A conversation with ... Patrick Chan
The three-time World champion dishes on his rekindled love for skating, his post-retirement struggles, a new job and his young son taking his first steps on the ice
You know that old saying about riding a bike? That you never really forget how once you learn, no matter how long you go between rides. Take that mindset into figure skating, and you know how Patrick Chan feels right now about the sport that defined him for much of his life.
Except, take it a little further than that. The ice was always a comfort zone for Chan, a place where he could shine like no place else. So yeah, it was nice to find that spot again. But the Stars On Ice tour back in the spring — his first appearance with that troupe since 2019 — did more than just that. It also rekindled a love for skating that had waned to some extent in the years since his retirement from competition following the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. But the fire has been lit again.
“If anything, this past five years since retiring, it’s been a rollercoaster emotionally, but I think I’ve come to a point where I’m almost falling back in love with it and realizing how unique and special it is, and how it makes my feel,” Chan said over the phone from his Vancouver home. “I’m reliving a new appreciation for the sport and what I was able to accomplish.”
And as those who follow the sport well know, Chan accomplished plenty — 10 Canadian men’s titles, three World championships and a pair of silver medals (one individual, one team) at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. He capped it all off with a gold medal as part of a veritable Canadian all-star team in PyeongChang, a result that left him giddy with joy.
Then it was time to move on. At a retirement celebration held shortly after the Games in downtown Toronto, Chan’s many special moments were wrapped up in a video that played to the One Republic song “I Lived” that features the chorus “I did it all.” Chan seemed content that day, ready to move into whatever adventures life would bring him and his then-girlfriend, now wife Elizabeth Putnam as they settled in Vancouver and made it home.
Chan kept his hand and his talents in skating through things like Stars On Ice … until 2020, that is, when a global pandemic shelved the tour for two years. By the time it came back in 2022, Chan and Putnam were still getting used to life with their young son, Oliver, so he had to take a pass. But when this year’s tour became known as beloved Canadian legend Kurt Browning’s farewell to SOI after 30 years … well, Chan knew he had to be there. The four-time World champion has meant so much to him over the years.
‘More emotional than I expected’
“It was quite emotional, more emotional than I expected. Just reminiscing and thinking about how he has been a constant in my career, as a competitive skater and then a professional career,” Chan said. “You get used to these special people being in your life and showing up year after year. Then when it comes down to his last one, you start to reflect and remember those special moments, and the things he had taught me along the way.
“From meeting him for the first time at the Granite Club, when I was taking from Mr. (Osborne) Colson, all the way being a world champion and being on Stars On Ice as a regular. It was emotional and I will really miss him …he brought a different level of energy on the ice, so you can imagine the energy he brought behind the scenes.”
Chan especially savoured the moments when he could sit back and listen to Browning and his old rival/longtime friend Elvis Stojko trade war stories, so to speak. “Those are the golden nuggets that only very few people get to witness and hear about. I really enjoyed that tour but yeah, it was emotional.”
Little did he realize what the opportunity would do for his own skating. The whole process of getting ready for the tour, of developing two show numbers with Putnam … it was all so invigorating. So much so that he let SOI tour director Byron Allen know that he’s up for more, if he’ll have him again. Given Chan’s reputation with skating fans in Canada, you’d think that’s an easy yes. Read this quote and you’ll know Chan is all in again.
“I would love to come back. What I mentioned earlier about falling back in love with skating, that really happened during the choreography process of coming up with my numbers, Liz and I working together,” Chan said. “Once the pieces were done and I was skating them. I obviously got back into shape and that whole process was hard but by the end, I was like ‘wow, this is so special.’ And I had the contrast of going from my real life job. I would skate in the morning and then go to my job after, and the contrast made me realize how amazing it is to have the skill to do this, and to be in the mindset of being an artist and working the body, and listening to music and then embodying the music with the movement.
“That was a process that I think I took for granted really quickly in my competitive career. To rekindle that at a different time in my life, where there was no competitive pressure or outside pressure — it was purely for my own desire and my own personal accomplishment — I loved it, I loved it so much. I missed being on the road, so it was nice to go back. It was like putting on an old shoe. It felt so comfortable. The first few shows, I was a little nervous, jumping in the lights and being on the ice by myself and all eyes were on you. But I quickly figured out how to deal with it and got into a routine.”
Chan had two solos in the tour. He skated to “Wicked Game,” by Irish musician James Vincent McMorrow (“a very slow, introspective piece”). The second, set to “I Hear a Symphony,” by Cody Fry, was put together with Oliver, his now two-year-old son, clearly in mind.
“That was a bit of a dedication to Ollie and how life has changed, and now I hear a symphony because you’re in my life. That was kind of the concept,” Chan said.
There was pressure on both ends of the process of building the programs, he admitted. Not just for him, and how he wanted to present himself on the ice, but for Putnam as well. Choreography is her livelihood; she’s been working at various local clubs in the Vancouver area for eight or nine years. But this would be the most public display of her work.
Pressure and expectations
“Honestly, I’m not going to sugarcoat it … it was hard at the beginning. Skating for both of us brings us each of our own, I guess you could call it baggage. And our own raw emotions come through. Just having done the sport for so long, we’re both impatient when it comes to getting things done,” Chan said. “Liz’s process is nothing like my process, and I rely on her because she’s the creative mind and I’m a bit of the muse. I love having that dynamic, it’s so great. Of course, there’s moments when you get frustrated, but that’s so normal, and I would be lying if I said it was a smooth process. There’s pressure, there’s expectations on my end, and especially on Liz’s end because she’s realizing her work is going to be displayed to the public.”
There was also the matter of keeping Oliver’s needs in mind. Some days, Putnam would work with her son strapped to her chest. Chan said things got “chaotic” at times, but it all worked out in the end. The numbers suited Chan and he made them shine for the audience. And like he said earlier, he enjoyed every moment of being on the ice again.
By now, you’ve probably had this thought and I did, too. Why doesn’t Chan go all-in on skating and do that thing everyone dreams about — take something you’re passionate about and find a way to get paid for it (as a coach, show performer, whatever). It’s a debate he’s wrestled with in his mind for quite some time now. And there’s still no clear, final answer.
“I’m not going to say it will never happen. Liz and I have been doing seminars all over. We got asked to do a seminar in Kelowna and that was fun. I enjoyed doing that. I’ve had this dialogue back and forth over the past three or four years, whether I want to keep pursuing a different career outside of skating. Sometimes, coaching would be the easier choice, right? I have a name, I have a brand of some kind in the sport. It’s the most logical (choice), and if I look at all of my peers from the Olympic team, they’re doing that. Scott Moir has his own school and Eric (Radford) is coaching in Montreal. It’s always in the back of my mind … maybe it would be easier on myself to go into coaching and start my own school. I’ve never said a hard no to it.”
For the time being, though, Chan has immersed himself into the financial world. He gave commercial real estate a try for a few years, eventually decided it wasn’t for him, and next week will move down a different path as an intern in the Vancouver office of Nicola Wealth, a financial advisory company. He’s excited to see where this new road will take him.
“I’m just a curious guy, I want to have this hunger to learn and gain new skills. I don’t just want to rest on my skating ability and my skating knowledge. I want to gain financial knowledge and learn more about what’s the best way to invest the money that I made from skating, for example,” he said. “That’s just a curious question that I have and that’s what drives me. And it’s hard. I hate it sometimes … it’s like, why am I putting myself through this? But those are moments where you really learn and you grow as a person.”
Being a father for the first time is part of that growth, too. Chan admits “I never really imagined myself as a parent. I wasn’t fully prepared and you can never be fully prepared, honestly.” But you hear Oliver’s voice over the phone as he sits on the beside his dad, and listen to Chan’s reaction to it all, and you know it’s something that brings him great joy.
“It’s been amazing to see him grow. He just turned two last Monday,” Chan said. “Just to see that change and those years go by … it’s been a lot of fun.”
But it’s also a part of the whirlwind of change that engulfed Chan in the years since he retired from skating. Every elite athlete goes through it, having to navigate life beyond the regimented world they got to know so well and the people they relied on it to manage it for them. He’s turned to outside help and it’s making a difference in helping him sort things out.
“I started working with a therapist right after the pandemic, just while I was dealing with changing careers and diving into a new career in commercial real estate, and some of the frustrations and the doubts I had. The questions that come up as well. Do I go back to coaching? Why am I doing this? I have no value than being a skater or being a coach,” said Chan, , who turns 33 on New Year’s Eve. “Those are the dark thoughts that start to creep in. Then you add being a parent, that whole new dynamic. It’s a lot of change in a very short period of time Over the past five years, a lot has happened. Sometimes, it’s just giving yourself the time to process it and understand it.
“You’re having to stand on your own two feet. When you’ve gone to the highest level in your sport, you have people around you who are catering to you. They’re getting you any support you need, whether it’s for physical training or mental training or maybe support financially. All those things are laid out for you and you don’t even have to think about them. And then when you’re done, you’re left to your own devices. You have to figure it out on your own. I’m so grateful I had Liz (who was an international-level pairs skater herself) … she was seeing what she had gone through 5-10 years before me, so that was extremely helpful. I can’t imagine what it’s like if you don’t have a close support system, someone to check in on you and someone to vent to. Those are important things to do to help you process your emotions, the depression and the lows of leaving and retiring from your sport. In figure skating, there’s very little support after you’re done. Once you leave the competitive main stage, there’s not many people checking in on you.”
The good news is, Chan now feels like the waters are starting to calm a little more. He’s ridden through the roughest waves and now he can channel his hunger to learn new things toward something different in the financial world.
“It’s really a process and I feel like I’m over the worst part of it … it’s been five years. That’s part of my motivation in gaining a new skill in financial advising. It’s something for me to strive for, kind of a new project and a new way for me to develop my personal skills,” he said. “That will bring back that feeling of accomplishment and having something to offer by helping people and guiding people through certain parts of their financial life. That’s something that is appealing to me. Coaching was one way of doing that as well. I think I always knew that it’s always going to be there but while I’m young and energetic, I’m excited to go out and explore new skills and gain those skills.”
Not that he’ll stray far from the ice, though a different kind of skating also intrigues him now. He spends time in the summer teaching power skating to young hockey players in Vancouver. Chan also spends part of his Sundays playing hockey in a “beer league” of sorts with some buddies. It’s all in good fun, and the coaching is “a good way to make some extra money here and there, some grocery money. I get to go on the ice and shoot the puck around with some talented boys. It’s something I’ll keep doing.”
Back at Skate Canada
He also hasn’t forgotten where he came from. Chan is always at the ready to help out figure skating in Canada and heartily accepted the chance to be the event ambassador for Skate Canada International, which runs from Oct. 27-29 at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Centre in Vancouver (he’ll also serve in the same capacity, alongside another Canadian skating great, Joannie Rochette, for the 2024 World Championships in March in Montreal).
“This sport has given me so much and I want to be there,” Chan said. “And there’s a bit of pride, being a Vancouverite now. I’m very much proud of where I live and I hope that I can make it a good experience for everybody.”
Naturally, Chan is most interested in watching the men’s event at Skate Canada, and three of the best of Canada’s current crop of men — Roman Sadovsky, Conrad Orzel and Wesley Chiu — will all be there. He is no doubt aware that, since his run of three World titles from 2011 through 2013, no Canadian men has ascended to the top of the podium at that global event, a drought that his reached a decade. But Chan figures there is something to build on with having a group of contending men, rather than just one.
“At this event, we’ll have Wesley, Conrad and Roman, with Roman being the most experienced. I’m excited because I think Conrad and Wesley are going to help Roman; they’ll push him and keep him hungry,” said Chan, who’s especially familiar with Chiu, who trains in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond with coach Keegan Murphy. “I see him once in awhile. Keegan will bring me into the rink and I’ll have a chat with him. I’m really impressed with his progression, year after year. I saw him a month ago, before he went off to a Challenger, and I saw a lot of improvement over last year, even.
“That in itself is exciting and it gives me a little bit of hope for the future for the Canadian men. And then there’s also Stephen Gogolev, who’s also in the mix. That’s four already, that’s a great spot to be in. Now the question is how they’ll develop over time.”
And Chan sees a wonderful opportunity for them all, with two-time national champion Keegan Messing now retired and the Canadian title seemingly up for grabs at the national championships in Calgary in January.
“If I look back at my own career, after 2010 Olympics, 2011 and 2012 is when I really ramped up the level of my skating and my international results really peaked. It just really inspired me to work harder and bring something new to the table,” he said. “I hope these guys really feel that now that Keegan has retired, it’s wide open and it’s for anyone’s taking. Now it’s who is going to be the one to cement their place as the leader of the field in Canada.”
Perhaps there’s no male skater, though, that interests Chan more than the little one in his household. Oliver is taking his first steps on the ice, and his two skating parents smile a lot about seeing that.
“We actually just got Oliver on skates about a month ago. Liz will be over there (at a community rink across the street from where they live) coaching and we’ll show up for the last half hour and get him on the ice,” Chan said. “That’s been a lot of fun for me; just watching him make those little incremental improvements has been so entertaining to witness. I feel like the more he gets involved and the more that he wants to skate, I will be there any time and try to teach him this amazing sport.”
Now, what if Oliver someday says “daddy, I want to be just like you.” Chan chuckles a bit nervously when that thought is presented to him.
“In my mind, it will be ‘oh dear, here we go again. Let’s hold on tight here.’ But I will never deny him the desire to do something, because my parents and Liz’s parents supported us without a doubt, without any hesitation. So I think it’s only fair,” he said. “I would never tell him this, but it wouldn’t be our first choice to put him in skating just because we’ve lived it, we know the challenges. The barrier to entry and to get to the Olympic level is just ridiculous. I see it now with the little bit of coaching that I do. My god, why are these parents putting their kids into such a difficult sport? I’d love him to learn a team sport because there’s a bigger social aspect to it. I think that’s such an important skill to learn at a young age.
“But we play music in the house and he’s mimicking the latest choreographic moves he’s seen that day. He musical, I think he’s definitely co-ordinated. But he’s got to enjoy it. There’s days when we bring him to the rink and he’ll hate it. So it’s ‘okay, today’s not the day.’ I just hope he gets to glide and enjoy speed and all the things that got Liz and I into loving the sport.”
And Chan will be right there beside him, a reminder of how much there is to love about it all. Especially when you get a second chance at it.
Around the Canadian skating world
After a bit of a rough start, it was one roaring finish for ice dancers Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen at the Finlandia Trophy last weekend in Espoo.
The reigning Canadian champions found themselves in seventh place after the rhythm dance — a fall on a swizzle sequence resulted in a zero score for the element, leaving them with a 67.67-point total for the segment (their personal best score for the rhythm dance is 86.28, by comparison).
However, the free dance was a much different story. Fournier Beaudry and Soerensen, skating to “Notre-Dame de Paris” (or, “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”), posted a 120.89 score to win the free dance and rocket up to the bronze-medal spot at the Challenger Series event.
“This was our first-time out this year and we felt really good,” said Soerensen afterward, per Skate Canada. “We haven’t had the mileage we would like on both programs, but today with our free program we were so happy to show a good program and to show the potential of our programs this year. We’re really happy with the material that we have, and we just enjoy it so much every day.”
The Canadian duo, which has spoken of “having really high goals this season,” will be back in Espoo for a Grand Prix event in November (they’re also slated to compete at a GP in France).
Finlandia Trophy also represented the Challenger Series debut for Fiona Bombardier of Newmarket, Ont., who placed ninth in the women’s event. Brooke McIntosh of Toronto, Ont., and Benjamin Mimar of Terrebonne, Que., were sixth in pairs, while Gabriel Blumenthal of Burnaby, B.C., finished 12th among the men.