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Ice dance gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir will be co-producing a cross-Canada tour this fall – and this time, they’ll be the ones in creative control.

Though the details are still being worked out, in an interview with the Star, Virtue described the concept as a sort of scaled-down combo of a rock concert, dance extravaganza and traditional skating show.

Virtue, on the phone from Kanazawa, Japan, said she and Moir have been busy, “Picking the buildings, finding sponsors, putting a cast together, creating a team of directors, choreographers and costume designers, and thinking about everything we’ve always wanted to do in a show.”

The two have been performing during the Olympic off-season for many years now, but, “We would sit in every show and think ‘I wish I could do this, I wish I could do that, I would do this differently.’ Well, now we’re actually trying to make that happen,” Virtue said.

Virtue and Moir, who won individual and team gold at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games, are known for their ice-meltingly sexy routines .

Since their win in February, the pair has appeared in skating shows at home and abroad, including the spring Stars On Ice tour across major Canadian cities.

Tour producer Byron Allen told the Star that, thanks to Olympic fever and Virtue-Moir madness specifically, Stars on Ice had a banger year, selling out six venues and generating a level of attendance and excitement not seen since the summer of 2002, when Jamie Salé and David Pelletier headlined.

This new venture — dubbed the Thank You Canada Tour, in honour of the gratitude the two feel towards Canadians who supported them through their Olympic journey — will make its 30 stops in smaller communities; kicking off in Abbottsford, B.C. on Oct. 5 and concluding in St. John’s, Nfld. On Nov. 24.

It will feature some of Virtue and Moir’s closest friends, who happen to make up the majority of the Canadian Olympic figure skating team, as well as Elvis Stojko and a number of as-yet-unannounced guests.

Virtue said they want to perform in places where people don’t usually get to see professional figure skating. She spoke wistfully of the skating club in Ilderton, Ont., population 1,800, where she and Moir met at just seven and nine years old, and imagined what it would have been like, back then, to see ice dance at a high level on home ice.

“We were lucky that we got to travel when we were young and do seminars and get exposed to other ice dancing teams and athletes,” Virtue said. “We don’t think we’re going to be changing the world (with this tour), but if we can go into these cities and put on a good show, that maybe is a little fresh and different, and have fun with 5,000 people in Grande Prairie, Alberta, then that would be really cool.”

Over the years, exhibition skating – especially those seasons when they were deep in Olympic training and just appeared as guests for a few minutes in a number or two — has been fun, but they had no “creative control or investment in the full product,” Virtue said.

“We’re all-in people. That’s not really fulfilling for us.”

When asked what they want to do creatively, Virtue said there is a “long list” but that budget and the limitations of small venues will rein them in somewhat.

“But” she said excitedly, “even things like having a stage and doing some off-ice dance, but then the choreography comes on to the ice. Or doing the lighting a different way. Or having loud music. Or confetti! We’re at that stage now where we’re just throwing out all our crazy ideas.”

“We’re shaking things up. It’s really our way to tour Canada and say thank you. We’re so excited.”

ctvreginalive: Canadian Ice Dancers @tessavirtue17 & @scottmoir14 are coming to Regina on their “Thank You Canada Tour”. Get your tickets today!