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Patrick Chan's next challenge? Matching Kurt Browning's figure skating legacy
| Source: |
Vancouver Sun |
| Date: |
March 27, 2012 |
| Author: |
Cam Cole |
NICE, France - The tone isn't one of envy, when Kurt Browning speaks
of Patrick Chan, but it is not exactly a chummy "welcome to the club,"
either.
Browning is a four-time world champion, for one thing, and Chan hasn't
yet won his second, though he is favoured to do so this week at the
world figure skating championships. Browning is a figure skating Hall
of Famer, he's royalty. Chan's lone title got lost, even in his own
country, in Canada's all-consuming preoccupation with the Stanley Cup
playoffs last spring.
So if Chan is the heir apparent to Browning's status as Canada's
greatest, most complete skater of all time ... well, there's still a
load of work to do before he gets to wear the crown.
Fortunately, Chan loves work.
What they do share, unequivocally - the 45-year-old from Caroline,
Alta., and the Ottawa-born, 21-year-old boy wonder - are the lengths
to which they had to go to fill the gaps their skating.
What Browning needed in 1992 when he left Edmonton's Royal Glenora
Club and his longtime coach Michael Jiranek for choreographer Sandra
Bezic and coach Louis Stong in Toronto, was to unlock the performer
within himself - the clown, the actor, the entertainer.
Chan already had a swift and effortless grace, and the feet of a
dancer, when he split with his venerable Florida-based coach, Don
Laws, a mere five weeks before the Vancouver Olympics. What he needed
from an enclave of U.S. coaches and specialists all the way across the
continent in Colorado Springs was what Browning had almost from the
first: the elusive quadruple toe loop, without which Chan knew he
could never join the world's elite.
Typical of each, though, was that the free-spirited Browning made his
decision almost on an emotional whim, while the methodical Chan
plotted his course like a wiring diagram.
"It didn't feel risky to me - I considered it punishment for not
winning the (Albertville) Olympics," said Browning, who's in Nice to
do commentary on the CBC telecasts. "I was ready to be done
competing. I wanted to join Stars On Ice and skate with Kristi
(Yamaguchi), and go.
"I was sitting there at the Glenora and going: 'Where are all my
friends?' Well, they left. Slipper (Mike Slipchuk), Norm (Proft),
Kristi ... they were gone and I was being punished and having to stay
after class. So it was a combination of that, and the allure of Sandra
Bezic, who just seemed to be the girl to go to, the one with the
answers, for me to grow as a skater."
The back problems that had plagued him in the buildup to Albertville
healed in time, and the alliance with Bezic and Stong produced his
most memorable vehicle, the Casablanca-themed long program that won
him his farewell world title in Prague in 1993. From there, a series
of TV specials and a Stars On Ice lead role that has lasted to this
day (though not as robust a paycheque as it once was) would
follow.
Chan's path was more scientific. Like the computer he built from parts
in his spare time in Colorado, he has been assembling the pieces of a
skating package which - now that he has tamed the quad, as much as
anyone ever tames it - is in a league of its own at the moment.
But he knew he had to go to a team of specialists, including coach
Christy Krall and quad technician Eddie Shipstead - he also has
choreographer Lori Nichol, a sports scientist, a movement and balance
coach, a physiotherapist and a strength and nutrition expert at his
disposal at the famed U.S. training site - to complete the
puzzle.
"Of course, without the quad, I wouldn't be in the position I am,"
Chan said Tuesday evening. "I think my doing it may have been part of
the reason skaters have started to do it more, because they've seen
they need it to beat me."
He has no doubt he wouldn't have conquered the jump if he hadn't made
the move to Colorado.
"The harness, working with Eddie, helped me a ton," he said. "Not only
did I get the quad out of Colorado, I think if I hadn't gone there by
this point, I'd have quit skating, because Florida was not a great
environment, there were no skaters. Being in Colorado keeps me
motivated - and now it's got to the point where it may be too
stimulated an environment. I'm getting used to it now, so next season
we may have to look into taking some time in Toronto and some in
Colorado, to keep it fresh."
"I think it's one of those environments down there that's percolating,
like the Glenora was," Browning said. "It was fun. The skating was
fun. Every practice seemed important, even if it was just to keep
up. If you're in a current that's moving, and you can rest for a
minute and still be swept along, it's nice. I think that's what he
feels there ... the energy of skaters coming through the door with
that anxious, get-on-the-ice feeling."
The club where Chan trains has produced six U.S. national champions,
in men's, women's and pairs, in the last five years.
"When I went there and spent some time with him, I was blown away,"
Browning said Tuesday. "Because there was nothing in anyone's
training, in the old days, that was so sophisticated and thought
out. It wasn't even the style back then, but it wasn't my personality,
either.
"If I had an afternoon off ... I don't know. I'd get some buddies
together and throw the football around. Get some wings. Go for a bike
ride.
"To get up in the morning and know what he's doing every minute of the
day ... Patrick has every minute scheduled, and it's all about
skating."
Browning was the ultimate "What do I have to do today to win?"
competitor, who would add jumps or combinations depending what the
skater before him did. Chan is so thoroughly trained, he's a lot less
apt to ad lib.
One thing Browning knows, after skating alongside the kid in Colorado
Springs: the old legs are no match for Chan's, and maybe they never
were, even in their prime.
"We were just doing cross-ice stuff, ordinary stroking, and I said to
him, 'You could have slowed down a little,' and he said, 'I did slow
down,'" said Browning, who was fast in his day, but not this
fast.
As a total performance package, within the constraints of the
Olympic-style programs, perhaps Chan is already Browning's
superior. One day, he may pass him on all counts. His next chance to
put down an instalment comes in the short program Friday.
But there is no rushing those world titles. They're only offered once
a year, and for Patrick Chan, No. 2 is not in the books yet. He dreams
of changing the sport, but the firmament is still a ways off.
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