National Post (National Edition)
VIRTUE AND MOIR ARE POSTMEDIA’S TEAM OF THE YEAR.
OLYMPIC ICE DANCERS POSTMEDIA’S TEAM OF THE YEAR
Twenty-one years ago, Carol Moir made the Canadian sporting match of the century.
The coach at the Ilderton Skating Club asked her nephew Scott to hold Tessa Virtue’s hand because she figured it might be a strong team for ice dance competitions.
Scott, back in his more bashful days, knew the drill. He grew up steps from his hometown rink in a family that discussed figure skating around the supper table — in the hour or so before the puck dropped for the Toronto Maple Leafs game on Hockey Night in Canada.
The Virtue clan, from nearby big-city London, were athletes. They had sport in their blood.
Tessa, who loved ballet, impressed her first teachers with the uncanny ability to replicate movement almost immediately on first sight.
When she and Scott took the ice together, the talent was evident.
“We weren’t skating to win the Olympics when we were skating (then),” said Moir, now 31 years old. “Pretty much, we were worried if we could go up and get ice cream afterward.”
They quickly outgrew their home rink, moving first to Kitchener-waterloo and then to Canton, Mich., for pro-style training. Mike Slipchuk, then a coach and now Skate Canada’s director of high performance, first saw them skate on the other side of the world — at a Junior Grand Prix event in Harbin, China, in 2004.
“It was one of those things where I was well aware,” he said. “As they were young and moving up, there was always a lot of talk about them. It’s neat to see where they started and where they end up in their careers.
“It’s been an incredible journey to watch.”
How many star athletes have risen to the top of their field, then got knocked off their pedestal, took a couple of years to regroup, then returned to dominate their event like no one has done before?
That list is short. Michael Jordan, probably, after he came back to the NBA from his self-imposed hiatus to try professional baseball.
Muhammad Ali, for sure, when he reclaimed boxing’s heavyweight title.
That’s what Virtue and Moir accomplished these past two seasons. That makes them the perfect pick for Postmedia’s Team of the Year.
When they became the first North American duo to win Olympic ice dance gold in 2010 on home ice at Vancouver, they were only four years into their maddeningly platonic partnership on the senior circuit.
They still produced the performance of a lifetime, but it was understandably pushed into the national subconscious during a massive two-week Canadian gold rush capped by Sidney Crosby’s famous goal against the United States in the men’s hockey final.
Four years later in Sochi, Russia, Virtue and Moir were bested in figure skating’s most riveting rivalry. They finished second to American training mates Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who used their post-olympic Dancing With the Stars platform to become TV celebrities.
The Canadians retreated from the competitive realm for two years before beginning their legendary bounce back. This time, they moved to Montreal and constructed a familiar training pattern.
They were at the same club as the reigning world champs and their top competitors — Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France.
“They never shied away from training with the best,” Slipchuk said. “When you’re in that environment, there are no days off. It’s something they always did in their career, and with (coaches) Marie-france (Dubreuil) and Patrice (Lauzon), they re-created their skating and passion.
“The last two years was the best I’ve ever seen them. They went undefeated (in 2016-17) and then went out and won the Olympics again.”
The volume of their careers, which started with whispers and a growing buzz, developed into a deafening roar.
Virtue and Moir were Canada’s hopeful faces at the start of the 2018 Olympics in South Korea. They carried the flag into the opening ceremony of a Winter Games without NHL players.
Then they delivered a transcendent skate — their Moulin Rouge free dance — that brought their discipline to its highest level.
They have become as revered as Kurt Browning, Brian Orser, Elvis Stojko, Liz Manley and Jamie SaleDavid Pelletier are in the country and figure skating world.
“The one thing that will always stick out to me is they wanted every piece of information to make them the best,” Slipchuk said. “Here’s the best dance team we’ve ever seen and they were always open and wanting advice any time we brought in officials, judges or technical people. They were so respectful of everyone there to help them.
“They’re professionals and perfect ambassadors for their sport.”
The 29-year-old Virtue was selected by ESPN as one of the most-recognizable female athletes in the world. People worldwide continue to be stumped by how her relationship with Moir isn’t romantic.
They’re flattered by it, but that’s not what makes them tick.
“If we can inspire young people to follow their dreams and believe in themselves, how fortunate are we that we can have that connection?” Virtue said.
Every so often, we get a glimpse of tremendous chemistry — from the way the Golden State Warriors move a basketball to John Tavares and Mitch Marner creating a goal in Toronto. But those partnerships won’t last two decades.
This one did.