#we need a platonic duo name for player and carmen

[oftheriverseine]

Mami 🤝 Me

Distraught over Redcrackle in the Himalayan Rescue Caper 🥲

also also also, I was scrolling through the redcrackle / Himalayan Rescue caper tags and got this ad:

…which fits. Redcrackle divorce arc /hj

[virtchandmoir]

Ice-dance pair Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir named Postmedia's Team of the Year

December 28, 2018

Twenty-one years ago, Carol Moir made the Canadian sporting match of the century.

The coach at the Ilderton Skating Club asked her nephew Scott to hold Tessa Virtue’s hand because she figured it might be a strong team for ice dance competitions.

Scott, back in his more bashful days, knew the drill. He grew up steps from his hometown rink in a family that discussed figure skating around the supper table — in the hour or so before the puck dropped for the Maple Leafs game on Hockey Night in Canada

The Virtue clan, from nearby big-city London, were athletes. They had sport in their blood.

Tessa, who loved ballet, impressed her first teachers with the uncanny ability to replicate movement almost immediately on first sight.

When she and Scott took the ice together, the talent was evident.

“We weren’t skating to win the Olympics when we were skating (then),” Moir, now 31-years-old, said. “Pretty much, we were worried if we could go up and get ice cream afterward.”

They quickly outgrew their home rink, moving first to Kitchener-Waterloo and then to Canton, Mich., for pro-style training. Mike Slipchuk, then a coach and now Skate Canada’s director of high performance, first saw them skate on the other side of the world — at a junior Grand Prix event in Harbin, China, in 2004.

“It was one of those things where I was well aware,” he said. “As they were young and moving up, there was always a lot of talk about them. It’s neat to see where they started and where they end up in their careers.

“It’s been an incredible journey to watch.”

How many star athletes have risen to the top of their field, then got knocked off their pedestal, took a couple of years to regroup, then returned to dominate their event like no one has ever done before?

That list is short.

Michael Jordan, probably, after he came back to the NBA from his self-imposed hiatus to try professional baseball.

Muhammad Ali, for sure, when he reclaimed boxing’s heavyweight title.

That’s what Virtue and Moir accomplished these past two seasons. That makes them the perfect pick for Postmedia’s Team of the Year.

When they became the first North American duo to win Olympic ice dance gold in 2010 on home ice at Vancouver, they were only four years into their maddeningly platonic partnership on the senior circuit.

They still produced the performance of a lifetime, but it was understandably pushed into the national sub-conscious during a massive two-week Canadian gold rush capped by Sidney Crosby’s famous goal against the United States in the men’s hockey final.

Four years later in Sochi, Virtue and Moir were bested in figure skating’s most riveting rivalry. They finished second to training mates Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who used their post-Olympic Dancing With the Stars platform to become TV celebrities.

The Canadians retreated from the competitive realm for two years before creating their legendary bounce-back. This time, they moved to Montreal and constructed a familiar training pattern.

They were at the same club as the reigning world champs and their top competitors — Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France.

“They never shied away from training with the best,” Slipchuk said. “When you’re in that environment, there are no days off. It’s something they always did in their career, and with (coaches) Marie-France (Dubreuil) and Patrice (Lauzon), they recreated their skating and passion.

“The last two years was the best I’ve ever seen them. They went undefeated (in 2016-17) and then went out and won the Olympics again.”

The volume of their careers, which started with whispers and a growing buzz, developed into a deafening roar.

Virtue and Moir were Canada’s hopeful faces at the start of the 2018 Olympics in South Korea. They carried the flag into the opening ceremonies of a Winter Games without NHL players.

Then they delivered a transcendent skate that brought their discipline to its highest level.

They have become as revered as Kurt Browning, Brian Orser, Elvis Stojko, Liz Manley and Sale-Pelletier are in the country and figure skating world.

“The one thing that will always stick out to me is they wanted every piece of information to make them the best,” Slipchuk said. “Here’s the best dance team we’ve ever seen and they were always open and wanting advice any time we brought in officials, judges or technical people. They were so respectful of everyone there to help them. They’re professionals and perfect ambassadors for their sport.”

The 29-year-old Virtue was selected by ESPN as one of the most-recognizable female athletes in the world. People worldwide continue to be stumped by how her relationship with Moir isn’t romantic.

They’re flattered by it, but that’s not what makes them tick.

“If we can inspire young people to follow their dreams and believe in themselves, how fortunate are we that we can have that connection,” Virtue said.

Every so often, we get a glimpse of tremendous chemistry — from the way the Golden State Warriors move a basketball to John Tavares and Mitch Marner creating a goal. But those partnerships won’t last two decades.

This one did.

VIRTUE VERY TRENDY

When the Olympics rolled around in February, Canadians took to the Internet to search for the answers to their most pressing questions.

They wanted to know why NHL players weren’t participating this time, how come so many Russian athletes were banned and a lot of us just needed a refresher on the rules of curling.

But the most sought-after information in Canadian sports this year revolved around the relationship status of two beloved champion athletes.

Are Tessa and Scott dating?

“It’s not a surprise to anyone this was the No. 1 question on everybody’s mind,” Google Trends expert Nicole Bell said. “Coming of their very emotional performance in Pyeongchang where they won the gold medal for ice dancing to that sexy Moulin Rouge song, people were like, ‘Omigoodness, is it possible this is ‘The Notebook’ for real?’

“We want this to be real-life love — but sadly, it’s not true.”

Google is able to chart the rise in interest in personalities from year-to-year. Justin Bieber and Donald Trump, for instance, aren’t found on the list because online searches for their names didn’t move the needle much above their 2017 levels.

In this country, Tessa Virtue ranked first among Canadians and athletes in general in 2018. Hoopster Tristan Thompson is second among Canadians and new Raptor Kawhi Leonard is runner-up for athletes behind the figure-skating star.

Though the anxiety over William Nylander’s eventual signing with the Leafs and John Tavares’ Toronto homecoming checked in highly, the level of curiosity around Virtue and Moir, especially during and after the Winter Games, was the biggest story.

“It’s kind of interesting because they have been on the scene for a long time as a pair, but that (dating) questions hasn’t been a burning topic in the Canadian mind until this year’s performance,” Bell said, “and Tessa did a lot of beauty campaigns (for Dove and Nivea), along with being involved in fashion, and those activities produced additional interest in her beyond the skating world.”

Virtue finished fourth on Canadian searches for people around the world, behind Demi Lovato, Khloe Kardashian and Hailey Baldwin.

“Demi Lovato had a bit of a dramatic year with an overdose, Khloe Kardashian made the news for (a stormy relationship with) Tristan Thompson and Hailey Baldwin married Justin Bieber. Tessa is there with no scandal — just someone whose athletic feats and talent was so incredible.

“She’s somebody Canadians are incredibly proud of and she’s a role model. If you had a vote for Canada’s sweetheart right now, she would win, hands down.”

THEIR GREATEST HITS

2017-18 Moulin Rouge free dance

They put their own twist on a tried-and-true figure skating theme and it proved the final step to another Olympic gold medal. Though it was deemed second-best on the big night to the runner-up French, it still scored 122.40 points, enough for the win. The program is still burned into everyone’s brain — including theirs — and that’s why it will remain a favourite on tour for years to come.

2012-13: Carmen free dance

The final scores say it was only good enough for second at their hometown worlds behind Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White, but the boundary-pushing dance highlighted the athleticism and chemistry of the Canadian duo. Moir has stated he wished they would have kept the program the following year for the Sochi Olympics, believing a polished version of it with nothing held back (and some less dodgy judging) could have put them over the top.

2009-10: Symphony No. 5 (Mahler) free dance

Then-coach Marina Zoueva described it as a marriage proposal and it was the launching point for Virtue and Moir as “Canada’s Sweethearts.” The program delivered their first Olympic gold in Vancouver and first senior world title in Turin, consistently scoring 110-plus points. It included their signature Goose Lift. And don’t forget, Virtue could barely walk from the immense pain in her legs due to her compartment syndrome woes along the way.

—Toronto Sun