Dance duo will miss Babcock’s presence

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. Even the world’s ice dance champs will be affected by the NHL’s refusal to participate in the 2018 Olympics.

Gold-medal favourites Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir indicated it will be strange to compete at the Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, without one of their good friends and supporters — Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock — rooting them on in person in February.

“Our biggest loss on a personal level is (Babcock),” Moir said Wednesday during Skate Canada’s season-launching high-performance training camp at the Hershey Centre.

“There are many Canadians who will talk about the presence and impact he has had on high-level athletes across sport — not just hockey guys.”

Moir, who won gold with Virtue in 2010 and silver in 2014, praised the two-time Olympic champion men’s hockey coach for embracing the spirit of the Games and ensuring his band of Canadian NHL stars did the same.

“Mike would come into the gym and talk to us,” Moir said. “I know he did the same with the curlers and (bobsled champs) Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse. We hear stories from 2006 and whatever from the old hockey teams, but we felt Mike really made me a part of the team and they were always in the room with us. It’ll be hard. There were guys we’ve been to every Games with (who are not going this time).”

He will be, however, one longdistance phone call away.

“We’re hoping he’ll be on speed dial with us,” Virtue said. “We’ll miss him there in the village, but we’ll be in touch.”

As a lifelong Toronto hockey fan now living and training in Montreal, Moir is a little pleased Babcock will be freed up to use all his energy and focus on making the Maple Leafs better this year.

“That’s part of it and there’s things you can’t control (in the Olympic process),” he said. “I guess (Babcock) will just have to make the Leafs win the Stanley Cup and make up for it for me.”