“It took me while to realize that hockey wasn’t actually my passion. That wasn’t what excited me. When I look back now, I thought the way I felt when I performed with Tessa and the way I felt when I was doing new choreography, doing a dance, didn’t add up and wasn’t as fulfilling to me as playing hockey or winning hockey and I know that I never did play it at that level even at a young age. So, it took me a while to kind of break the mold of what I thought was socially acceptable or what I thought was supposed be…normal. And that was very interesting for me because now when I look back… And I loved to dance, I loved to move with Tessa, I loved to be out there. These last two years of performing have been very fulfilling for me because I really connected with the material and we’re kind of taking that into touring, but it took me while to admit that… kinda to myself. So that was an interesting journey and now because I’ve done that, I think it’s made me into a more powerful performer.”

“I can tell you what I see in Tessa. I’m not so sure, I’m a very, uh… I don’t have a great view of myself. I don’t think my perspective is as good, but on her, what I need from her and what she brings… I’ve never met anybody like Tessa in my life. She’s just an unbelievable woman and she’s so, I’ve never met anyone so consistent. I can’t remember more than, like, she can get grumpy but that’s about it. I’ve never [seen it] go past the grumpy stage. But the problem with us is that we’re very, very sensitive, so when she’s grumpy, I always feel like it’s my fault and when I’m a little, I get to the angry stage, so she thinks it’s her fault. What she does is, she’s so consistent but passionate. I don’t quite understand how that works because my passion and emotion is always kind of a rollercoaster ride, but she brings this level of consistency and clear-headed thinking and decision making, but as well as that passion and movement. And I really needed that consistency because I would go up and down and she would kind of bring me back like, okay, we need, maybe that’s a little much. Kind of that balance point and we’re very different styles. Tessa brings the sophistication that I don’t have, Tessa brings the dance knowledge, kind of that base, the principles of dance that I just don’t possess. There’s just so much that technically we rely on her for, but I think the biggest part of her is how emotionally stable she is.”

— Scott answering, “I am curious about what Tessa balances in your character. What are your counterbalances for one another?”

“The pressure that comes with such a huge event (the Olympics), the natural human instinct is… you want to just get through it, you just want to be done, you just want to be on the finish line. But for us a big part of these games was to try and push that aside and really be present. And we kept saying to each other, moments before we skated, that this is exactly what we wanted. We came back for these moments, let’s not wish them away, let’s take advantage of them. And kind of being present in that process, I think was what was different between us and our competitors.”

“Well, this is a very interesting time in my life, the couple of months after the Olympics and a big reason why I wanted to come back was how poorly I transitioned after 2014. I wanted away from the sport, I went and tried to – well, tried to, we’re still in the process of renovating a house with my brothers. It’s not the most fulfilling work in the world but I was running from sport, from my life, from figure skating and I didn’t transition well. I was doing things that didn’t make me happy. I was, I lived my 18 year old life at 26. I was drinking a lot and it took me a lot to realize that it didn’t make me happy. So that part of my life, so this 6 months or 2 years after the 2018 Olympics, I had circled for most improvement. When I’m in as an athlete, I’m always all in, but it’s the transition part, but it’s about bringing my best self and everything that I’ve learned in sport to the next chapter of my life.”

The difficult side [of being emotionally connected to what you do] is understanding the yin and the yang, I think, cause that takes energy and there will be a time when you come down. And also, collaborating is huge. I don’t create alone. And I don’t wish to create alone. I love when Tessa and I do things together and we love when we work with a professional that can bring something different and pulls little strands of, hopefully, brilliance out of us.

[on Marina, the difficult times and what they learned from her that was positive about themselves] There was a lot of difficult times and we look back at it, I think, now, it was her trying to help mature, help us grow up… in 2010 but also 2009 and 2008. It was there for us. She almost told us exactly what we were going to do and helped us created as well, but she choreographed most the programs. When we started to mature and have more input, that worked, but then, I think, in the last year, we expected a lot more input, we expected it to be very similar in 2014, but because we didn’t get that input, we had to be independent and we had to go kind of down that path of maybe having some material we didn’t like but we wouldn’t have had our 2018 material if we didn’t have the 2014 experience and we were very very proud of the performances we had. Maybe not so much of the programs, in particular the free dance. The short dance we really liked in 2014. But, we needed that and we created it all and we’re very proud of that.

There’s a lot of people now. I will continue to work with my mental coach. We have a really great personal connection and I think that the work that we’ve done and the goals that he’s set, he would be really great moving forward. Having a mental coach or a psychologist is an interesting thing for many people and not many athletes — a lot of the top athletes do it but people think it’s too expensive. For me, it’s the most… it’s worth it. It’s like a mattress, you can’t cheap out on that because you’re gonna spend so much of your life and half an hour with my mental coach, JF, it changes my whole perspective on the next month of my life. So I’ll continue to work with him but I also use people like, I’m lucky to have Tessa. I can bounce ideas off Tessa and then I’ll continue to use my team, some really great friends, some great mentors that I really respect, one being my coach Patrice Lauzon. I still bounce things off him. I just try to create a network of people that I can pick up the phone and call at any time and I hope that they feel like they can do the same with me.
— Scott answering “Who do you source for feedback or the opportunity to bounce where you want to go?”

How do I narrow that down?… I don’t even know if we could have a conversation! I do love that guy and when I look back at kids that remind me of 2010 Scott, it just makes me laugh. I just think, you have no clue and you think you do. That’s the joys of being 22 and a lot of the coaches, judges even, here’s this kid coming up, you know, he’s cocky! You’ve got to go and tell him, and advise him and get him away from that. And I’m just like, no that’s not part of it. He’s got to walk his own course and I think that’s kind of the magic of it. But the difference between 2010 and 2018, for me, because I was probably more confident on the ice than I’d ever been, but it was more sincere. It was confidence from preparation and confidence because we really believed in our material and confident because we wanted to share what we love to do with the world. I think there’s a sincerity from that…. and people really connect to that. You can’t really fake that and I think in 2010, we were playing characters and we were so young and innocent and still love to skate – I mean, we were in our home country, so how could it not be magical? But there was a sincerity to this 2018 experience that was very different.
—
Scott answering, “What have you learned most about yourself between Gold medal #1 and Gold medal 2? / If you went back to that guy from 2010, what would you say to him?”

The next chapter of my life will be show skating, we really are excited about the show that we’re doing right now, we really would like to create something that goes into smaller cities, not just the 12 major markets in Canada, but something that’s art, but we want to pour work into that. And Tessa and I, what we’ve found about ourselves in our chats and our next steps is that we love to work. We love to be involved in projects that we can be all in… We’re trying to create a platform where we can be all in, create an experience for the fans and that’ll be kind of the short term, and I’m looking into giving back what we’ve learned with B2Ten and professionals that most people don’t have the access to and creating that kind of system that takes care of younger athletes a bit better in the way that they come up and in talent identification as well as making sure our elite athletes aren’t just getting by because they’re successful. I want to help them push themselves to the next level because this is the biggest thing I learned in 2017, 2018 – I thought I knew what I was doing in 2010. I thought I knew what it was like to be a champion and I was a champion, we did win the Olympics, but I wasn’t a professional in my preparation. The same thing in 2014. We upped our mechanics, we started seeing a psychologist, but that pales in comparison to the preparation and the types of professionals in 2018. And I think the skating world, and even most of the athletic world, has to remember to keep pushing themselves.

I think I need to be inspired a little bit before I can really find my strive. But I plant seeds and now I’ve learned that there’s no bad ideas. You throw ideas on the table and the best idea wins. When I started to create…because a lot of the stuff that Tessa and I do, we do as a team, we can collaborate. So, in some ways, we rely on each other. I feel like I’m kinda like picking through the ideas and highlighting the best ones. For me, I love Tess. I love watching her move. I love how… She’s a magician. So, it’s very easy to watch her do something and pick. It’s very natural. But when I’m creating or getting into the headspace of a character, I like it to be real. A lot of the programs that we’ve done have been kinda based on my own experiences, not in the way of method acting or pretending, but more so in putting myself in that position. If I want to be jealous or remembering what it’s like to jealous and really understanding why. And that’s a big part of me coming to terms with my character. But other than that, I think I’ve been a little bit blessed with the fact that I’m emotional. I’ve always loved to tell a story and act and I bring as much energy as I can. And I’ve always been the guy that when I give 100% and kinda go what I think would be seen as over the top is when Tess goes ‘yes, that’s it. I love that. Give us that.’

I would say that… I would push most young people to be interesting and not to fit into the mold. I know it’s tough and it’s especially tough when you’re in the school system, when you’re in this little world with peer pressure and it can become overwhelming. But it’s a huge world. And push yourself to be interesting and follow your passions because there are tons of people who are into the same things as you and it’s really about what makes you happy. So, it’s really really tough, but you know, those interesting people are the ones who rule the world in the end.

We don’t have, and most people know this, an off-ice romantic relationship with Tessa.

We have an extremely intense personal relationship that can’t be compared to any other relationship because it’s so intense and because of the nature of what we do on the ice.

A lot of the love that people see on the ice is real, to a certain extent.

I have no other rush that is like the rush in my life when I either stand in my opening position or stand in the tunnel right before I go out. That’s what I live for. And I know what to do when I get into position, but I love that excitement.

Early on, as a male in my sport, I struggled a little bit with self confidence. And I don’t think that’ll read in a way many people would think. When I started on new projects with choreography and with movement, I was never trained to dance. I was never trained to move in a specific way. I’m more of a feeling person so as I was young, I was always really insecure about the first thing that was going to come out of my body. And I knew that I was going to be compared to Tessa because she was there beside me and most the time nailing it right away. Actually all the time nailing it right away. But that kind of changed as I got older. And now, mostly, the thing that I’m not so good at would be controlling my emotions. Making sure that I’m using it in the right way. It’s also what makes me a very powerful athlete, a very powerful performer but it can be my worst enemy if I let it get in the way

I always say I wanna be remembered as a good person and Tessa would probably say the same thing because that’s what we always say in interviews but I think that what I want to be remembered for is my passion. And not being afraid to go after something.

My strengths, I’d hope that my strengths are personal connections. I love people. Right now, we’re on tour. I like making connections with the crew, the person who does wardrobe, the person who’s doing the lights. I like creating that family, that kind of, I guess, for lack of better word, culture and pushing that, kind of being the team captain. That really motivates me. I help other people before I help myself, I guess.