Jason Brown has been competing on the international stage for nearly half of his life—he made his debut at the Gardena Trophy all the way back in April 2010 as a 15-year-old, and has been traveling to far reaches of the globe as a competitor ever since. Along the way, the now 26-year-old has built friendships with those in the sport that represent as many nations as the stamps in his passport.
"Skating has given me so many opportunities to see places that I never imagined that I would see," Brown said. "Competing as long as I have, you see a lot of the same athletes at events over the years. I'm fortunate to be able to call so many of them my friends."
Brown met Evgenia Medvedeva when he moved to Toronto to train with Brian Orser and Tracy Wilson in 2018. The two-time World champion had left her native Russia and arrived in Canada within weeks of Brown, and soon after the two started to build a friendship.
"We really bonded over the fact that we were moving under similar circumstances in that we were with our longtime coaches and were uprooting our lives and moving to a new country to train," Brown said. "We came from two different worlds, and we started to talk about our experiences and what our hopes were for the future and realized that we weren't so different. I think that it was on our hardest days at practice when we were most vulnerable that really brought us together."
They both competed in many of the same events that first season together, culminating with a trip to the World Championships in Saitama, Japan.
"We were both so excited to be there," Brown remembered. "We knew what we had gone through to get there, and it was a really amazing moment when she won the bronze medal."
Medvedeva left Canada in the spring of 2020 and eventually returned to Russia. Though they are separated by thousands of miles, Brown says that they still stay in touch regularly.
"She could not be more supportive," he said. "We don't talk as much as we used to, but when I reach out, she responds quickly and I do the same."
Brown's friendship with 2015 World silver medalist Satoko Miyahara extends back nearly a decade when the two met at a Junior Grand Prix event in Turkey. When she relocated to Toronto in 2019 to train with Lee Barkell, Brown was admittedly excited to have another friend in the area.
"We kind of grew up in the sport together. It's really amazing to go through the sport at the same time with someone," he explained. "It has been great having her nearby, and I look forward to seeing her when she comes back later this summer after her touring commitments are fulfilled"
Brown toured with Miyahara in the Japanese show
The Ice, and enjoyed seeing the tour cities with his old friend.
"The tour made sure to designate certain days for us to explore the different cities," Brown said. "We visited various temples, and Satoko taught me about so many rituals. To share this and learn from her was very special."
In the summer of 2019, Brown traveled to China with Orser and Wilson. One day after training, he was invited to share dinner out with pairs skaters Peng Cheng and Jin Yang and fellow men's competitor Boyang Jin.
"I didn't speak Mandarin but luckily Yang's English is very good," he said. "I mentioned that I would love to visit the Great Wall, and they all said that they had never been. We all agreed that when I come back to Beijing, that we would all go see it."
A few weeks later, Brown returned to Beijing with his coaches and arranged a tour with his new friends.
"It was an amazing experience to see the Great Wall, but what made it really special was to see it through the eyes of someone from China who was also seeing it for the first time," Brown shared. "We had such a great time."
With all of the skaters that Brown calls friend, there was one who was not initially fond of the 2015 U.S. champion.
"Grant Hochstein did not like me at all," he said with a laugh. "I didn't realize that he was not a fan, but I weaseled my way into his heart."
The way Brown tells it, he and Hochstein were both assigned to the Lombardia Trophy in 2017, when Brown's father invited Hochstein to join the family on a tour of the city.
"We got to know each other there, and then traveled to some of the same events over the next two years," Brown recalled. "We shared some highs and lows, and started to become friends."
The two have become such great friends that Brown served as Hochstein's best man when he married Caroline Zhang in 2018.
"My favorite Grant memory is from the 2018 U.S. Championships," Brown shared. "Grant had just skated the best short program of his life, and I was able to congratulate him before I went out for my warmup. He said to me, 'I want you to go out and beat me. Can you do that for me?' He is so supportive and only wants the best for me. That's just who he is."
Brown was able to visit Hochstein shortly after he and Zhang welcomed their first child, a daughter, back in April following the World Team Trophy.
"I just showed up at their door," he said. "It was kind of awesome because the gift that I bought for the baby showed up as I arrived at their house, so I guess I was meant to be there."
Despite the pandemic and lack of travel, Brown has been able to maintain his friendships around the world. During lockdown, he and Miyahara set up Zoom dance classes together to keep in touch. The Cricket Club family even found ways to stay together despite distance with weekly Zoom workouts with students tuning in across the globe.
Brown is looking forward to his Grand Prix events in Canada and France later this year to finally see many of his friends in person, and maybe even make a few new ones along the way.
