Matthew Markell - A Wonderful Surprise

I absolutely love Matthew Markell, he is my kind of skater, I could watch him skate all day. I loved his program to the music "To Build a Home" (a piece I love). Tracy commented that he did the choreography himself. He may have flown under the radar because he had a bad short program skate, but one can see his artistry flourish in his long program. I'm adding Matthew to my new Canadian male skaters as "a wonderful surprise". I always discover someone new to watch after the Nationals.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzyxs8UeRog

Watched him skate and he skated beautifully!

I've been a fan of Matthew Markell for the past 2.5 years, but almost no one else cares about him on the Team Canada thread, so I'm very happy that you've jumped on his bandwagon. I would've liked to start a Fan Fest for him, but I never did because I knew that I'd be the only person contributing to it, and I'm already quite "lonely" for long stretches of time for Fan Fests of a few other Canadian men (Roman Sadovsky, Joseph Phan, Nicolas Nadeau and Iliya Kovler in particular).

Nice FS from Matthew. Loved his joyous reaction at the end, along with the crowd's awesome support.

Matthew was 2018 Jr Canadian Mens Champion. IDK how he "flew under the radar" for some, especially if you are Canadian.

For those of you who don't already know this, Matt is the 2018 Canadian junior champion (ETA: Ic3Rabbit beat me to it) and the 2016 Canadian novice silver medallist. He's terribly inconsistent (arguably to a greater degree than most Canadian men's singles skaters), but the following are his better performances that I'm aware of.


2016 CFSC Novice SP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSSnsvDzXro

2016 CFSC Novice LP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGx5U2CHqkI

2017 CFSC Junior SP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lerKVC5POM

2018 CFSC Junior LP: https://streamable.com/g2c2v

2018 Egna Spring Trophy Junior SP: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tpf54

2019 CFSC LP: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x70yaqq


His strongest performances of his "Wolf" SP both contain a freak fall, so I couldn't decide between the 2019 Quebec Summer Championships and the 2020 Canadian Nationals versions.

2019 QSC SP: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7hfb9d

2020 CFSC SP: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7qq4ea


This is the livestream commentary for his 2020 CFSC LP: https://streamable.com/n752m


Beyond his skating, Matt is the sweetest figure skater that I've ever met. :luv17: He's one of only two who treats me like an acquaintance when we meet in person, but unlike Joseph Phan, Matt also keeps in touch with me on social media, and he usually replies to my questions/comments.

I was impressed he did a genuine and more than credible haircutter spin. It's very unusual for a man to have that much flexibility in his back.

And his joy when he finished his FP was very sweet.

I was also impressed with Joseph Phan. Give them both a few years and they may just surprise us all.

I really enjoyed him and thought he had Pair guy qualities.

I admit I'd never heard of him. I don't really follow juniors that much.

And I also admit I rolled my eyes when I learned his music was "Build a Home."

But I actually enjoyed his skating very much. I understand he has suffered injuries this year that really effected his preparation.

Am I remembering that correctly? Because it makes his achievement even more remarkable.

WeakAnkles said:

I was impressed he did a genuine and more than credible haircutter spin. It's very unusual for a man to have that much flexibility in his back.

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Yes, his unusual flexibility is definitely part of his appeal as a skater.

WeakAnkles said:

And his joy when he finished his FP was very sweet.

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He barely qualified for Nationals after a disastrous outing at the Challenge (he even wept in the kiss & cry, the poor guy ) , so I know it meant the world to him to skate as well as he did at the biggest competition of his season. :hap85:

WeakAnkles said:

I was also impressed with Joseph Phan. Give them both a few years and they may just surprise us all.

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It's interesting to note that Markell's LP PCS at Nationals was only 1.76 points behind Phan's (and 8.46 points ahead of Orzel's); that's surprisingly high considering that Matt has never competed on the JGP circuit or Junior Worlds (plus he has never competed as a senior internationally), whereas Joseph and Conrad are far more accomplished in comparison. If only Matt could master a 3A and a quad---in a perfect world, he'd be part of the Canadian men's discussion. But he currently doesn't have those big jumps, and considering that he'll be 20 years old in March, I'm concerned that he may not get them. But I'll always hope, of course.

Balloon said:

I really enjoyed him and thought he had Pair guy qualities.

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He's 6 ft tall (and he even teased me over how short I was ), but if he were to switch disciplines, I think ice dance would suit him better because he's so expressive. That quality would benefit him more in dance than in pairs, not to mention his coaches are ice dancers (Michael Coreno and Allie Hann-McCurdy).

TontoK said:

And I also admit I rolled my eyes when I learned his music was "Build a Home."

But I actually enjoyed his skating very much.

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During the 2017-2018 season, another junior man named Samuel Turcotte had also performed to "Build a Home" for his LP, and it happened on at least a couple of occasions where both he and Markell had to skate one after the other. Although Turcotte was generally more consistent with his jumps, it was glaringly obvious that Matt was the superior skater and artist when they're using the same song.

TontoK said:

I understand he has suffered injuries this year that really effected his preparation.

Am I remembering that correctly? Because it makes his achievement even more remarkable.

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Yes, Matt had a foot injury which caused him to withdraw from the Minto Summer Skate and other smaller events in the fall hosted by Skate Ontario.

Ic3Rabbit said:

Matthew was 2018 Jr Canadian Mens Champion. IDK how he "flew under the radar" for some, especially if you are Canadian.

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I don't usually follow the Jr. ranks, so hadn't been aware of Matthew until I saw him skate at the Nationals in the Sr. ranks. What I mean by "under the radar" he was not in the top flight of skaters, so expectations weren't as high. It was delightful to watch this talented up coming skater. I hope to see more of him in future competitions.