Interviewer: So what’s your favorite thing to do in the summer when you’re not skating?

Patrick: Well, like I said, I do a lot of wakesurfing, so I’ve been doing that… playing golf, and starting to play some tennis again. Golf and tennis have been sports that I played since I was a kid and I keep going back and forth between playing it some summer and not play them… playing them some summers, and this is one of them. I just feel like, being an Olympic year, I want to kind of get away from micromanaging everything and getting too much inside my own head, and I like getting out of the rink… getting out of my own head by staying active and playing, challenging myself in different sports.

Interviewer: Yeah, that sounds fine, and those are two really fun sports… I don’t personally play tennis, but it’s a lot of fun to watch, so I was watching Wimbledon this summer. Did you check it out?

Patrick: I did. Roger Federer winning his… I think 19th or… is it 19th Grand Slam… and he’s an idol of mine. I met him once at the Rogers Cup here in Toronto, which was a highlight. That was so, so cool. He is… he’s kind of a role model for me, like, who I’d want to be on and off the playing field. So…

Interviewer: That’s pretty cool. So, you watch tennis. You watch any other sports?

Patrick: Hockey. I watch some hockey, some baseball… I don’t own cable anymore. I don’t own cable at my place anymore, so I don’t, I can’t, I don’t have access to all of the big games. But getting into, yeah, basketball as well. I follow the finals with the Cavs and the Warriors, which was interesting.

Interviewer: Cool, awesome, well, also tomorrow is a pretty big sporting day for yourself…

Patrick: Yes. (laughs)

Interviewer: Patrick Chan is going to be throwing the first pitch at the Jays game. Are you excited? What is your training program been like? Let us know.

Patrick: Yes, I’ve been bench pressing a lot… 450… been breaking in my glove, my new glove, which is actually serious. I got a new glove for this occasion. Been practicing my four-seam fastball… measuring out how long is 60 feet; seems very intimidating. I feel… I keep going back and forth between should I throw from the pitcher’s mound or should I throw from a bit short of the pitcher’s mound. I think I’m gonna go from the pitcher’s mound.

Interviewer: I think you should go for it. I think you should get the full experience of pitching at the Jays…

Patrick: Yes. Yes, I should. No matter what happens, embrace it. If it goes into the ground, I’m just gonna walk away in shame. (laughs) But if Mark, I think, Mark did it from the mound. So if he can do it, I could do it. But I just… or maybe I should throw a curve ball, I’ve been thinking of throwing a curve… I’m just kidding, I’m not going to throw a curve ball.

Interviewer: I’d be pretty impressed. I’m like, okay, wait. Maybe we’re gonna get some like, double sort of action.

Patrick: Yes, yes. (laughs)

Interviewer: Road to Tokyo 2020.

Patrick: My friend was telling me there’s some girls in… I think it’s in Korea or Japan, where they’ll do like… some of the gymnasts, they’ll like do a trick… they’re like an aerial, and then they throw the pitch. Yeah, it’s pretty unreal, and I was like… wow.

Interviewer: Do the trick?

Patrick: No, no. He’s like, you should do a triple jump on the ground… I’m like, no, I’m not going to dig that.

Interviewer: That would be really hard.

Patrick: I mean, I could do it. I just think it’s kind of ridiculous. I just don’t think…

Interviewer: And because especially because you’re working towards becoming a professional pitcher, you want people to take you seriously…

Patrick: Yeah, take me seriously, exactly.

Interviewer: You bought a glove, so like, step one…

Patrick: Yep, I’ll get a jersey, hopefully… I’ll get a hat, guys, please? Can someone get me… Blue Jays… Someone from the Blue Jays, can I get a hat and a jersey? (laughs)

Interviewer: Hopefully we’ll stay tuned see if this happens. We’ll follow up…

Patrick: Eighty-eight. 88’s my number, by the way. (laughs)

Interviewer: Yes, hopefully, that seems like it will be really fun. We’ll check it out. We’ll make sure we follow you on that. Okay, so this summer you have been training for your Jays pitch, also training regularly. How is that going?

Patrick: Uh… frustrating… a mix of anxiety, stress, happiness, sadness…

Interviewer: All of the things that come with…

Patrick: All of the things that come with it, yes. My training this summer has been very different, though. It’s been… I’ve been trying to honestly, having self-talks with myself. Just, keeping myself calm. Because the last two games, the last two experiences leading up to them have been very micromanaged, and very intense… which, it works for some athletes. It does not work for me. This is my third games that I kind of want to go into these ones with a different sense of attack, a different type of attack and a different feeling of confidence, knowing what works for me and sticking to that plan, and not necessarily having to copy what has worked well for other athletes… ’cause for me, like, I want to enjoy the summer while I have it, and I’ve come a long way… this is many, many years of training and I know what to do, I know what needs to be done, and it will get done… But, I don’t need to go beyond that to make myself feel like I need to do more this year because it’s an Olympic year… because I felt like that actually did hurt me in the other Olympic lead ups.

Interviewer: Well, at least you’re going into it with a game plan, and you’ve figured out what’s worked for you based on what didn’t work in the past, so that’s really great as well.

Patrick: Absolutely, yeah.

Interviewer: So your new program is coming up. Have you thought about music yet?

Patrick: Yes, so my musics are… my pieces are very interesting this year. But for short program, it is “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. And then… which is a classic 70s rock band… acoustic type song, which is very, very fun. I enjoy it a lot every time I hear it. And the second one is my long program is “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley. It was a bit of a… the idea, the concept was a bit of a tipping of the hat to Leonard Cohen who passed away. Being Canadian, also, just the piece has a bit of an air of this is the finale and this is kind of the piece to do at the Olympics. It would be quite… it will be quite an emotional program for an emotional moment, right?

Interviewer: Yeah, that’s great. Well, it sounds like those are two really great picks. How do you go about choosing your music?

Patrick: So, it’s different for every athlete. It’s a common question. Some athletes, for example, like the ice dancers… so Tessa and Scott, for example, or Andrew and Kaitlyn are very involved in the music choice. They pick the music, they have… they are probably involved 90 percent of the time. And then the coach is more of a secondary… and the choreographer take a secondary position to that. For me, for singles, where unfortunately, it’s become… singles is more focused on the jumps, and so the music and musicality and rhythm and the role that music plays in our program isn’t as important. So I usually leave it up to my choreographer and my coach to pick… to first set the vision, and the idea of concept of what we want to try and show this year, and then we go from there and they pick a few songs and then I’ll narrow it down from there.

Interviewer: Okay, cool. So we’ve seen in the past different songs that you’ve chosen. What music do you like to listen to when you’re not training?

Patrick: I’ve been listening to a lot of… I listen to EDM sometimes… Yeah, EDM is kind of what I like to listen to while I’m driving or warming up… just cause it’s… it’s got… Now, I have limits, like Skrillex is a little too much, so it’s like a little, like a balance, like a step down from Skrillex and deadmau5.

Interviewer: So who do you really like?

Patrick: Who am I listening to lately? (thinks) Like, Quinn. Quinn is really good. I don’t know if you know them. Odesza is really good, I like Odesza. It’s just, it’s monotonous, right? But that’s kind of nice to have when you’re training, just because it kind of gets you in that zone of just getting your stuff done. And… ’cause it’s always hard to going, and once I get going, then I start rolling into it and… you know, speaking specifically to working out off-ice… On-ice, it’s not up to me. Like I… there are so many people on the ice, that usually, it’s people’s programs that get played. So we don’t get to just jam out on a session, unfortunately.

Interviewer: Save that for offline training.

Patrick: Yeah, offline… Hip hop, I still love hip hop, I go between EDM and hip hop… Like Jay-Z’s new album is really, really good. It is, yeah. Kanye West has always been… as much as I hate him, he’s really a good artist (grins) and he knows what he’s doing. Yeah, so I mix it up, depending on my mood. And then I have like, alternative, when I’m at home and just… in the alternative, like Bon Iver when I’m listening at home doing errands or doing paperwork or…

Interviewer: Depends on what the mood is.

Patrick: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah… (laughs)

Interviewer: A wide range, you know, like when you’re hanging out with Patrick, you can almost listen to anything.

Patrick: I’ll adapt to you. (laughs) I’ll be your deejay, your personal deejay.

Interviewer: Okay, awesome. So now we have a fun little activity for you. What we’re going to do is we’re going to show you some pictures, take a trip down memory lane…

Patrick: Oh, boy.

Interviewer: And when you look at the picture… we’re just going to show it to everyone so they can see, and tell us about the moment.

Patrick: Zoom in on the tear, if I shed a tear…

Interviewer: Well, we promise they shouldn’t be anything alarming…

Patrick: Emotional? Okay.

Interviewer: So… we’re going to give you the first one.

Patrick: Just the bottom one.

Interviewer: Take a look at that.

Patrick: Oh, okay. Painless! (shows picture)

Interviewer: Can you guys all see that?

Patrick: So… that’s Jeffrey Buttle, me, and Shawn Sawyer. That’s actually when I won my first national title. Very, very cool moment in my life, or in my career. I think it was unexpected. Probably the most unexpected result. You know, like those moments where you… it’s like pure joy and pure surprise? That was one of them… one of the few. I haven’t had many since then. ‘Cause I always… like, leading up to winning Worlds, I always had a feeling that I was… like, with how the season was going along… I mean, Jeff Buttle was the reigning third or fourth time national champion at the time, and that was 2008, and it was really a huge surprise that I kind of dethroned him. But it was cool because he went along and a month later, won the World Championships. And… so it was a win-win for both of us, which is kind of perfect, and I think it speaks a lot about our friendship now, how we get along super well.

Interview: You both had your spotlight moment in the same year.

Patrick: Yes. Second one.

Interviewer: Here’s the next one.

Patrick: I think this is winning my world title. My first world title in Moscow, and yeah, it says on the back… first of three straight world titles. Set the world record… yeah, that’s exactly it. Set the world record for the highest overall score, and I think long program score. That was when I first did two quads in the long program, and kind of started this mess of a quad… the quad craze… nowadays. I believe that, ’cause at the time people were only doing one quad in the short and one quad in the long, and this was right off of… trying to think, this was 2011, so right after Vancouver Games where I came in fifth, and then found my click, and… The summer after Vancouver Olympics I worked on quad toes and put them in the program, and they were super consistent and I felt very, very confident and… I’ve yet to feel like as confident and excited about competing than not. That was… that was a lot of fun.

Interviewer: Well, you… it was totally amazing. You changed the game in the quad world.

Patrick: Exactly.

Interviewer: So a lot to be proud of. Okay, we have another photo for you. Here you go.

Patrick: Yes, team… I think this is a team event. That’s Sochi, after the short program. And… it was cool. First time we had the team event at the Olympics, which was a very interesting experience. And I… I skated okay, I think. But either way, no matter the performance or result, I had my team mates there to cheer me along, and I felt like I was part of a family, which is always… seems to be the recurring theme at the Olympics… whether it’s within my figure skating family or the COC family… It’s always been great memories.

Interviewer: Yeah, that would be really special, especially the first ever team event. Okay, so we have one final photo. Are you ready for this one?

Patrick: Yes. Oh, this is winning Skate Canada, I think, 2015? Is that what it says? Yeah, after a year away. That was my first gold medal after taking a year off after Sochi. And… honestly, it’s… Funny enough, this… looking back at the Patrick from then, I didn’t really know why I came back. I just came back because I kind of missed the training. I liked the structure of training. But now, but I still didn’t know why I came back, and if I came back for the right reason at that time? But now, looking back at it, I’m glad I did because… This is 2015, we’re two years later, where I am now mentally, and kind of my perspective on skating and why I’m doing this is different, and I’m in a really good place mentally… where I can go to the next games in 2018 and feel like no matter what happens, I’m going to be happy with the results and happy with whatever comes out of it, because I’ve built such a career and I’ve had such an amazing career and made so many great connections, and I’ve so much to look forward to, thanks to this wonderful career I’ve had.

Interviewer: Yeah, and we have a lot to look forward to. We’re looking forward to hopefully watching you compete in Pyeongchang. We’re looking forward to seeing you throw the Blue Jays pitch tomorrow night…

Patrick: Yes, which I’m more nervous about than the Olympics at the moment.

Interviewer: Honestly, we think you’re gonna do well. Like, I think you are. But, I don’t want to put any pressure on you. I’m expecting some speed, so…

Patrick: Okay, I’ll do some curls tonight, in my garage. (laughs)

Interviewer: Don’t train too much, you don’t want to tire yourself out for tomorrow…

Patrick: Exactly. I’ll do three sets of five reps, about that. Stick to low volume.

Interviewer: So we’ve heard the behind the scenes training plan. That’s all for now, but make sure you check out Patrick Chan throwing at the Blue Jays game tomorrow night.