Chan content with retirement decision
CHAN MOVING ON ‘WITH A HUGE SMILE,’ HOPES TO OPEN SKATING SCHOOL IN VANCOUVER
In Patrick Chan’s perfect future, he’s running a skating school in Vancouver with girlfriend Liz Putnam, the two are living in a million-dollar apartment in the city’s lovely Kitsilano neighbourhood, and he’s enjoying a wildly successful career in commercial real estate.
It’s been two months since Chan took one final spin around the competitive rink, but the threetime world champion has barely paused to reflect. He’s loving looking forward.
“I’m just running around town doing what I want to do, and moving on with a huge smile on my face. I feel good and light,” Chan said, ahead of Monday’s retirement announcement.
“I had three or four things lined up that I wanted to just learn about, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m meeting people and picking their brain and understanding what life is like. I don’t think I had any sense of that when I was in the competitive world. It’s awesome. I’m just a sponge again. I’m just absorbing and learning.”
The 27-year-old from Toronto, who sat out a season after the 2014 Sochi Olympics, was ninth in men’s singles at the Pyeongchang Olympics. But his terrific long program in the team event all but guaranteed Canada gold before dance duo Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir even stepped on the ice.
If he’d had any doubts about the comeback, that golden moment erased them.
“It would have been easy to be complacent and say ‘I don’t care, I’m just here to support the team and be a part of it,’ and I could’ve fallen back and said ‘I’ll let Tessa and Scott help me through this.’ I knew that this was my chance to shine and chance to prove I still had something to give.
“When I sat in that kiss and cry with my two different coaches right next to me smiling and having the entire team behind me as well, and having them all react to me winning . . . gosh that was a better feeling I think than winning individual gold. It’s a huge rush to see all these people that are genuinely smiling, and genuinely cheering, and they’re ecstatic, that’s so cool. To be able to say ‘I did it, we did it,’ that’s a very very special feeling.”
Chan had planned his retirement announcement for Sunday at Flat Rock Cellars in Jordan, Ont. Chan launched his ice wine “On Ice” in partnership with Flat Rock in 2015. But the weekend’s ice storm forced a rescheduling to Monday in Toronto.
The 10-time Canadian champion considered retiring after his heartbreaking silver-medal performance at the 2014 Sochi Games. And while his return wasn’t what he’d envisioned, he’s glad he came back.
“It wouldn’t have been fair to end after 2014, because I didn’t really have a good understanding of who I was and what my aspirations were and what I wanted from the sport. It just didn’t feel fulfilling, skating didn’t fulfil me completely.
“Now I basically have three highlights to my life: doing shows (like Stars on Ice), getting familiar with the commercial real estate world, which has been a lot of fun, and finally the third dream would be to have the skating rink going and building a skating program,” Chan said.
“I say to myself ‘Let’s see how everything unfolds one thing at a time . . . That’s a reason why this time around just feels right. It wouldn’t have felt right after Sochi.”