JOANNIE ROCHETTE
Daring to DREAM BIG After Skate Canada Win
By Rob Brodie
Photos by Susan D. Russell
What a weekend to be part of the home team at Skate Canada. Even better to be Joannie Rochette, who made a rather bold statement about first impressions with a showstopping performance in her initial appearance of what she hopes will truly be a season to remember.
It was an event that seemed much less likely to produce such a shining Canadian moment after reigning World men’s champion Jeffrey Buttle shockingly announced his retirement less than two months before he was to be a headliner at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa. Then an injury stripped the competition of World silver medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, seemingly ensuring that the red maple leaf would not fly over the ice dance podium.
By the end of the weekend, there was Patrick Chan, the next great hope in Canadian men’s skating, savoring a gold medal that he felt fortunate to win. Then there were precocious teenagers Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier — who hope to follow the path blazed by the still very youthful Virtue and Moir — ascending to the silver-medal position in their first senior Grand Prix event.
Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison were a slightly better short program away from claiming Skate Canada gold themselves, but their silver (behind Russia’s Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov) still offered up a fine start to the Canadian medal parade.
Nobody, though, opened eyes more widely than Rochette, whose dominant free skate not only turned the ladies’ competition into a rout — her 188.89-point overall total was more than 25 points better than that of silver medalist Fumie Suguri of Japan — but signaled it might indeed be her time to take a serious run at the World Championship podium this March in Los Angeles.
BIG DREAMS
“She’s very well-positioned for the balance of the year,” Skate Canada CEO William Thompson said in assessing the performance of his skater at the conclusion of the competition.
Even Rochette, who finished a career-best fifth at the 2008 World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, is daring to dream with a confidence that now oozes from a skater who sometimes lacked it during the biggest moments in the past.
“I think [a World medal] is a goal this season,” she said. “We don’t think of the podium specifically. We just talk about building my confidence and improving my component [scores].
“I want to have the two same performances I had [at Skate Canada]. The same thing, the same calmness with all my elements, and skating it perfectly at Worlds. That’s all I’m asking from myself and then the results will take care of themselves. If it comes, it comes, and I will do everything I can to get on that podium.”
Almost from the moment she arrived in Ottawa, there was a different air about the sometimes-shy Rochette from tiny Ile-Dupas, Que. Rochette, who will turn 23 in mid-January, turned her programs over to two new choreographers this season — former World ice dance champion Shae-Lynn Bourne for the short and Lori Nichol for the free. That change seems to have unlocked a side of her skating that Rochette says allows her to be free and relaxed on the ice.
There has been change in her personal life as well, with Rochette now living with her boyfriend, short-track speed skater Francois-Louis Tremblay, whom she first met at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino.
“I’m still the same person I always was,” she told IFS a few days after her Skate Canada triumph before she headed off to Paris for Trophée Eric Bompard — and undoubtedly a rather healthy round of shopping. “I’m feeling more confident because my training is going better. I changed the way I was training. I used different choreographers, so I have different influences this year.
“Being on my own with my boyfriend, that’s a big change in my life, and I’m feeling a lot more mature and responsible in life in general.”
NEW SEASON, NEW MANTRA
Rochette also speaks of staying calm, her mantra for the season ahead. She spent time with a sports psychologist and read some books to strengthen her psyche.
As a new season loomed, the four-time Canadian champion could not wait to get started. While she cannot explain the feeling, she clearly embraces it and knows it is there.
“When I was younger, I was always excited to go away to a competition, pack my stuff and get on the airplane,” she said. “I feel like the past two years, I just wanted to stay at home. This year, I feel differently. I’m going to Paris next week and I’m already excited to leave. It’s more gratifying, getting this excitement back, and this week [at Skate Canada] I was actually excited to be there.”
This was not just about being there, but about making a loud statement to open the new campaign. Consider that mission accomplished, and in a major way.
“First of all, I wanted to be on the podium,” she said of her goal at Skate Canada. “But I knew I had the chance to win. I just wanted to have a great beginning to my season.”
She added an exclamation point with a free program that, Rochette confided afterward, she briefly contemplated abandoning shortly after the serious work began on it.
“I’m telling you, this program this summer, I couldn’t get through it,” she said of the piece set to music from Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez.”
“I was dead at the third jump because I didn’t have many crosscuts and didn’t see how it was going to work,” she added. “The first week, I said [to coach Manon Perron], ‘I think we have to change.’ It was real different for me to only have some round crosscuts and connecting steps, and then have to jump.
“You have to gain speed with it and just that for me was harder, but the work we did on the components really paid off.”
Indeed, Rochette earned personal-best component scores for both her programs, which set her far apart from Suguri and bronze-medal winner Alissa Czisny of the United States (157.92).
HAPPY TO BE BACK
Still, it was a welcome return to the Grand Prix podium for both Suguri and Czisny, who have both enjoyed previous success at Skate Canada. Suguri was the silver medalist in 2006 (again finishing behind Rochette) while Czisny won the gold medal in 2005.
“I have to be thankful I got this for my confidence,” said the 28-year-old Suguri, who has not qualified for the World Championships since earning the silver medal behind Kimmie Meissner in 2006 in Calgary.
“Last year, I went through a difficult time,” said Czisny, who works under the tutelage of 1988 Olympic champion Brian Boitano and his coach Linda Leaver. “I was trying to change the technique on my jumps to make them better and it took a while for them to feel better.”
CHAN’S GOLDEN EFFORT
Say this much about Patrick Chan. The young man knows how to spin an analogy or two.
Game shows and felines both came to mind after Chan, the 18-year-old phenom from Toronto, managed to land on top of the men’s podium after a free skate that did not include a clean triple Axel. However, with 215.45 points, he outlasted a pair of Americans, Ryan Bradley (212.75) and Evan Lysacek (209.27).
“I was telling Don (Laws, his coach) in the kiss and cry that cats have nine lives and I just used one of them. Or I just used up one of my lifelines,” Chan said after his performance. “All I can say is I might not be so lucky next time.”
Count on there being plenty of next times to come, though. Less than a month after his 17th birthday, Chan stunned the Canadian skating world last January in Vancouver by upsetting Buttle to become the country’s youngest men’s national champion. Later in March, he placed ninth in his World Championship debut in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The mere thought of it all was enough to leave the twenty-something pair who stood below Chan on the podium shaking their heads at the post-event press conference.
“He is a super talented kid,” said Bradley, 25, about the Canadian teenager. “He goes out there, and he just looks like he is really supposed to be out there on the ice. Everything looks so natural, and that’s hard to compete [against].”
The real surprise of the event was the victory by Shawn Sawyer in the free program. The unheralded Canadian stood seventh after the short program out of the mix, and then posted a 142.36-point total in the free that boosted him up to fifth in the final standings, less than two points shy of the podium.
MISHAP IN WARM-UPS
It had all the makings of a double disaster. Instead, Yuko Kawaguchi and Keauna McLaughlin dusted themselves off after a nasty collision in the warm-up to earn themselves podium positions in the pairs event.
Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov snatched the gold by a scant 0.43 points over Canadians Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison. McLaughlin and partner Rockne Brubaker of the United States, who stood second after the short program, took the bronze.
Afterwards, everyone wanted to talk about the mishap that could have derailed the hopes of the Russians, who placed fourth behind bronze-medal winners Dubé and Davison at the Gothenburg Worlds.
Kawaguchi could not help smiling about it all afterward. “I told myself, ‘That’s okay. I’m fine,’” she said about the collision. “It did not hurt me. It didn’t affect me at all.”
“I was a little shaken up after I fell,” McLaughlin said. “My back hurt a little bit but I tried to block it out and focus really hard.”
Meanwhile, Dubé and Davison were left to lament a potential shot at gold that was undone by a few key mistakes in the short program, which left the Canadians more than five points to make up in the free. They admitted afterward that they learned something from the position they placed themselves in heading into the free skate.
“What it taught us is that yesterday was yesterday, and today can still be our day,” Davison said. “One performance doesn’t really rely on the other. It is two different programs.
“I think we did a good job of learning from what happened [in the short] and going out, being even more aggressive, attacking our program and getting our job done one element at a time.”
NEW ERA DAWNS
The last day of the competition might be summed up as a day of firsts. Meryl Davis and Charlie White captured their first senior Grand Prix gold medal, while the Canadian team of Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier medaled in their first senior Grand Prix event.
It is safe to say, it was a day neither couple will forget anytime soon. Davis and White racked up 178.89 points to comfortably outdistance Crone and Poirier (162.13), who stood fifth after the original dance. The bronze went to France’s Nathalie Péchalat and Fabian Bourzat (159.06), who hoped to challenge the Americans for the gold but went home disappointed.
“I tried to smile [on the podium],” Péchalat said afterward. “I could not. I’m sorry.”
No such worries for Davis and White, who were beaming after winning the gold in front of an appreciative Canadian audience.
“It means a lot,” White said. “It’s nice to see all the hard work we put into it pay off. Going into each and every competition, generally we don’t worry too much about the placement. It’s not a good thing to get caught up in.
“We just set standards for ourselves in terms of how we want to skate, what we want to think about and coming out of it happy with how we skated. But getting first place is wonderful, especially in Canada.”
Meanwhile, Crone and Poirier set themselves up for a season they hope will lead to their first appearance at Worlds. They missed a trip to Gothenburg by less than a point last season.
The waiting was the hardest part in Ottawa. After posting their score, Crone and Poirier had to cool their heels while the rest of their field competed. Their emotional roller coaster was displayed for all to see on the Scotiabank Place scoreboard.
“All we could do was sit there and watch and wait,” Poirier said afterward. “The waiting sometimes is so agonizing. You just sit there and sit there and sit there.”
By the end the Canadians stood taller than all but Davis and White, delivering another milestone moment in their young, still burgeoning careers.
Skate Canada stays in the province of Ontario in 2009, heading west to Kitchener. Dates for the competition are Nov. 19-22, three weeks later than usual because of a senior Grand Prix schedule revamped for an Olympic season.
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