.’ That’s how bad it was. Now, I wish I had more time to travel again.”
Indeed, Rochette admits that, all these years later, she hasn’t entirely gotten past the “missing it” stage of figure skating.
“Not yet, to be honest. I think if I gone in another direction and I had more free time (I’d feel that), but now, to be honest, it’s one day at a time with medicine,” she said. “A lot more hours to do medicine than when I was skating. It’s 12-14 hour days sometimes, it’s exhausting. Once I settle down, have a job and have more free time, I’ll have more time to miss it.”
Mention one of her 50-something friends in the sport, though, and she’ll jokingly suggest that maybe she isn’t quite done with the spotlight yet (or at least we think she’s kidding about such things).
“Elvis (Stojko) is 51,” she points out. “Maybe I’ll do my double Axel again and do Stars On Ice again. Who knows? I’ll call Byron (Allen, the tour’s producer). ‘Hey, can I join the tour. Are there any spots for Joannie?’”
Hey, who could say no to an Olympic medallist, right?
One more big show to go
For many skating fans, Worlds in Montreal marked the end of the 2023-24 figure skating season. But there’s still one more big event left on the calendar.
That would be the World Synchronized Skating Championships, which run Friday and Saturday in Zagreb, Croatia. It’s an especially big deal for Canada, which has Les Supremes, from St-Leonard, Quebec, gunning for its third straight world title. The team, which is coached by Marilyn Langlois, Pascal Denis and Amélie Brochu, has had a golden season so far, winning the Canadian championships and the Budapest Cup in January. They added a silver medal at the Challenger Series Marie Lundmark Trophy in February.
Les Supremes will be joined in Zagreb by Nova Senior, which is back at the World Championships for the first time since 2019. The St-Hubert, Quebec, based team, which is coached by Dominic Barthe and Nadine Tougas, earned the silver medal at the Canadian Championships in January in Calgary. Their season also included a bronze medal at the PGE Hevelius Cup.
Short programs go on Friday, followed by the free skates on Saturday.