For show-stopping figure skater Jason Brown, a challenging career transition

Jason Brown’s big change includes a new look. (Jason Brown Instagram)

TORONTO – Jason Brown was feeling out possibilities to continue his competitive skating career with a new coach, and he figured it made sense to see what it might be like to work with Brian Orser and his team.

So, Brown came in mid-April to the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club, with no promise other than the opportunity to do a couple training sessions with the coaches who had produced singles champions at the last three Olympics. Orser & Co. already had a rink full of elite talents, with more expected, and he was not sure if there was room for another.

No sooner had Brown taken the ice with several other skaters, the room was his.

“He started skating, and everyone else stopped and watched,” said Tracy Wilson, the Olympic ice dance bronze medalist and Orser’s co-coach, who helped convince Orser that Brown’s energy, enthusiasm and skill would be good for everyone else at the rink.

“What he came with to the club is incredible,” she continued. “He is all in every step. The arms. The free leg. His flexibility. The split jumps out of nowhere. Everything is at such a high level. It’s show-stopping.”

For all that, Brown’s competitive skating career had been stopped dead in its tracks by his failure to make the 2018 U.S. Olympic team. He had made no plans beyond competing at the 2018 Winter Games.

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