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Patrick Chan News, November 2017

Last updated: Thursday, November 30, 2017

Patrick has withdrawn from the NHK Trophy and will not be attending the Grand Prix Final this year (a big loss to his Japanese fans). But that does not mean his fans (both professional and casual) are not actively talking about him or preparing to see him the next time he competes. From interviews to music videos to buying tickets, they are committed to supporting him!

 

November 30: Patrick to be in Quebec / A Break from Marina?

On this last day of the month (and therefore the last update to this month-long post) came little tidbits of updates about Patrick for us, the news-starved fans! Hat tip to the eagle-eyed fans who brought some of these to my attention!

He must decide everything for himself… his skating is unique, unforgettable, no one can compare with him.

Skate Canada Challenge, November 29-December 3, 2017

This was the only announcement that Patrick would be in Quebec this weekend that I could find. Skate Canada’s event webpage does not mention the athlete ambassadors.

Patrick Will Be at Nationals and the Olympics

According to PJ Kwong, Patrick intends to compete at both events:


PJ: I have heard that Patrick will be at Canadians, and he has every intention of competing at the Olympic Games. (wipes forehead) Whew! Which I think is great, because I want Patrick, for him, to be able to finish out the season in the way that he would like to, so I think that that’s just great news. So… fingers crossed that it all turns out the way that it’s supposed to.

Only two men going to the Olympic Games from Canada. So who’s that going to be? Presumably Patrick Chan is one, but who is that other man?

I don’t know what’s going to happen to the men. It’s going to be an on-the-day competition, I think. Lots of talent, lots of talent.

I hope so too – getting ready to buy plane tickets!

Marina’s Update on Patrick

According to Marina (article link), Patrick must decide everything for himself, and she adores him and thinks he should skate as long as possible!

“At that moment, American journalists approached Marina to clarify the situation with her other skater – Patrick Chan.

– You should ask Patrick himself. He’s in Vancouver now. He must decide everything for himself. I adore him, I’m ready to start working at any time. He is the best “performer” in the world. This was him who began a new era in men’s single skating. Patrick is still young, he should continue to skate, as long as possible! I experience his problems together with him, fatigue, all this is not easy … But his skating is unique, unforgettable, no one can compare with him.”

 

November 28: 2018 Stars On Ice

 

November 24: Vancouver – Como Lake

Patrick was kind enough to pose with this “nervous” fan at the Shoppers Drug Mart / Canada Post in Como Lake!

The store is located only a short drive away from the Coquitlam Skating Club, where Patrick was last spotted 10 days earlier.

 

November 18: Mining Good Memories – A Video Clip

Today, instead of the usual Mincraft Convention (Minecon), Microsoft decided to do a livestream online called Minecon Earth instead. This reminded me that there once was a time when Patrick played Minecraft with Javier Fernandez, and I had to make a short clip of it from the original video. Thank you for enjoying the video and for the likes and retweets!

Ironically, some of what Patrick said about the game back perhaps applies to himself today…

“You can literally do anything. There’s no boundaries. So you can SMASH whatever you want, you can mine whatever you want, you can kill whatever you want…”

“There’s just no goal. I think there needs to be a goal, like, assignments.”

“I’m beating the wolf with a stick. Sorry, I’m distracted.”

Time to focus, Pchiddy!

 

November 16: A Guppy in a Shark Tank and Patrick on a Wall

Whoa??? Watch as Patrick tries to guess what Kaetlyn is saying!

Patrick’s Portrait Is Now on the Wall

Photographer Danielle Earl put a black and white portrait of Patrick from his Skate Canada short program on her wall!

loving this addition to the office wall 😍 #danielleearlphotography #SCI17 #virtuemoir #patrickchan

A post shared by Danielle Earl (@danielleearlphotography) on

 

November 14: Tuesday in Coquitlam

 

November 11: Spotted in Vancouver… Hilariously

When I first saw this bit of news on Twitter, I wasn’t sure whether to believe it, until the tweet author (also the editor of a local magazine) kindly posted his full story in an article.

I laughed so hard that I have to thank both Mr. Kronbauer for sharing his story, and Patrick for alleviating some of my worrying. Contrary to some fan comments on Twitter, he was not being an uncle at all. Like I said, what happened just proved how young he is, and in more ways than one.

The liquor store responded as well:

 

November 10: A Strange Grand Prix Final (GPF) This Year
Yuzuru Hanyu Withdraws from the NHK Trophy

Apparently, last year was to literally be the last year where Patrick, Javier Fernandez and Yuzuru Hanyu would appear together at the Grand Prix Final. How quickly things have changed! Yuzuru suffered an ankle injury and Javi suffered from a stomach ailment that affected his performance at the Cup of China. These three have appeared at the GPF for so many years, and were expected to be there this year, too. Skating fans everywhere have expressed their consternation at this turn of events!

The competition memories shared by these three longtime competitors are fast becoming history. I wish each one of them a good recovery in time for the Olympics!

Patrick’s Sparkling Wine Tops Competition

Patrick’s new sparkling wine was a winner at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair!

 

November 9: Alain Goldberg Comments on Patrick’s Skating
Patrick Chan must find his bearings, according to Alain Goldberg

An informative and insightful analysis on Patrick’s skating. I tweeted my favorite quote from the article (translated) by him:

Here’s the full translation of the part about Patrick (via Google Translate):

Osaka hosts this weekend the fourth Grand Prix of the figure skating season. Patrick Chan, who was originally scheduled to take part, retired from the NHK Trophy. Should we worry? What to expect from other Canadian skaters? Overview of the Japanese competition in five questions with analyst Alain Goldberg.

Q. Why did Patrick Chan give up the NHK Grand Prix?

He had a very bad performance at Skate Canada International. He made the right decision to step back and readjust. It will allow him to regain his bearings and give himself the time to be selected for the Olympic Games at the Canadian Championships.

Radio-Canada Sports is webcasting the ISU Grand Prix of Osaka from November 10th to 12th. The competition begins at 0.20 am (EST) on Friday with couples’ short programs followed by women’s (2.10), men’s (5.5) and dance (22.45). The action will resume Saturday at 0:35 with the free programs of couples, then those of women (2:50), men (5:30) and dance (21:45). The gala will be broadcast Sunday at 1 am.

Let’s not forget that Patrick Chan missed for almost a year and a half after the Sochi Games. He has been world champion three times in 2011, 2012 and 2013, he won the silver medal in Sochi in 2014, and then he stops. Since he started again, he’s been fifth in the world twice. He is struggling to regain his marks, but also the other skaters have increased their level. They were inspired by him. They saw what type of skating to go to. They increased the quality of their program and, in addition, they added quadruple jumps. They are five quadruple, while in the moment Patrick Chan can only make two, and he must succeed in the rest of the program.

We owe a lot of respect to Patrick Chan. He puts his head back on the block. He has nothing to prove. He has been world champion three times, silver medalist at the Olympics. He can help the Canadian team win a team medal, and he will be greatly needed. It is imperative that he can find his marks, if only for him to be proud of him. That’s what matters. The rest does not matter, he does not have to prove that he was and still is a great skater.

Q. Why can not he do four or five quads if he already has two in his program?

The jumps are not the same, they are not the same catch of edge, the same supports. In some jumps, you’ll be better than others. For example, there are jumps for which the maximum support is on the left leg, others on the right leg. It will depend on your ability to repel ice. There are jumps that are jumps of edge, and others stung. The stitched jumps are the flip, the lutz and the stitched loop and the edge jumps are the axel, the salchow and the loop.

Depending on the torque and the levers you are able to give, you will be able to rotate more or less. It’s not at all the same thing to do four laps on a loop as on a stitched loop. The jumps are not taken in the same way. There is only one quadruple that has not been done in world competition, it is the quadruple axel (four and a half turns since the edge). And then, we will be fivefold …

Chan has tried to add the quadruple salchow, which is an edge jump, but he has a harder time doing it. He managed the quadruple toe loop, but he also managed the triple axel, which is a very hard jump because the jump is taken directly forward on one leg while the others are taken almost on two legs, with a double support.

The Olympic champion, the Japanese Yuzuru Hanyu (who will be the NHK trophy) did not have the quadruple lutz, now he has it. He will certainly try to have in his program the quadruple lutz and the quadruple loop. The lutz is the hardest of four-lap jumps. After that, there is the quadruple axel that has never been successful in competition, but it’s four and a half laps.

When we were at the Sochi Games, two quadruples in a program was phenomenal. Skating in the eight years between the Vancouver Games and the Pyeongchang Games has grown exponentially.

Q. Does Patrick Chan have time to catch up with his opponents so close to the Olympics?

It’s going to depend on him, it’s going to depend on the team around him, his psychological difficulties by not finding his marks. [If he is] able to forget these worries, overnight, he can find the movements he misses.

But it will depend on his psychological conditions to find his bearings; to find them, it was absolutely necessary for him to take off the pressure. And by delaying being [in front of an audience], he takes off the pressure.

 

November 8: How Fast Does Patrick Spin?

CBC Sports posted a video featuring multiple figure skaters, including Patrick. Take a look:

 

November 7: My First Music Video About Patrick!

I’ve always wanted to make music videos, but had never done it before. The muse struck me last weekend and I began to search for software and videos to make my first video of Patrick. Having always liked the message and theme song from the Disney movie, “Meet the Robinsons,” I had tweeted Patrick to “keep moving forward!” after his sub-par results at Skate Canada. Here’s my video of encouragement for him, and I hope you enjoy it as well! My thanks to those of you who watched it already!

 

November 7: PJ Kwong Discusses Patrick with David Wilson

PJ interviewed David Wilson, who choreographed both of Patrick’s programs this season. In the middle of their podcast, naturally the topic turned to Patrick and the importance of both technique and artistry in choreography.

PJ: Okay, Patrick Chan. I want to talk about “Dust in the Wind”. I want to talk about “Hallelujah”. Go! Go David Wilson!

DW: Well, so “Dust in the Wind”, I mean, it’s always been one of my favorite songs, being born in 1966 and a kid in the 1970s, and it just, you know it’s one of those songs that just washes over you and just makes you feel good. And I had heard it on the radio, and… omigod I forgot how much I loved this song. But a year and a half ago, I immediately realized this would be so great for Patrick. Just the ebb and the flow of the music reminds me of his rhythm and his skating style and his flow, and I just thought… So I suggested it for his Olympic season and then left it there, and waited until this year came up and he in the meantime grown really attached to it and held on to the idea.

Now, Marina wasn’t quite crazy about it. But he had so much conviction for it that it was like, I just was like, it wasn’t expecting… I never tried to expect… If I have an inspiration for someone, I just share it…

…behind all the art there’s a technique to the art, and then there’s an art to the technique. And there’s not divisions.

PJ: Yup.

DW: I don’t like to do a lot of convincing, because that can be dangerous, because people would just go along with you and then it never really flies. So I’ve learned that I can be a really good salesperson…

PJ: I know.

DW: But you’re really stepping out on a plank when you do that, because you don’t know if they’re gonna, you know. So I do a soft sell. I let it sit, and he got attached to it. I think it’s multidimensional. The song talks about things in life that he’s just now in his life realizing, and having gone through so many things in the last few years, and have had such great success, and then, the last couple years have been a struggle. This song represents where he’s at, and there’s one thing he said to me last year, and I was so impressed with him. He was really proud of his 5th place finish, because he was really happy with the way he performed. And I thought that was so great.

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PJ: …celebrates.

DW: Yeah, on a personal level, and beyond skating. You know what I mean? So that’s that, and I think it’s worked out beautifully. It just, kind of choreographed itself, and we’ve been working together for several years now, so we really got a certain rapport and it’s just really fun and easy to work with Patrick now.

PJ: Well, because he’s a man.

DW: Yeah, and we speak the same language.

PJ: Yeah, and you’re both, like, grownups now. You know what I mean? It’s different when you start off the relationship, and somebody is much younger, and they’re just emerging.

DW: Well, there’s two factors that are involved… we both took from Ozzie Colson…

PJ: I’d forgotten that. That’s right.

DW: So, there’s a base. There’s a shared history and there’s a base there that puts us on the same page. And then also, he worked so intensely and so committedly with Kathy Johnson for those few years. It made a really giant impact on his skating from the dance floor. She taught him how to move and how to dance, and this is always where I’ve come from, because I’m a fan of the dance, whether it be hip hop or contemporary or ballet or just dance. I love dance. And I love skating, too. And I just think that we… because there’s more movement involved in dance, we can… it’s been always my goal to bring that to the ice, and that body awareness that they have. And so that’s been another thing, I got the chance to connect with Kathy as well, and so that’s another factor that we share, that I don’t get to share with a lot of skaters because they just don’t have the experience that he’s had.

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PJ: Do you think it’s also intention? I think that when I look at dancers, and when I talk to dancers, they are very purposeful in their movement, and the movement right in this moment actually started a long time ago, you know? I mean, several movements before.

DW: Well, there’s a couple of factors that play with dance. On a real surface level, they spend their whole lives in front of a mirror. So their level of body awareness is on another level to ours, because what we do is on such a vast scale, we couldn’t possibly spend that much time in front of the mirror, we couldn’t keep track of ourselves. We do have mirrors, but we… it’s harder to be seeing yourself at the same time that you’re doing things on a larger scale as skating is.

So that’s one thing. But also, the way dance is taught is a little bit different than skating, and that was one thing that I really connected with Kathy Johnson on, is that skating has come to a point where there’s this division or separation or distinction, more “distinction” is the right word, between choreography and technique.

PJ: Okay, yep.

…he worked so intensely and so committedly with Kathy Johnson for those few years. It made a really giant impact on his skating from the dance floor.

DW: And it’s a little bit of a fallacy, because dancers do all kinds of tricks and leaps and rotational things, and boom boom boom ba. They’re all in their own way like our tricks, like our technique, you know? But the thing is, the way it’s taught in dance, it’s like every thing… there’s technique behind every morsel of choreography, and behind all the art there’s a technique to the art, and then there’s an art to the technique. And there’s not divisions.

I mean, you do have choreographers, and you do have ballet mistresses, or you do have dance schools, and then you have people that are gifted in choreography like Crystal Pite, or Judy Killian, or me and Michael’s, for sure. But the way they approach the choreography is from a very… the way they teach, everything is very interwoven between the artistry and the technique of moving.

PJ: And actually, without the technique, you can’t really express artistry.

DW: And that’s something that Patrick got from Kathy Johnson that very few other skaters as amateurs have ever been exposed to. I would say someone like John Curry was exposed to it as a professional, you know? But he [Patrick] had the good grace of having that kind of connection and learning all those things as an amateur, and I’ve had the good grace of being part of that… I’ve learned a lot from her, too. She kind of, I’ve had a certain amount of dance training, but it’s been sporadic throughout my life, and it was interesting getting to know her because she brought a lot of things together that connected a lot of dots of knowledge that I had that weren’t connected.

 

November 4: “Hallelujah” or Something Else?”

Some fans expressed that perhaps Patrick should change his LP song to something more inspirational.

A couple of days before I had put out the crazy idea that perhaps he could switch the LP and EX programs for more energy, so once again, I was glad to know that I’m not the only one who has thought about this.

Will Patrick change his program? Probably not. But in my very humble opinion, I would rather go out on a high note with some really inspirational music before retiring. But I’m sure we fans just want to see him do well no matter what music he skates to!

 

November 3: Patrick Withdraws from NHK

Allow me to share what happened from my perspective: On Friday (11/3) when I perused Twitter, I spied with my little eye a few early tweets indicating that something was amiss and that Patrick was out of the NHK Trophy…

After that, a couple of bloggers tweeted the news…

When asked why, TSL’s reply seemed to confirm my own thoughts about Patrick’s current state. When I analyzed his performance and what he said after Skate Canada, it had occurred to me a few days earlier (on Monday, to be precise) that he might be suffering from burnout. Thank you, TSL, for the reassurance that I was not crazy to think such a thing. After Skate Canada I found myself worrying and even crying about Patrick!

Nevertheless, I reacted with consternation to this news, because just days before Patrick seemed to indicate to the Japanese press that he would be there at NHK. And since last time he withdrew quietly from Nebelhorn without any announcement, this time I would not let him off so easy. I fired off the following tweet to him and Skate Canada, pleading for some kind of official announcement.

Two and a half hours later, Skate Canada sent out the following:

Now, I don’t know if this was in response to my plea, or if they had planned it all along. It wasn’t until later that I realized that they sent out the announcement at 4 p.m. Eastern time (on a Friday), which is rather late for announcements but perfect for less media attention. The announcement was short and sweet and the reason given for the withdrawal said:

“Chan finished fourth at Skate Canada International last week and has decided to focus on his training leading into the national championships in January.”

One devoted Japanese fan had just received a shipment of the banner that she was going to display at NHK the day before. She said she was sorry for being selfish, but more than anything, she just wanted to see him skate. Fans also expressed sympathy and support after the announcement. I was grateful for it and replied the following:

However, whenever I read the announcement, in my mind the words “his training” is replaced by “resting”. Yes, Patrick, get your rest before January, you’ll need all that energy and strength to compete!

 

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4 thoughts on “Patrick Chan News, November 2017

  1. Thank you very much for this website – I do enjoy it very much. Just wonder – should he be in Canton to train? He let many Japanese fans down, including myself, and now what has he been doing?
    Still, I am going to Vancouver to see him skating, sooooo excited!

    1. Hi Sally, welcome to the fan page! You raise a good question about what Patrick is doing in Vancouver instead of Canton, and I wish I knew the answer to that question as well. That’s wonderful that you are going to Vancouver! I am planning on it, as well. Perhaps we and other fans will meet there. I am looking forward to it!

      1. Hi Viv, I always enjoy readiing your website. , owing very much to you.
        The Marina interview was quoted in the article of Sports. ru, with the title meaning in English “Chan has temporarily seased training and is suffering from psycological problems.” The article refers to his earlier confession to having motivation problem.
        https://www.sports.ru/figure-skating/1057940362.html
        So I am now very much worrying about his struggle with such motivation problem and I assume that he is in Vancouver to meet some experts in that area. I really wish he would overcome such problem and come back to training soon, because the competitions are approaching near at hand. I am looking forward to hear from you such good news.

        1. Thank you Madoka for visiting my website and for your comment! I hope the same as you, since I am planning on going to Vancouver to see his skating live for the first time in my life. I just want him to skate with inner joy and peace. Hopefully we will see good news!

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