My coaches have told me my muscles and body structure are perfect for skating.
Once you land a jump, you put it straight in the program. That's the way I've always been doing it.
No one in Montreal learns how to skate. You're just born that way.
I think doing a quint is very, very difficult.
Ever since I was a younger skater, I've been working my way to these big jumps.
It's always tough when you're off the ice for a while when you've got to come back because you can't replicate the type of cardio that you need to play hockey and you can't really replicate skating at all. You can run as many stairs, or bike as many whatever on your spin bike as you want, but you can't replicate it at all.
When I watch my skating when I was younger, I definitely see all this balletic movement and this artistry come through.
In ramp skating, there's this guy Alex Perelson who's really coming into his own and doing some amazing new stuff we haven't seen before. Just different types of spin.
Honestly, the best skater that I've seen who raps is Tyler, The Creator. He really can skate... He's legit.
I have great artistry, I can spin well, I have good footwork, and I can jump. I can do the quad jump, and I've done it multiple times in competition. It's definitely a jump that I have in my arsenal. I like to think of myself as the complete skater.
I was a natural skater, but I also took private lessons to enhance my skills.
When I was younger, my mom worked at a roller rink, so I'd go all the time. I learned to skate pretty well. I won the limbo all the time.
I was terrible when I first started skating and was clinging onto the side for dear life, but it's something I'll always have now, and the tour is always so much fun.
I think that ballet and skating definitely go hand in hand, especially growing up at Ballet West, which is an incredible academy.
I can do all my jumps in practice, three in a row, five out of five, four out of five.
Being able to land all the quads, especially doing them all in one program, is mentally huge.
I like to skate on the other side of the ice.
I can do the tricks and I can skate. I have great skating skills and artistry and well-choreographed programs. For me, the biggest obstacle is just bringing it all together.
To have all of these jumps in my arsenal is very beneficial. I can always alter my program so I can either play it safe, or I can play it risky with high reward. It depends on what I feel like I need that day.
Triples are hard. Triple axel is just not my jump. Quads are really my thing.
To me, the make-up of a modern defenseman, the No. 1 thing is the processing skills.
I was a really good ice hockey player when I was a kid. Now in the aftermath I think I wasn't maybe big enough, and I couldn't have put on enough muscle to actually be able to play with the better guys, but I was a really good skater.
I was never a great screen and roller, obviously.
I want to be a full-package skater.
I took group lessons at a rink near my home. We first had to learn how to stand up on the ice wearing skates. Eventually we learned to move forward, but soon found out that it was not that easy to stop! So that was our next important lesson.
