“I wasn't ready.”
That’s the perspective of Canadian figure skater Keegan Messing when asked why the two-time Olympian – who turns 31 later this month – decided not to hang up his skates for good at the completion of the Olympic year.
Instead, he’s called the 2022-23 season his last.
“A lot of athletes like to retire in the Olympic year,” he told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview last month. “It's all the build-up to the quad and [then] it can be the perfect time to say goodbye. I thought about it a lot, actually, but I just wasn't ready. I wanted more.”
That “more” is now, with Messing getting a hero’s welcome at Skate Canada International in October, his final home Grand Prix. This week, he’ll head to Oshawa, Ontario, for his final national championships – and where he is the reigning title holder.
“I try to not think of, ‘This is going to be the last time,’” Messing explained, recalling the emotion he felt from the crowd’s roaring reception at Skate Canada. “I want to leave with everything on the table. I don't want to have to say, ‘Oh, I wish I did this. I wish I did that.’ And the funny part is it's that much more nerve wracking. It's that much harder on my nerves when I have those personal goals set so high.”
Part of Messing finishing on his own terms can be drawn back to a singular event in early February of 2022, when the skater tested positive for Covid-19 en route to the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, forcing him to miss the team event – and arriving just in time for the men’s singles competition, where he finished 11th.
“It's something that I really wanted to do,” Messing said of the team event, having sat on the sidelines in 2018 when three-time world champion Patrick Chan was tapped to skate.
There’s another big life moment looming for Messing: He and wife Lane are expecting their second child sometime in mid- or late-January. He’s even skipping the gala exhibition at nationals to go back home.
(2022 Getty Images)
Keegan Messing: Skating for others
While Messing has grown as a crowd favourite as he’s built an international CV and rapport with Canadian and global audiences alike, the two-time Grand Prix medallist became a father in July of 2021 when his son Wyatt was born.
Wyatt became a mainstay at skating events – via Messing’s phone: Keegan would hold up a photo of his child as he sat in the kiss and cry, awaiting his scores.
“That’s who I am: I love sharing,” said Messing. “I'm such a proud dad [that] I wanted to share my boy with everybody. I've always felt this connection with the crowd... connecting with them on a personal level. Being in the kiss and cry, wanting to share with the audience and people beyond the screen that much more. I just want to connect with them more.”
Messing, who is based and trains in Anchorage (he grew up in Alaska but began skating for Canada in 2014), said Wyatt has only broadened his perspective as an elite athlete, even as he’s added more responsibilities – and less sleep – to dad’s schedule.
“[He’s] actually made the skating and the nerves easier because before, skating was my life, and it still is, but skating was everything to me,” explained Messing. “But now I have this life outside of skating. It feels like there is a weight lifted off of me and I feel like I can more go out and skate because I love to do it.”
“And regardless of how I do, I have this life to go home to,” he added.
In 2019, just weeks before the skating season began, Keegan’s brother Paxon was killed in a traffic accident. Keegan competed at the first Grand Prix of the year at Skate America, dedicating his gala performance to his late brother, saying then: “Just being on the ice the last few weeks has been one of the most difficult things that I've had to do.”
“Coming here this week was a huge decision for me.”
- Keegan Messing dedicates gala to late brother (2019)
- Keegan Messing competes at Beijing 2022 after Covid delay
Beijing Olympics: Taking the long route
Another difficult trip – but in a whole different way – was Messing’s journey to Beijing in February. Having just won his first national title weeks earlier in an empty arena due to Covid protocols, the skater was meticulously careful before heading to Vancouver for team processing en route to the Games.
But it happened: He tested positive for Covid-19 and was ordered to quarantine, needing to produce a negative test within days to even have the chance to make it to the Olympics, with the men’s singles event immediately following the team in the first few days of the Games.
After testing negative following days of quarantine, Messing began a 40-hour trip that took him from the West Coast of Canada via Europe to Beijing (the only operable flights that could be managed into China), and then had to test negative again to be allowed once he arrived. He did so with hours to spare before his final practice opportunity for the men’s event.
“There were these curtains walking into the arena, where they hold the skaters, and I stopped there and looked up and could see the rings,” Messing remembered. “I had to close off the emotion because all we had time to do was work. At the very end of practice I looked up again, center ice, and just thought, ‘I made it. Thank you. I still can't believe I made it in time.’”
He had missed the team event, however, which is part of his continued motivation to skate the 2022-23 season: World Team Trophy will complete the year after the World Championships, and Messing would like to be there - for both competitions.
“It’s one of the biggest reasons that I wanted to skate this year,” Messing said, noting that Canada needs to be among the top six countries in the world for it to qualify to go World Tream Trophy.
“I couldn't think of a better way to say goodbye than at a competition where there's no qualification. I'll be there with all my friends. I'll be there with countries where I made all my friends and in a country [Japan] that absolutely loves skating. I just think it's the perfect place to really just hang up my hat and say goodbye.”
Keegan Messing and the last dance
The “hat” is a famous one, too, as Messing has often donned a cowboy hat in the kiss and cry, one of his trademark personality traits, as well as sometimes doing a backflip on the ice post-skate, either after the free skate or in the gala.
Those are bits of his signature style that have made him unique, and led him to this final season, even if it is the post-Olympic one.
Messing has always been known for his big-jumping, too, and he’s keen to land one more quadruple Lutz – one of the most difficult quad jumps – at the Canadian Championships or (should he get the chance) at a subsequent international event later in the season.
“It’s a jump that I don’t understand,” he said. “I get it consistent, and just when I start perfecting it, it feels like it’s out of reach. I really want to complete the jump in my 30s.”
With Montreal set to host the World Championships in 2024 (Saitama, Japan, is the host this year), there is the temptation for Messing to continue one more season.
That’s not happening, he said.
“I've been on the ice for 27 years and it's hard... my body hurts – everything hurts! I'm tired and I think this is the perfect time to say goodbye. A year after the Olympics, there's no pressure, really. And hopefully I can just go out and have the best time of my life out there.”
While Messing said that he has a particular love for gala show skating, he also has his eye on another post-competition career: Joining his father (and two family generations before that) as a firefighter.
“It’s all up in the air and I’m going to go where the wind takes me,” he said. “There is so much I want to do in this life and to spend time with my family is a huge thing. I don’t want to worry too much about [what comes next], but I want to look out for my family, too.”
