Feschuk: Patrick Chan wins Lou Marsh award

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By Dave Feschuk
Sports Columnist

There’s a simple enough reason why Patrick Chan, the Toronto figure skater, was voted the winner of the Lou Marsh award as Canada’s athlete of the year.

While this country is brimming with world-class sporting talent — and while the Lou Marsh short list included among its ranks the world’s best women’s long-track speed skater, Christine Nesbitt, and the No. 1-ranked men’s shot putter, Dylan Armstrong — Chan ruled his sport with an authority that was unmatched by any of his compatriots. Not only did he capture the world championship in April in Moscow, he registered world-record scores in the process. Not only did he win the ISU Grand Prix final in Quebec City on Saturday, he also went unbeaten in competition for the calendar year. Undefeated is difficult to argue with, of course, which is a big part of why he was the overwhelming choice of Tuesday’s panel of sports writers, editors and broadcasters chaired by Olympic rowing great Silken Laumann.

Certainly the short list included an impressive list of worthy candidates. Along with Nesbitt and Armstrong, the selection committee acknowledged the merits of last year’s winner Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds, show-jumping champion Eric Lamaze and Milwaukee Brewers reliever John Axford. But nobody dominated a sport the way Chan dominated his.

And now that the figure-skating season is in a lull, Chan is pondering his next challenge — specifically, a trip to the Las Vegas strip. Chan’s birthday falls on a day synonymous with the kind of all-night debauchery that city of sin is famous for; he was a New Year’s Eve baby, after all. It just so happens that on this New Year’s Eve, he’ll turn 21 — or, as Chan put it, “the big 2-1.”

“I actually spend most of my birthdays skiing, because I just love it so much — that’s more than enough to make me happy ... put me on the slope,” Chan said. “This is the first time I’m actually going somewhere where something bad can happen.”