Conrad Orzel knew something had to change following the 2022 Canadian Championships. Entering the competition with high hopes, he finished ninth overall, almost 40 points out of third place and three spots lower than his last outing in 2020. It was a tough pill to swallow.
That result caused the 22-year-old to take a step back and reflect on what he was doing and what he wanted to achieve. A couple of weeks later he made a bold decision. It was time to make a change.
Orzel, who had trained with Brian Orser and Tracy Wilson at the Toronto Cricket Club since early 2018, contacted Ravi Walia, the coach of 2018 World champion Kaetlyn Osmond.
His discussions with Walia convinced the Toronto native that this could be the right move for him, and that Walia could bring a fresh approach to all aspects of his skating. And so, in the middle of a cold and snowy February, Orzel upended his life and moved to Alberta.
“I felt that I was not improving the way I wanted to,” he explained. “There were a lot of different things I wanted to improve, and I felt that Ravi could help me — especially with my skating skills and performance — so I decided to make the move to Edmonton.”
When Orzel advised Orser and Wilson of his decision he said both were very supportive. “I learned so much from them and they helped me tremendously with every single aspect of my skating, especially the spins and jumps. They told me that whenever I am in Toronto I can skate at the Cricket. They are just great people.”
Neither Orzel nor his sister, Amelia — who moved to Alberta with him — had ever lived away from home before, but once they found an apartment they eased into a new daily routine. So far, the arrangement is working well, Orzel said.
“This is the first time we have been on our own, but we are managing well. It was definitely an adjustment. It is very different living on your own. There is a lot more responsibility, but with my sister it has been a really easy transition. Once we got into a routine it was really easy to adjust.
“We help each other out and work well as a team. We both do our own cooking, but my sister makes most of our dinners. I think she enjoys it more and she prefers her cooking over mine, which is pretty basic. She has a tendency to be more creative and makes better food.
“And everyone at the Ice Palace Figure Skating Club in Edmonton was really welcoming, so it kind of felt like home pretty quickly.”
During the off-season Walia focused on developing Orzel’s skating skills, with only a minimal amount of time devoted to his jumps. “Ravi reworked my basic skating skills, along with expression and artistry, which was a huge focus. Orzel said the feedback he received from the Skate Canada officials and his choreographer who came to see his programs was positive. “They all said they saw improvement and I feel I have made improvement. I am just going to keep working to get better.”
Lance Vipond choreographed both programs this season. The short is set to Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” and the free to a medley of tunes: “Paint It Black” from “Westworld: Season 1,” and two Rolling Stones pieces, “Out of Tears” from the album “Voodoo Lounge” and “Paint It Black” from “Aftermath.”
As the summer competitions grew closer, Orzel and Walia began focusing on his jumps, paying particular attention to the quads. “I feel that with Ravi we have really honed in on doing a lot more repetitions and gaining consistency with the quads,” Orzel explained. “I have the same number of quads in my programs as I did last year — two in the short and three in the long. We focused mostly on the quad toe and quad Salchow and as the season progresses we will be adding the jumps into my programs.”
His progress came to a screeching halt at the beginning of June, when he sustained a severe right ankle sprain following a “really bad fall” on a quad toe and was unable to do any jumps for about a month. Orzel was off the ice for almost two weeks and said when he returned it was a slow process. “I had a lot of pain in my ankle, and I could only do limited training. It hurt to land on my right foot.”
In mid-July he started doing loop and Lutz jumps but was still feeling a slight pain in his foot when executing a change sit spin.
At his first competition, the Wild Rose Summer Combined Invitational, he presented a watered down version of his programs to focus on the performance aspect and to present them well. That paid off with Orzel winning the competition.
Three weeks later he headed west for the BC Summer Skate. At that competition, he included two quads in his short program, a quad toe-double toe combination and a quad Salchow, which received a q. In the free, he landed two quad toes, but popped the triple Axel, doubled the loop and was hit with an under-rotation call on a second triple Axel in combination.
Despite those technical errors, his combined score of 225.65 — the highest long program mark for a Canadian man at a 2022 summer competition — gave him the win over Wesley Chiu by a 19.08-point margin. (Stephen Gogolev has the highest short program score from the summer competitions).
Orzel is currently working on the quad Lutz and quad flip jumps, but said they are not consistent enough to include in a program at this time.
He has not yet received any Challenger Series assignments but has secured a spot at Skate Canada International in October.
With two wins under his belt at pre-season events, Orzel said he is even more motivated to improve all aspects of his skating as he moves through the season. “One goal I have is to finish top three at nationals and I hope that my new style of skating will help me reach that goal. There is a lot of competition in Canada, but I feel that I will definitely be challenging for that.”
Though he has not ruled out staying in the game for the next four years he is taking it one season at a time right now. “After each season, I will analyze where I am at and what my goals are. But I want to see how far I can go in skating,” he said.
One thing the pandemic taught him was how much he appreciates performing for a live audience. “I think COVID was definitely hard for everyone, but when we got to compete in front of a crowd again and not just a camera, I realized how special it was. It is a great feeling and made me really appreciate it more. I think it is such a privilege — and I know how much more appreciative I am – to be given the opportunities to perform in front of a crowd again.”
During his years at the Toronto Cricket Club, Orzel had the opportunity to train on the same ice as Yuzuru Hanyu. He said it was an experience he will never forget.
“I believe he is like the greatest of all time. He did so much for the sport, and through the years I got to train with him it was such an honor just to see how great he is on and off the ice,” said Orzel. “It is the end of an era, but I think me and the whole skating world is just thankful to him for the contribution he has made to figure skating.”
While he is happily settled in his new training environment, Orzel said he misses the skaters at the Cricket Club and his other skating friends in Toronto. “I always make sure when I am back in Toronto that we hang out. I am making new friends in Edmonton so it is not lonely here, but I do miss my Toronto friends a lot.”
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