Scott Moir is funny, and he knows it. He also knows how to play the media game. When he is asked about the Olympic gold medal he won in Vancouver with Tessa Virtue, he recognizes an opportunity to let his funny bone out.
“They are heavy, and your neck gets sore. It’s not easy being an Olympic champion,” Moir said while rubbing his medal-free neck Wednesday. “That’s going to be in the papers. There, I always have them.” He means the zingers, the one-liners every journalist is praying to get. Moir has the lines, he has his medals he and Virtue also won gold at the world championship in March and, it seems, he has some explaining to do.
Not about the pair’s off-ice relationship. Canada’s ice dancing darlings are still not in love, no matter how romantic they appear to be while performing. The questions are about what comes next. There had been speculation that, after the winter they had, Virtue and Moir would skate off into the sunset. But the couple with the melting looks is coming back for more.
“It feels great to be Olympic champions, but I think we both feel we can improve a lot,” Moir said. “That is when we’ll know when we want to retire, when we stop improving. “I guess if we feel like we have fulfilled or maxed our potential, then we’ll stop. But, right now, it feels like we have a long way to go and we have places to improve.”
The gold medals might be like a get-out-of-jail-free card for the Moir, 22, and Virtue, 20. They spent four years building toward one moment in Vancouver. Every decision they made with their coaches was tactical. Everything was part of a grand Olympic strategy. But now that the Olympics and the world championships are over, the ice dancers have some golden-hued street credibility to push their performances in a new direction.
“We have some creative licence,” Virtue said, “to just not necessarily think of anything but what we want to do and where we want to take the sport and be a little bit more personal.”
They are not exactly sure what “personal” means yet. There are some rule changes on the way in ice dancing and adjustments will need to be made. But fun will be the overriding theme of their next routine.
The first step in the process is finding music to skate to. Moir has been sampling “everything under the sun,” including hip hop. It is part of the luxury of owning a gold medal. And there are other perks, including a parade in Montreal a few days ago and a four-year endorsement deal with Roots announced Wednesday.
Virtue and Moir cannot say where they will be in four years time. But they will be skating next year, even if they are still not in love. They have never even kissed. The look — that long, lingering exchange on ice — was noticeably absent Wednesday. There were only two weary, smiling gold medallists, two inseparable best friends who were pining for a vacation from their skates, and from one another.
Moir is bound for Mexico once their Stars on Ice tour wraps up in Vancouver on May 14. Virtue is not quite sure about her plans, though she is tilting toward Paris. Someone suggested a beach trip, or a cottage or even a canoe, handing Moir another opening. “All three,” the funnyman cracked. “A cottage with a beach and a canoe.” People laughed. They always do. It is part of Moir’s magic.