The top ranked Canadian figure skaters in each Olympic discipline are coming to Prince George. Together.
The most successful women's, men's, pairs and ice dance competitors - current gold medalists, every one - are joining forces for a show that cuts new ice for this flamboyant sport.
And, as an added bonus, coming with them is one of the world's all-time superstars of the ice.
The audience will get the full spectrum of our nation's stars from the PyeongChang Games. The Figure Skating Team event's gold medal went to Canada in 2018 and that all-star contingent was represented by veteran pairs skaters Meagan Duhamel & Eric Radford, our top-ranked woman Kaetlyn Osmond, our top-rank man Patrick Chan, and our acclaimed Ice dance duo of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.
Youngster Gabrielle Daleman, 20, was also a member of that team of champions. She cannot come on the tour involving Prince George so in her stead is a legend of the figure skating realm and a national sports hero. Elvis Stojko won the world title three times, was a two-time Olympic silver medalist and set records that advanced the sport itself.
Osmond won the PyeongChang bronze medal in the women's event to go along with her team silver from Sochi and team gold in South Korea. Only six Canadian female singles competitors have ever won an Olympic medal and Osmond is the most decorated of them all. She also won the world title in 2018, which hasn't happened for a Canadian woman since Karen Magnussen did it in 1973.
On the men's individual side, Chan has been one of Canada's darlings of the ice since he won his first world championship in 2011, setting the world record for highest overall score in the process. He would win two more world titles and 10 Canadian men's titles along his way. He picked up team silver in Sochi as well as the individual silver, and finally won his long anticipated Olympic gold in the team event in PyeongChang.
Duhamel and Radford went into PyeongChang as one of the most decorated figure skating pairs in Canadian history (seven national pairs titles, two world titles, plus Olympic silver in Sochi), and they made more history in South Korea when they powered their way to a bronze medal and in the process became the first pair to ever complete a quadruple throw jump at the Olympics. The Olympics before, they became the first to ever land a side-by-side triple Lutz in Olympic competition.
In the South Korean ice dance event, the whole world fell in love with the electric chemistry of Virtue and Moir, a pair that transcended nationality to become one of the most beloved skating stories of the modern age. On the ice, Virtue and Moir have won 2018 gold and 2014 silver in the team event, plus their ice dance silver in Sochi and historic ice dance gold at the Vancouver Olympics (first Canadian and first North American couple to ever do so). When they added ice dance gold in PyeonChang, it made them onto some of the most decorated Canadian Olympians ever (only Cindy Klassen and Clara Hughes have more with six each).
Some countries aggrandize their world champions and Olympians by lionization. In one more act of Canadian cultural exemplification, these heroes of figure skating are travelling the nation under the title The Thank You Canada Tour to pay tribute to the fans who supported their lifelong development and the thousands of young up-and-coming figure skaters who will be tomorrow's stars.
Virtue, Moir, Duhamel, Radford, Chan, Osmond and Stojko all perform together at CN Centre on Oct. 13 as part of their 30-city The Thank You Canada Tour going from coast to coast.
Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. Prince George prices have four tiers ranging from $39-$119 (plus applicable service charges) and a meet-and-greet package also available. For more information and purchasing, visit the TicketsNorth website or visit the CN Centre box office.
