No favourites in Milan, but Orser sees something brewing in Canadian singles skating

Brian Orser knows Canada's odds of bringing home a singles figure skating medal from the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics are slim.

The 1987 world champion — and decorated coach — isn't alarmed, because he believes better results are coming.

"When we're in what looks like a lull, it's because something is brewing and something is simmering," Orser said. "Then all of a sudden it just comes to a boil, and everybody's happy.

"We just have to be patient."

For much of the past half-century, Canadian singles skaters have played a starring role on the world stage, bringing home an impressive array of medals.

As a child, Orser watched in awe from his living room in Penetanguishene, Ont., when the revolutionary Toller Cranston won an Olympic bronze in 1976, blazing a trail for other Canadians to follow.

Orser carried that torch with two Olympic silver medals and a world title in the 1980s, inspiring fellow world champions Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko — between them winners of six crowns in eight years in the 1990s — who in turn paved the way for Jeffrey Buttle and Patrick Chan.

"Like any sport and really in any nation, there's cycles, and we had a cycle of reigning men's champions for quite a long time," Orser said last month at the Canadian championships in Gatineau, Que., where he coached multiple skaters. "At some point, that theory will maybe go on hold for a little bit."

While Canada hasn't dominated to the same extent on the women's side, the country still produced Olympic medallists Elizabeth Manley (1988), Joannie Rochette (2010) and Kaetlyn Osmond (2018) in the past 40 years.

Canada's strong lineage makes the current drought hard to miss. No Canadian has won a singles medal at the Olympics or world championships since