“Performing is performing,” he said. “It’s just a matter of working on the skill. I love the film work. I did a number of auditions and my agent is looking to get me some more auditions for some more prominent shows because a lot of stuff is being filmed in Toronto and Vancouver. It’s a really, really good opportunity for Canadian actors to get their face out there. That’s my real focus with skating on the side.

“There’s some skaters that are very athletic and they do perform, but you’re very focused on what you’re doing, especially when you’re competing. When you’re doing shows, you’ve got to really reach out and connect with the audience. In Busch Gardens, it’s a small stage and it’s a 30-minute Christmas show. I play the Poppa and my wife plays the Momma, and during the show there’s voice-over work and I have to mouth everything. There’s a lot of acting involved and that’s why they hired me for the gig. It’s kind of a cool thing that blended together for me. It is in essence performing, but there’s a lot of skill involved when it comes to learning lines and stuff like that, breaking down character development. But when the camera hits and you’re on, you’ve got to entertain.

“That’s the thing I love doing. I’ve done it for years. I’ve had opportunities in the past to do different televisions shows. I worked with Robin Williams and Edward Norton on a movie called Death To Smoochy. I double for Robin and did the choreography for the skating portion, so I was around that energy of film work and I got addicted to it. I love the creativity of it, being around it and working on it. I knew after my skating career ended I wanted to focus on it. Word got out and it just started growing from there. I was really fortunate to do Chicago in New York of all places. To be able to cross off my bucket list to say I performed on Broadway was pretty cool. That was a great opportunity and hopefully I can continue with that in film and TV. It’s a lot easier on my body.”

He became heavily involved in competitive Go Kart racing and was a runnerup for the 2016 World’s in Italy in his class. However, he decided to take the year off to concentrate on acting and film work, but was offered the chance to compete because the driver who had earned the spot couldn’t go. Stojko opted not to race in the event because he hadn’t competed in almost a year.

“Acting has taken me a lot further along at the moment,” he said. “I love the racing, but it was a lot of extra time and I couldn’t focus on everything, especially when you have people looking at you for film work. I really had to up the ante and work on my skill level. I just didn’t have the energy to do everything.”

He has also had the opportunity to lend his name to a wine product, following in the likes of Wayne Gretzky, Mike Weir and Daniel Nestor, through wine maker Peter Jensen.

“It was really cool,” he said. “Through one of my sponsors, they were connected to Peter Jensen. Since he was involved with golf, tennis and skating, he wanted to do something with a figure skater. We had a meeting over a year and a half ago and I told him I wasn’t a wine drinker and he said that doesn’t matter. He wanted to utilize my name and have an ultra-premium wine for sale that you could only get at the winery. We came together with the label and design and called it the “Quad Wine,” using four different grapes to create it.”

It launched with 80 cases containing 12 bottles apiece and the stock sold out in only three months. “It went really, really well, so this year we’re doing it again and we’re doing 250 cases and the grapes are even better,” Stojko said.