Player's Own Voice: Recent Episodes
CBC Sports
Host Anastasia Bucsis, Two-time Canadian Olympic speedskater, brings her unique backstory to funny, friendly conversations with high performance athletes. No formulaic jock talk here ... these are buddies who understand each other, and help us do the same.
Tested is a new podcast series from CBC and NPR that asks the question, who gets to compete? Since the beginning of women’s sports, there has been a struggle over who qualifies for the women’s category. Tested follows the unfolding story of elite female runners who have been told they can no longer race as women, because of their biology. As the Olympics approach, they face hard choices: take drugs to lower their natural testosterone levels, give up their sport entirely, or fight. To understand how we got here, we trace the surprising, 100-year history of sex testing. More episodes of Tested are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/7kwp72pO
A funny thing about great athletes. They tend to keep on surprising us, even after their competitive careers wind down. And so, catching up with Tessa Virtue again, five years after she unlaced the skates and five years after she last came on the podcast, we learn that she has combined her high performance sport experience, a masters in applied psychology, and an MBA to build a unique business advisory role for herself at Deloitte.
At just 25, Jessie Fleming has already enjoyed a full decade of being named player of the year, top college player, Top Canadian, CONCACAF All Star, and enough adulation to convince a less modest midfielder of her own greatness. But Fleming has a ‘do the work, and do it well’ attitude that has carried her to the apex of soccer, and helped her become a well-rounded, highly-educated, self-aware young leader.
Swimming is notoriously practise-heavy. The daily accumulation of laps and dryland workouts can nudge elite swimmers toward becoming mono-focus athletes. So it’s delightful to meet Canada’s male swimmer of the year, Josh Liendo, and find a well-rounded young man tearing up the record books.
John Herdman, the most successful head coach in the history of Canada soccer, came to Toronto FC at the tail end of a miserable season for the club. But he reminds everyone that TFC is the only team in the history of MLS to win the triple crown: the Supporters’ Shield, the Canadian Championship and the MLS Cup. Why wouldn’t you be optimistic ?
Nick Wammes and Sarah Orban, track Cyclists on the Canadian National Team, are doing their best to win their sport more love. The pair are partners on and off the track, and they lean hard into social media, to draw attention to their discipline for those 206 weeks of every 4 year cycle when their sport is not enjoying Olympic audiences.
Luke Prokop was only 19 years old when he made pro sports history. A year after the Nashville Predators drafted him, Prokop told his team, his sport, and the wider world that he was gay. He is the first player under NHL contract to do so. He has now bumped up to playing plenty of AHL games, making him the first out gay player at that level, one step away from the top team.
Laurence St-Germain just delivered a fantastic wake up call to the world’s best skiers. She won the slalom gold medal at the 2023 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Courchevel France. The great Mikaela Shiffrin was both startled and delighted to see the friendly Canadian win her first podium on an international circuit.
Anastasia’s long-running passion project returns with Hilary Knight, captain of the US national hockey team, world and olympic champion, the face of the American women’s game, and from a Canadian perspective, public frenemy #1. Knight dekes around all the old Can-Am rivalries talk and focusses instead on the game-changing debut of the PWHL.
Tammy Cunnington has made the most of a roller coaster experience in para sport.As the child of a very active Red Deer AB family, she just barely survived a freak accident at an airshow in 1982. By the time she rehabbed sufficiently to get back into sport, at 8 or 9 years of age, wheelchair basketball became her passion. She was a big part of successful national teams, but by the time she was 19- the team culture drove her away. Bullying, being othered, it just added up to no fun.The more we learn about all the ingredients that need to work together to make safe sport happen- the more we understand how easily potentially great careers can fall apart. So almost ten years after retiring from competitive wheelchair basketball, Cunnington felt the need to get back into stronger shape. Trips to the gym became mastery of all three disciplines in triathlon, and even though she didn’t really love time in the pool…great coaching and her own determination eventually made her a powerhouse in Paralympic swimming.Where did Cunnington find the drive to excel again, since swimming itself wasn’t really her thing? In part, that was about being older than the average athlete. She knew that her age was working against her, so she trained with that much more intensity. And as every successful athlete knows- there’s no substitute for hard work. Looking back on the competitive years now ( Cunnington retired after the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics) she realized that part of her enduring success was based on not being relentlessly upbeat. When she hits setbacks, she gives herself permission to be bummed out for awhile, take stock, and carry on. The flipside of that pragmatism is that she has also learned to leverage the career highs. Intentionally summoning the memory of a winning race and a cheering crowd can give Cunnington that little extra squirt of confidence that can make all the difference as she rolls into a job interview, speaking gig, or yet another of her famously intense workouts. Chatting with Anastasia today- she makes a highly persuasive case for the power of not always positive thinking.
Justina Di Stasio has to be one of the greatest wrestlers that Canada has not yet seen at an Olympic Games. She’s excelled at major international tournaments, time and time again, but when it comes to getting on the Canadian Olympic team, the BC veteran has hit a roadblock in the form of her Gold medallist teammate Erica Wiebe. Canada can only send one wrestler in their weight class…so that explains the history.But Di Stasio is not one to brood on the past. She’s taken the last eight years as a series of chances to learn and improve and refine her technique. And so now the Coach/Teacher/74kg wrestler has definitely got her eyes trained on Paris 2024, and it’s time to say ‘en garde!’ to every opponent she’ll meet en route.Chatting on a wide range of subjects with Anastasia, Di Stasio also shares her perspective as a proud Canadian who is half Italian and half Cree. Food for thought: as a younger wrestler she sometimes felt that her Italian last name crowded her own comfort in talking about indigenous experience in this country. With the passage of time, that feeling has evolved, but throughout her career Justina Di Stasio has delightfully, authentically never swayed from representing exactly who she has been along. One of Canada’s greatest wrestlers, who just happens to also bring two sets of cultural knowledge to the International stage
When a team athlete is named MVP over and over again, that's saying something about their ability to lift everyone's game around them. Zak Madell, one of the world's best wheelchair rugby players, has owned that MVP distinction almost since the day -a dozen years ago- he first got into his notoriously rock 'em sock 'em sport. Madell is as effective an advocate for the power of sport as you'll ever meet, loud and clear and persuasive on the many ways that sport, adaptive or otherwise, has enriched his life. Seeking out, encouraging, and drafting new players is an ongoing passion for Madell. What's interesting to hear now is how his easy leadership is also expanding into areas beyond competition.Madell did architecture technology studies and that, plus his natural tendency to creativity, plus a long interest in better accessibility for all, leads him toward helping firms improve all manner of public structures. From little coffee shops to mondo condo, there's infinite room for truly inclusive improvement.But first, Madell has a whirlwind of wheelchair rugby teams and tournaments to attend to. Anastasia is keen to hear about Team Canada's battle plans for the upcoming Para Pan Am games in Santiago, Chile. According to Madell, Canada is up against new and better competition all the time. The country that invented Wheelchair Rugby (In Winnipeg in 1977, fyi) can no longer count on international podiums in the sport. And that's not because Canada is getting soft. Many more countries are in it to win it now, and even an ultra competitor like Madell agrees, that's a good thing.
If Tara Llanes was in the branding business, her personal motto might be "Once a baller, always a baller".As a kid in California she loved basketball, and she played a high level game until BMX caught her attention. And then a professional Mountain Biking career took hold. But just when Llanes began to feel like she had done all she could in cycling sport, a crash left her paralyzed from the waist down.As her rehabilitation work continued, she developed a passion for wheelchair tennis. Friends told her that she could improve her tennis game by practising seated basketball.And so the circle closed, and Llanes, now with 30+ years of perspective on the sport she never stopped loving, brings veteran leadership to the Canadian national wheelchair basketball team. One of her most pressing challenges? Finding the balance between old school hard discipline, and newer ideas of safe sport, and making that work for a team which combines younger and older athletes, all of whom expect to win international medals at the highest level.Catching up with Anastasia, Tara also explains how uniquely inclusive wheelchair basketball can be. The rules mandate a broad mixture of ability classifications on each team. The meshing together of players with varying degrees of activity limitation brings a whole layer of strategy into play, but the real magic happens when athletes maximize one another's abilities to find that winning playmaking combo.Llanes is already rubbing her hands in anticipation of the Para Panam games this November… and Canada's national public broadcaster will be delivering comprehensive Paralympic Games coverage across television, streaming and digital platforms in English and French in 2024.
Here's an odd factoid about one of the best voices in basketball. Chuck Swirsky does not care for his own name. He was 'Charlie' til his very first day in college radio, when the anchor struck him temporarily speechless with the intro 'Sports, with Chuck Swirsky'. To his enduring regret, 'Chuck' stuck. Forty years later, Mr. Swirsky is still setting the record straight, and still delighting basketball fans.'The Swirsk' was the Raptors' first radio play by play guy. By 2001, he had the TV job too.It's impossible to separate his calls, with all their knowledge and exuberance, from memories of Toronto's early days in the NBA. Swirsky introduced countless Canadians to Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, Damon Stoudamire, and all the brighter and lesser stars of that new team with the purple dinosaur jerseys.Swirsky became an author last year. "Always A Pleasure" details a life in love with sports and sports commentary. Commentary about commentary sounds like a meta experience, but Swirsky turns everything into a good story, and he's the first to laugh at his own inevitable missteps as a rookie reporter.Do fans need reminding that it has already been 15 years since Swirsky got the offer he couldn't refuse, and moved back to Chicago and his beloved Bulls?He is both Canadian and American, but Chicago really is home. Swirsky's strange way of celebrating a Raps win "Get out the salami and cheese!" stayed in Toronto when he moved back to the midwest. Out of respect for his fellow Canadians, as Swirsky explains to Anastasia, that peculiar custom had to remain in the place where it began.
Like the game titles themselves, esports athletes can generate shocking income and audiences. At the highest level, it's gaming in name only. Everything else about the pursuit of esports mastery is hard-nosed, serious business.Elite esports players' training regimens certainly rival those of "real world" athletes. Strength and balance work, hand-eye conditioning, nutritionists, psych coaches, esports stars make use of all the above. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that pro athletes are pro athletes, whether the rectangles they compete in are made of grass or glass.Konrad Wasiela is uniquely suited to comment on the busy intersection of traditional and e-athletes. Formerly a CFL cornerback, Wasiela's 'come to esports' moment was a visit to a live gaming event. He walked into a sold-out stadium, and saw 60,000 people cheering. Amazon had just paid a billion bucks for 'Twitch' the game streaming service. Wasiela added up the mega millions that Intel had poured into this tournament, and took note of Puma and Nike sponsorships in the space. He quickly resolved to launch his own company to get in on the action. ESE Entertainment does several things in the esports space, but it's mostly about pushing new players and audiences to egames.Anastasia probes Wasiela on the many ways esports are played and promoted by real world athletes, but Wasiela flips that question: his interest lies in the ways traditional sports are starting to depend on their virtual counterparts. Simulators from esports are already used heavily by every F1 driver and team. As more coaches and more sports make the jump into using applications from esports in the locker room, game film might be going the way of the horse and buggy. And that's just one way esports are changing the game in real life.Esports are already spinning collossal sums of money. The consensus seems to be, they have only just begun.
Excellence was always expected of Waneek Horn-Miller, and her three sisters. Their single mom led by example in committing to activism, feminism, and indigenous rights. From childhood, the message was: whatever you do in life, be great at it, and don't just do it for yourself, do it for the next generation.More than thirty years after she first came to international attention on the front lines of the 1990 Oka Crisis, Horn-Miller continues to honour her mother's teaching. In 2000, the water polo player helped deliver the best Olympic results Canadian women have ever seen.In the years since, Horn-Miller's advocacy has effectively kept important, difficult issues on the table. Two core concerns are abuse in amateur sport, and the role of sport in truth and reconciliation. For Horn-Miller the effort begins at home, raising well-rounded and athletic daughters- and radiates out to coaching at Water Polo clubs, and further afield, to helping the Assembly of First Nations develop an Indigenous Sport, Fitness and Wellness Strategy.While those long-term causes keep Horn-Miller focussed on lasting results, she's also having a blast at this very moment, coaching contestants on Canada's Ultimate Challenge, CBC's new big ticket reality program. Horn-Miller sets the bar high for herself in this role, urging her athletes to compete according to principles that are long understood among Mohawk people- even if they may be new values for western contestants to consider. It's a challenging task, but Waneek Horn-Miller excels at it.
From day one of her athletic career, Camryn Rogers has bucked expectations.As a pre-teen, the first event she tried was Hammer throwing, and it was love at first hurl.Adolescence is when many girls leave sport, sadly, but a 12-year-old Rogers became enthralled with throwing "this thing that looked like a murder weapon," and she committed there and then to becoming as skilled and powerful as possible at the discipline.Eleven years later, it is hard to keep track of how many records Rogers has broken, how many 'firsts' she has landed for Canada, or how many young athletes she is inspiring.Rogers, now 23, is still very young for a Hammer thrower.Anastasia asks the reigning Commonwealth Games champion about her game plan for the next 11 years. Hammer is front and centre, of course, but while Rogers was busily landing all of the top ten throws in the history of the NCAA, she was also getting a B.A. in political economy and a B.S. in society and environment.So yes, Canada's best Hammer thrower has every intention of breaking more records, and she'll be continuing in grad school at Berkeley, thinking about a law degree while she's at it.The great thing for Rogers lately is that there has been a change in the fundamental questions she asks herself as an athlete. Prior to her impressive debut at the Olympics and silver medal at the World Athletics Championships, her question was 'Can I get there?'It's a new line of questioning now: 'How far can I go? Where can I go from here?'Like throwing itself, where subtle changes can yield major results, that small shift in mindset is all the motivation Rogers requires.The world is her 4-kilogram oyster. Let's see how far she chooses to throw it.
The Coach of the Canadian National Women’s Soccer Team is not one to rest on her laurels. While the rest of the country was still celebrating the team’s historic Gold Medal at the Tokyo Olympics, Bev Priestman was looking ahead to a couple of hard years of coaching work. In her mind- a huge win doesn’t teach players very much… but a single loss in a hard-fought series of games, like the CONCACAF World Cup qualifying tournament, that’s where the improvements happen. Priestman says that playing a brave style of soccer is what got the Canadian team to Olympic gold. But keeping that fearless attitude is more of a challenge once a reputation is established, and more scrutiny piles on to a high seeded squad. Priestman tells Anastasia how she makes good use of her experience in three soccer strongholds- England, New Zealand, and Canada. She picks up on national strengths wherever she works. In Canada, she thinks mental toughness is our X factor. Maybe it’s something about a culture that shovels snow in the dead of winter? Priestman says Canadians are uniquely willing to believe they can compete with anyone on the world stage.The challenge, heading into the World Cup, is going to be managing a sustained effort. Whichever team is most fresh gets the glory in the finals, according to Priestman. Canada has no problem attacking from the outset of a tournament. And we have great depth in the roster. Closing strength? It will be the coach’s job to make sure that’s in place at the end of the World Cup. Don’t worry. Bev Priestman is working on it.
These are trying times for athletes, coaches and national sporting organizations in Canada. The incidents of abuse and maltreatment in amateur sport seem to be neverending. Hockey dominates the horrible headlines, but very few sports can claim a problem-free record. Olympian Alpine Skier Allison Forsyth has turned her own experience of sexual abuse at the hands of a coach into a positive movement for change. Her career is dedicated to educating all involved, correcting transgressive behaviour, and improving the prospects for Safe Sport.Her advice for parents and athletes is clear and direct. Her warnings to coaches are blunt. And she has run out of patience with senior managers of organizations who fail to see the urgency of their situation. Forsyth has an athlete-first attitude, and that includes a deep awareness of the psychological complexities involved in high performance coaching. As an Olympian speedskater, Anastasia has lived the dynamic. Coaches become quasi-parental figures. Athletes become the sum of their results. In the pressure cooker of high performance, what are the warning signs? When does gruelling exercise become unacceptable punishment? When is a raised voice a red line?Complex problems don't necessarily have complex solutions. As Forsyth explains, three very familiar words- Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, go a long way toward putting an end to the abuse.
He has been a well-respected, hard working film and television director for thirty years now, so it’s probably time to stop asking ‘Beverley Hills 90210’ questions in conversation with Jason Priestley. Luckily, the lifelong hockey buff is more than happy to chat about another 30 year old bit of business, everyone’s favourite Toronto Hockey gargoyle- Harold Ballard. Priestley has just released ‘Offside’ his documentary about the man who literally lived in Maple Leaf Gardens...and tried to cheat anyone who stepped foot in his house. In a world full of brilliant subjects for sports documentaries- why spend time on a criminal, racist, sexist, homophobic weirdo (who also ruined a hockey franchise)? The answer- as Priestley passionately points out- is that the bad stuff is all most people know about the guy- but in deep private, Ballard was an incredibly generous philanthropist. He gave money away like it was going out of style, and kept it under wraps because he wanted everyone to think he was a hard ass.To his credit- Priestley never puts his thumb on the scale. He gathers all the contradictions he can about Ballard, and leaves us to decide what to make of the man.Meantime- Anastasia also puts the former race car driver to work solving an old tv puzzle. Why is it so hard to show speed on the screen? Watching F-1 or speedskating or Tour de France- you can never tell how quickly those people are moving. Priestley has a deeply detailed answer for that too. Budding cinematographers- take note. It’s all about low cameras, moving ground, and reference objects on screen. Other seemingly random, but definitely entertaining topics of discussion? What the great one, #99 did for hockey culture in Los Angeles. How the million or so Canadian expats in that town fight over slots in the beer leagues. And why actors want to be athletes & vice versa.
Mimi Rahneva is having a wild ride this world cup season. The Canadian Skeleton racer has won, been on the podium, or just barely missed a top three in almost every race so far. What makes that truly special is that this is the Bulgarian-born Canadian athlete's ninth year on the circuit. Gone are the days of blowing away the competition with explosive starting power. So why are career-best results, coming to an absolutely slower athlete?Chalk one up to experience. It turns out that what seems like an eternity, a half-second lead in the first 50 meters, can evaporate over the ensuing minute, when it's all about avoiding micro mistakes. Milimeters add up in a 150 km per hour acceleration to the finish.Skeleton is a beast of a sport, a five second detonation from standing start to hurling headfirst downhill. But that hyper burst start has to immediately give way to calm, cool stillness. Try finding your zen state when your face is a millimeter away from ice, flashing past you at Ferrari speeds. Rahneva and Anastasia discover something in common. They are both in love with their somewhat fringe sports, (Bucsis is a two-time Olympian long track speedskater) and they both love the challenge of persuading curious youngsters – and especially young girls- to give their sports a try. But that's where the similarity ends. As Rahneva says- Canadian kids see what she does and their first reaction is terror! Maybe it's a cultural thing. Some nations- like Germany and England for example, get kids on sleds at much younger ages than Canada does. Which makes for better driving skills at younger ages. Canada tends to wait a few years, then focus on faster starts for older kids.Which brings us full circle to Rahneva, bucking those national strategies with her slower-starting ways, making skilled drivers in other nations sit up and take notice. Go figure.
It pays to keep your wits about you in conversation with Cito Gaston. The two time Blue Jays world series winning manager is a relaxing presence, even- tempered and genial. But that soothing voice belies sharply independent opinions, formed over a long career of hard-won experience.He will ease you along, sharing memories of his years as Hank Aaron’s roommate and friend, and that will slide into talk about Hank’s record, and then to Aaron Judge, and then Barry Bonds, and then suddenly, the former manager is making a case for us all having a more open mind about Steroid use in baseball.He’s a likeable man, but he is not in it to make friends. Cito is all about winning. It’s remarkable how often ‘winning’ enters his conversation. For Cito- that might be the ultimate complement. A player who wants to win? That’s all he needs to hear. In fact when Gaston says Joe Carter would not let his own children beat him at checkers, he is not saying it as criticism.It’s impossible not to revisit the Blue Jays glory years with Cito, and he’s happy to share recent brushes with George Bell and Dave Winfield and Tom Henke, but even then, his gentle recall does include the ugly truth that he never won manager of the year. People who should know better said he had so many stars on his roster, it was easy to win…but that ignored the fact that he took over a team with a badly losing record, 12-24 and charged them straight to world series victory in 1992.And then 1993- the back to back world series win was no gimme. People forget that the Jays lost 14 men from the 25 player roster between 1992 and 1993. So why no manager of the year when he does it a second time, with more than half a team of new players?Gaston does not say- there was racism in the voting, which explains everything. Instead he runs through some reasoned proposals for getting more diversity in the game, more black players on the field, and more black managers and coaches and executives in the front and back offices.He helped give Toronto its greatest baseball years…and that was thirty years ago, but he’s still got an eye on the future of the game.
Robert Parish is a big man like no other in the history of the NBA. And not just because the hall of famer has four championship rings, and an incredibly long career. Parish retired in 2003 with 1611 games played. That total game record might NEVER be broken. But no big centre has ever covered the court the way Parish did. He finished fast breaks, and showed speed and shooting accuracy that is beyond rare for the tallest players. His fellow Hall of Famer, Bill Walton says "There was the rebounding. There was the defense. There was the scoring. There was the setting of screens. There was the way he ran the floor. How many centers in today's NBA do any of that?"What set the 7’1” center apart for fans was his puzzling reserve. He was an introvert in a sport that thrives on emotion, and big personality players. If Parish was shooting the lights out, or as he says, if he was having a day in which he should never have gotten out of bed- his silent and serious manner was exactly the same. Management called him a stoic player. He simply says he is most comfortable in his own company.What ultimately set the Celtics (and Warriors, and Hornets, and Bulls) legend apart in the stats though, is another facet of his quiet, loner attitude. Way back in 1976, when he was young and invincible, and nobody was taking these things seriously, Parish got into yoga, nutritional science, weights and flexibilty training. So, decades later, when the then 43 year-old became the oldest Championship winner in history, it was because of that long standing work ethic. Commentators could never get over how fast, fit and flexible the big man continued to be. As the pushing 70 star says to Player’s own Voice Podcast host Anastasia Bucsis, with a deep chuckle, once the interview wraps, he’s got some yoga to see to, and yes he can still touch his toes.
There’s a lot of talk about ‘Quiet Quitting’ these days… which is one luxury that athletes can seldom enjoy. For moguls skier Chloé Dufour-Lapointe, luckily, there was never any plan or desire to simply run down the clock. Like her equally famous sisters, Chloé was determined to make every competition count. Easier said than done, when the pandemic years threw a clunky wrench in her plans. Her training was curtailed by covid restrictions, which led to a loss of competition points, and consequently, her funding dried up just before her fourth and final Olympics, Beijing 2022.But Chloé makes a serious practise of positive thinking. Despite the disappointments, she built herself an amazingly durable shield of upbeat attitude, like-minded people, and unrelenting love of skiing.So now, as a competitive career concludes at the ripe old age of 30- Chloé can look back with satisfaction in the knowledge that she ended her Olympic career doing what she has always done, trained hard, skied hard, and savoured the moment.Not that Dufour-Lapointes are particularly big on dwelling in the past, but Canadians have been dazzled by the bump skiiers for nearly a dozen years. Justine and Chloe finished Gold and Silver at Sochi… and all three of them swept a world cup podium in 2016, which really is a once in a century sort of event. Refreshingly- as she tells Anastasia …Chloé is not suffering terrible ‘what next?’ anxiety. She, Justine and Maxime have built a consistent brand, and the practical fashion side of their business will always be a special focus for Chloé.
Canadian Sprinter Aaron Brown is a quick thinker. Not just in the literal sense- he has perfected physical speed, as befits a World champion 4x 100 relay racer. But every track and field athlete tries to do that. What sets Brown apart is how he analyzes and dissects the entire economic model of high performance sport. For someone who is so ready to reassure that he isn't a radical- a lot of Brown's questions might rattle nerves among the money managers at the peak of the Olympic pyramid. Brown doesn't worry about the superstars, the household names on the track- the athletic 1% has sneaker deals and opportunities aplenty. It's everyone else he sees struggling to make ends meet. One hundredth of a second might make the difference between being famous in the finals, and toiling in the ninth lane, slinging coffee in the off season. Brown's point is that in no other profession do we see only a handful at the apex actually making a living. How might profit sharing work? Brown considers paydays from the loftiest IOC execs, down through the ranks to the athletes and coaches whose labour- to Brown's thinking- has never been fairly rewarded. Brown's ideas get to the heart of track and field as a profession. He recognizes that NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB salaries might be out of reach- but urges track Olympians to consider business models more like golf or tennis, where athletes are well paid, and not entirely dependent on a windfall every four years, when the Olympics roll around. As he makes clear to Anastasia- All the athletes are thinking it. He just happens to be saying it out loud.
Kaylyn Kyle has parlayed years of soccer with the Canadian national team and in pro leagues, into a bustling career as a broadcast soccer analyst. What sets Kyle apart isn’t just her deep knowledge of the game and tactics, but her willingness to speak plainly about the issues and players before her. Kyle is not afraid to court controversy, nor to call out poor behaviour when she sees it. She’s brutally honest about the economics of being an NWSL player. And when she argues in favour of a Canadian women’s pro soccer league? Resistance may not be futile, but good luck if you happen to oppose her points of view. All of which makes Kaylyn Kyle an ideal podcast guest. Kaylyn regales Anastasia with tales of an incredibly hardworking mother of two… questions the academic results for preschoolers that she sees in the USA, makes several persuasive points in favour of beginning an athletic career in Saskatchewan, pinpoints the moment in which a lifelong love of playing soccer fizzled into frustration, and then tops it all off with an amusing description of her own not exactly planned dive out of the way of the bronze medal winning goal for Canada in London in 2012. Kyle pushes listeners’ buttons, no question. So if you don’t care for fast-talking, fully-informed, and highly opinionated women, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Here’s the thing that Patrick Chan wants to understand about his fellow figure skater, Kurt Browning… after 45 years on ice, how has Browning managed to stay in love with his sport? Not just stay active in it- because hey, a job’s a job, but stay enamoured with it all? Browning has a one-word answer to the question: Curiosity. Browning can’t help himself, he’s still curious about the next solo, the potential to make an audience feel something, the process of getting tuned up for performances…That, and the pure simple glide of skating, keep him hooked. With the Skate Canada event at October’s end in mind, Anastasia asks Kurt for his assessment of skating now, and looking ahead. The way he sees it- the scoring system rewards skaters for giving the judges what they want, more or less on a silver platter. The downside is, that makes one skater look a bit like another. If anyone deviates too far from the formula, there’s no way they can succeed. So that puts the more creative routines on the endangered list. But the system also encourages very strong technical skating- and the performance aspect has not gone away, so that’s all to the good. Browning loves the ever-increasing global popularity of the sport. He is a big fan of what he sees from Asian skaters, in particular. Looking a little bit ahead, Browning predicts some necessary growing pains. Like many sports, figure skating needs to come to terms with some abusive situations in the past. And he says the sport still needs to tackle cheating- both varieties, pharmaceutical and judging varieties. That’s all part of the maturation process, and he welcomes it.
People always say Sport teaches valuable life lessons. If true, Rugby Sevens stalwart Bianca Farella has earned a doctorate in the last 18 months.
Just before the Tokyo Olympics- something like 55% of players and alumni agreed that there were culture and coaching problems at Rugby Canada. Tackling that messy situation was necessary, and a great long-term project, but the timing was awful for the women's team as they prepared for the games.
Undergoing cultural upheaval comes at the cost of short term team focus. Canada's Rugby 7s women are stronger and healthier in every sense now, but the upheaval contributed to disappointment in the most recent Summer Olympics. The success the women enjoyed in their Bronze medal debut at Rio was not to be duplicated.
The number two in the world scorer of tries did not get there by ignoring the big picture. She is proud of how she and her team have blazed Safe Sport trails for other Canadian federations to follow. After Tokyo, Farella went back to university to finish her undergrad, and started considering other career goals. She thought she was finished playing Rugby… but a new head coach got her back into training… and back on the pitch.
Jump ahead a couple of months, and Farella, now fully returned to peak competitive form, comes down with COVID on the eve of flying to the 7s world cup in South Africa. Cheering on teammates from a sick bed , 9 time zones distant is not anybody's idea of a good time.
But for Bianca Farella, it is important to persevere through setbacks. An end to competition comes for everyone eventually. For now, one of the fastest athletes in the sport is content to slow down long enough to consider the next steps.
Summer and Brooke McIntosh’s parents have a good problem brewing. October 28 to 30th, Skate Canada International will likely see Brooke figure skating on one side of the Greater Toronto Area, and on the exact same days, Summer will likely be tearing up the pool in World Cup races on the opposite side of town. Scheduling headaches are part of the price to be paid when raising two high performance athletes. Luckily- as Summer makes clear, sibling rivalry will not add fuel to a fraught parental weekend. The McIntosh sisters are fantastically competitive young women, but they are also each other’s biggest boosters. Summer caught up with Anastasia from Florida, where she and her training partners were spared the worst of Hurricane Ian’s destruction. The swimmers have pitched in to help clear downed trees and debris around the pool facilities and community, but in the meantime, it’s 100% back to the business of training for McIntosh. Well, almost 100%. There’s also grade eleven assignments taking up any spare minutes to be had in the long day. Considering her ranking- number three in the world among female swimmers, it’s easy to forget that Summer McIntosh is still just 16 years old. Without harping on her age- because what teen wants to be constantly reminded of their youthfulness? – Anastasia and Summer have a slightly surreal conversation about being an experienced Olympian at the age of 14. You know you are young if you happened to be eight years old when you watched Penny Oleksiak swim in Rio. Now that they are teammates- it’s the older Oleksiak’s turn to be in awe of so much speed in so few years. It’s impossible not to worry a little when we see huge success coming to a young athlete, but as this engaging conversation makes clear- Summer McIntosh is as level-headed as they come. Being the youngest world champion in a decade might really truly only be the beginning for Summer McIntosh. She likes the longer distances…and typically, performances in endurance events only get better with age.
In the ever-expanding universe of Women's Soccer- very few stars shine brighter than the Captain of USA's national team, Becky Sauerbrunn. With more than 200 caps and counting, her contributions on the pitch have filled scores of highlight reels. So it seems strange to say her biggest impact, and likely her most lasting legacy, will be Sauerbrunn's work off the field, largely behind the scenes. Sauerbrunn was one of the original five women who summoned the determination to put their livelihood on the line and go into battle with their employer for equal pay and equitable treatment. This season six debut episode (woot woot!) of Player's Own Voice hears Sauerbunn acknowledge that the six year back-and-forth was a nerve wracking experience. She details how those years were marked by a number of small milestones. The American Men's and Women's national teams were not very close allies at the dispute's outset, back in 2016, but by the time the dust settled, Sauerbrunn says the solidarity with the men's squad was a key to getting deals done. The women players sued the U.S. Soccer Federation in 2019, seeking damages under the federal Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Three years after that, a $24 million settlement was reached. Pay, though obviously important, is a relatively straightforward issue. Equitable treatment requires a lot more ongoing effort and thought. Coaching, facilities, travel, health care…the areas of discrepancy and unequal treatment extend into so many aspects of the elite athlete's experience. Anastasia asks Sauerbrunn the simple question: what's next? Canadians, take note: For the captain and her like-minded teammates, a goal now is to help spread their know-how and collective bargaining experience to women and sports federations around the world. Starting with their frenemies to the North.
‘Culture’, toxic or otherwise, is invoked almost daily in sports. Like a collective mood, it is easily named but much more difficult to manage- let alone improve. Rhian Wilkinson, the new coach of the Portland Thorns, has managed to do both those things.
She inherited a club that had recently endured a blistering abuse scandal. Turning that culture around is an ongoing success story, and it’s by no means the only problematic situation Wilkinson has confronted in her long career.
In a wide-ranging chat about her Soccer experiences in England, Wales, Norway, the U.S.A., and here in Canada (as a player on the groundbreaking national teams of 2012 and 2016), Wilkinson shares lessons learned from grassroots to elite teams. Anastasia leads Wilkinson back to England, where the younger player had to deal with boys who never passed the ball to their obviously gifted teammate. The talk moves through her national team years, when some coaching advice brought on uncomfortably necessary introspection. And jumps ahead to where Wilkinson coaches now, at the epicenter of the North American women’s game. Are the Thorns the picture of a healthy team culture? G.M. Karina LeBlanc’s toddler is a regular visitor in the locker room. And there are more team mate’s babies on the way. A distraction in the clubhouse ? Au contraire. The team are defending league champions, and it’s exactly for those little ones that Wilkinson is laying down a winning culture today. Looking closely at the unprecedented international successes for the Canadian men and women’s teams, Wilkinson traces a direct line of winning ways and leadership back a decade to her teammates and then coach John Herdman. She names names- and describes how individuals from the class of 2012 have gone on to change soccer culture (there’s that word again- and she does not use it casually) for the better, wherever they landed.
It’s the last podcast of a double season- two Olympics in the same year will do that! Anastasia is recharging her audio recording gear and POV will be back later in the summer.
NASCAR drivers generally have a lot in common. For starters, they are overwhelmingly American, male, and coming from seriously wealthy backgrounds. Winnipeg's own Amber Balcaen has got her 'outsider' bases covered. As the only Canadian racing full time on the NASCAR circuit, she's overcoming challenges left, right and centre. Luckily, Balcaen is used to fighting for what she wants.Her background in Canadian dirt track racing only allowed her to drive a few months a year, while her competition in the southern USA enjoyed tracks that were open year-round. Sponsorship, the keys to the castle in this incredibly expensive sport, doesn't come easy for a Canadian either. Why would a Canadian company get behind a sport that is overwhelmingly popular in the USA, but hit and miss north of the 49th? And why would Americans put money behind a Canadian racer? That's where Balcaen's business background, and limitless hustle, made the difference. She noticed that race tracks were always ringed with RVs full of fans, so she started building a business case around that, then courted a Canadian-based, North American firm making RV parts. A winning partnership was formed, and she's racing in a custom red and white rocket to prove it. As a woman among Good Ole Boys, nothing came easy for Balcaen. She had to win respect the only way you can in racing: weekend after weekend of high finishes, quality performances, and fearless competition. Everybody loves an underdog story. The only trouble there is she's so fast on the track that the 'underdog' label doesn't fit the bill anymore. Despite focusing on her race this Saturday at the super speedway in Talledega, Balcaen found time with Anastasia to talk about her unlikely journey from Maniitoba dirt tracks to the heartland of American racing.
The more public the troubles at Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton become, the less easy they are to nail down. More than seventy athletes are calling for a leadership overhaul, amid complaints of ‘toxic culture’ and a serious breakdown in trust and respect between the people who actually do the high speed, high danger sports, and the people who coach, train, manage, repair, and organize on their behalf. There may be more issues than any one athlete can fairly decode, but Canadian Monobob and two-woman pilot, Cynthia Appiah, does her level best. Safety and concussion protocols are part of the contention. Many internal management decisions are stirring resent. Resources appear to be allocated based on criteria that athletes find opaque. Appiah is often asked to comment on these disputes, and she is vocal about doing so, but at the same time, she worries that speaking out might limit her career. With the Beijing Olympics in fresh hindsight, Appiah is certain about a few things. She is much happier with her two woman Olympic performance than her monobob runs, even though she finished a very respectable sixth in both events. She is all-in for the next four years of intense work towards the 2026 Olympics. She is refreshingly open-minded about her strengths and areas needing improvement as a team leader. And she is as balanced as anyone could possibly be in recognizing her role as a BIPOC leader in winter sport. The challenge that Appiah sees is not just about attracting new, diverse people into the sliding sports, but in making sure that once athletes do commit, they don’t bump against glass ceilings. As Appiah says to Anastasia – she’s not just there to represent, she’s there to win.
Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu has one heck of a backstory. He was a teen prodigy. A top-ranked world junior speed skater in both long and short track, which is extremely rare. He simply loved skating- and he had his own, happy, idiosyncratic ways that served him well. He was the kind of kid who'd warm up on a unicycle, instead of the usual stationary bike. But a new coaching regime stole all the joy from his sport, and his workouts strayed far into abusive territory. Physical injury from overtraining met mental breakdown in a perfect- but not perfectly understood- storm. At twenty he was broken and beaten and done with racing. Four years away from the sport- travelling, tending bar, anything but skating- began to recharge the batteries, and then a coincidental meeting with another 'outsider' talent, Steve Robillard, lit the comeback fuse. Robillard encouraged Gélinas-Beaulieu to get into coaching, and that slowly rekindled his own love of the game. As he tells Anastasia, it's all about the joy of skating again. Gélinas-Beaulieu determines his own workout regime for the most part, and he revels in helping encourage young skaters, and he is already rubbing his hands in anticipation of the next winter Olympics -Milano Cortina 2026.
After years of working on communications for high performance sports, Dina Bell-Laroche has witnessed many extremes of emotion. But the moment that altered her career forever was the death of her sister, nearly twenty years ago. The grief and her experience in sport combined for Bell-Laroche and led her to coaching and councelling athletes who are dealing with loss in its many forms. With national athletes enduring the Post Olympic Blues right now, the time is fitting for some clear thinking about how we process setbacks and loss in sports. Part of the goal is to get rid of myths. Grief is not the exclusive privilege of people who have had a death in the family. For athletes, bereavement can flow from a big loss, naturally, but it can also accumulate slowly and creep up on competitors. After a career devoted to sport- retirement can churn up many underexamined disappointments and losses, too. The trouble starts when sports rewards a stoic approach. Shake it off. There’ll be another game. Focus on getting that next win. These attitudes mean well, but they can push athletes into traumatizing silence. Bell -Laroche’s discipline is Thanatology. The study of grief and death. The ancient Greeks, who knew a thing or two about tragedy, said there are only two themes: Eros and Thanatos. Love and Death. Bell- Laroche would argue they are inextricably linked. We only mourn losing what we love. And that can include a dashed dream of Olympic glory.
Brad Gushue held 40 pounds of granite in one hand, and in the other, the distinct possibility that Canada would leave Beijing without a single curling medal for the first time since the sport was introduced to the Olympic games in 1998. As it happens, the granite hung lighter in the balance. The skip of the Canadian team delivered a shot that locked up a Bronze medal, exactly 16 years after his golden performance in Turin. For Gushue, this Bronze is almost more a source of pride than the 2006 Championship. He tells Anastasia that there are some weeks you have it and some weeks you don't. Everything clicked in Turin, and very little was working for the team here in Beijing. "That's why it can't always be about just winning. It has to be about the experience, about the journey, about the challenges you overcome. And we overcame a lot this week to get to where we are right now." Gushue is a thoughtful athlete- and with the deliberate tempo of curling, that is not always a good thing. Some sports, your fast reactions will carry the day. On the curling sheets, there's plenty of time for an active mind to worry its way into jams. But students of the game could see it happening in Beijing: Gushue harnessed his years of mindfulness work, parked the unhelpful considerations, and made the most difficult situations look manageable.
Charles Hamelin knows how to conduct an Olympic Career. Medal at your first games. Keep medaling and staying strong for sixteen more years. Somewhere in the middle of all that, give Canadians a warm fuzzy moment by celebrating a win with a rinkside kiss. Save the best win for the last appearance. In his final skate, the short track G.O.A.T. bagged one last Olympic gold medal. There are only three other Canadians with four gold medals. There is only one other Canadian Winter Olympian, long track legend Cindy Klassen, tied with Hamelin at six medals. If anybody’s counting, at 37 years old, Hamelin is also the oldest man to medal in short track. On that matter, career longevity, Hamelin credits his dad Yves, with building the base of the pyramid on which a sturdy long career rested. Charles and his brother Francois benefitted from a multi sport childhood. He tells Anastasia that the two brothers always had the choice: train hard, or relax with buddies. Hamelin admits he is still working on that ‘relax with buddies’ thing, but that’s his choice. Hamelin has now delivered sport’s most elusive commodity, the story book finish. But there may be a capper coming. Hamelin is heading back to Montreal for his final world cup competition in March. He has 142 world cup medals in the trophy room already. But the last race in front of a hometown crowd? With the Olympic champion team alongside him? Better save some space on the last page of that story book.
Greg Westlake is both ironman and spokesman for para Hockey. Ironman because these are his fifth Paralympic games, and he remains remarkably fit and injury free despite his long and storied career. Spokesman because his ideas and involvement with para sport are only getting more persuasive with each passing year. For Westlake, it’s all about knowing your worth, and not being shy to demand it. The forward is frank about where he takes his inspiration for the future of para hockey. The NHL experience does not speak to him. Parathletes do not weigh 50 million dollar, 5 year contracts. For Westlake, its more Cheryl Pounder or Hayley Wickenheiser whose models he follows. Those women depended on carding money to stay in the game…and they had to fight to get their due respect. Women athletes had to push for equal facilities, equal training, coaching, equal nutrition…just as disabled athletes have had to do. Westlake draws another parallel for Anastasia to consider: there are still small pockets of, (his word) ignorant people who don’t believe women athletes deserve our attention or respect. And disabled athletes know that battle too. But with the benefit of 20 years in the game, Westlake can offer this very encouraging assessment- he says para athletes are fitter and younger than ever before. And for that, proper investment by national sporting organizations gets the credit. The Beijing Paralympic games begin Friday March 4th. You don’t need reasons to watch, but a few minutes in Westlake’s company will provide you with a tonne of them
When figure skater Elladj Baldé started sharing videos of himself having a ball, skating on frozen lakes, the response almost overwhelmed him. Tens of millions of views piled in…making Baldé quickly realize that he had a responsibility to put this unnervingly powerful new tool to good use. Retired from competition, but more engaged than ever in the wide world of skating, Baldé has become an icon of inclusion. His video music choices are a revelation. Skipping through the old idea that light classical music is the only possible soundtrack for skating, Baldé sees other structures and strictures beginning to fall away too. Clothing, culture, new ideas about who gets to participate in figure skating, Balde's experience has helped young BIPOC athletes see themselves in winter sport like never before. Baldé comes to talk Olympic figure skating, of course. He is CBC Sport's Mix Zone reporter for Beijing. But it's helpful to know that along with being a scholar of the sport, he brings perspective as cofounder of the Figure Skating Diversity and Inclusion Alliance. Baldé is happy to report that at these games he can see Figure skating moving far beyond its overwhelmingly European early days. So- Baldé has props for Donovan Carrillo, the Mexican skater. Not just for how the man performs, but also because now " A young Latin kid can watch a Latin man skate to Latin music and say, ' I can do that too.'" As Baldé sees it, just because Figure Skating represents some of the oldest traditions in winter sport, doesn't mean it can't be home to some of the newest traditions either.
Even by Beijing 2022 standards, Keegan Messing faced a tense obstacle course to get to the games. A positive covid test result just before 'go time' threatened to undo four years of practice and planning. He rocketed into Beijing, having flown the long way round the world to get there, too late for his beloved team figure skate event, and just barely in time for his solo routines. But when he hit the ice, exhausted, jet lagged, and disoriented, somehow he also pulled some Olympic magic out of the bag.
Judges, fans, even Messing agreed- his short program was the best he has done in competition, all season long.
Anastasia asks Keegan how he pulled that off...and his answer is an honest one:
"I'm still trying to figure out how I did it too, because I've had shorter trips and not been able to recover from jetlag. I think there is a bit of adrenaline. I think there's a bit of mental preparation... I kept my mind super positive and understanding that you, you will not feel like yourself here. So I just followed the plan took one thing at a time and I really wasn't given a chance to think. So I just acted, and it worked."
Messing did his best in his brother's name at the Beijing Olympics. Paxon Messing was a high ranked snowboarder, who died in an Anchorage Alaska motorcycle crash in 2019.
It has been an emotional roller coaster in the Messing house... a few short months ago, Keegan and his wife Lane Hodson welcomed their new baby boy Wyatt into the world.
Considering Mark McMorris' medical history, it's no surprise he jokes about enjoying rare time off between surgeries. It takes another beat to process his comparisons with teammate Max Parrot's recovery from cancer. But that is the unlikely reality: Two guys, buddies on the same team, both at death's door not so long ago… both on the podium in Beijing. You either laugh or cry at life's twists and turns. And McMorris isn't crying. Not everybody can claim a podium every time their sport has been contested in the Olympics. McMorris can: Three Bronze medals in a row. And not everybody at the age of 28 can speak as an elder statesman in their profession. McMorris can do that too. Midway through McMorris' Beijing games (Big Air qualifying begins Monday) Anastasia gives her fellow prairie pal a break from the high octane technical questions. You want to know what's really on McMorris mind at this moment? A whole bunch of music, plenty of love for his home team, respect for the creativity in other people's TikToks, even when he's on the butt end of a meme…and the puzzling appearance of Skateboarder Paul Rodriguez Nikes on the feet of American curler Matthew Hamilton. McMorris loves that. His summary of the situation? It's all sports, It's all good.
Picture two radically different sports. Snowboarding and Golf, for example. Nothing in common, you say? Laurie Blouin might persuade you otherwise. When she's doing her Slopestyle or Big Air events- flying and spinning at stomach-lurching speed and altitude, stomping the touch down- she says that's the very same feeling she gets when a round of golf comes together on the links. Mortal athletes are saying "Really? Corkscrewing through the air at 50 kph…that's like nailing a 7 iron?" Blouin clarifies: It's a mental thing, in the quantitative sense. As she tells Anastasia, it's all about doing just the right amount of thinking. Not being relaxed and absent, and definitely not overthinking the process. Just hitting that mental sweet spot. Blouin knows what she knows. She's already got the Silver medal from PyeongChang to prove it. Fresh off an agonizing fourth place finish in Slope Style, Blouin has the balanced attitude in the bag as she waits for next weekend's Big Air to begin. She's proud of her opening event performance but a little disappointed to miss the medals. And that's just about the right amount of thinking to do at this point. So now it's on to part two of Blouin's mission in Beijing. She's keeping herself safe, relaxed, and ready to soar.
Negative tests, positive attitude.
Here’s how life works for Lisa Weagle, a curler at the pinnacle of her sport: Sometimes she’s the lead, and an undisputed force in that capacity. And sometimes she’s an alternate, as she happens to be for Jennifer Jones’ team right now at the Beijing Olympics. And for Weagle, you better believe, there is no difference in the approach or commitment, whichever role she lands. The fifth member of Jones’ powerhouse crew, along with Kaitlyn Lawes, Jocelyne Peterman, and Dawn McEwen, Weagle has got the benefit of previous Olympic experience under her belt. So she’s loving her time in Beijing, but she’s also got a healthy perspective on the twists and turns of Olympic fate.
“At the closing ceremony at Pyeongchang, I looked around and noticed how few athletes actually had medals, and I felt like such a failure. But looking around, I was like, Well, I don't think they're all failures, so why am I putting that on myself?”
As to the international competition: Anastasia questions the old wisdom among Canadian curlers, that it’s almost harder to qualify for the Olympics than it is to actually take on the world. Weagle agrees that thinking is becoming less accurate with each passing year. In Weagle’s view, there is so much talent curling in Beijing right now, they could run the tournament three times and have three different teams wearing the medals when the sheets go quiet. Control the controlables, as they always say, and meantime, rest assured…the alternate Weagle is ready to throw some of her trademark ‘ticks’ at a moment’s notice.
Just as the Beijing Winter Olympic competition was getting underway, Anastasia pedaled up alongside Canada’s most recent Olympic medallist- track Cyclist Kelsey Mitchell. Her golden ride was the final capping glory on Canada’s Tokyo campaign. Olympians, regardless of winter or summer specialization, can always learn from one another. So Anastasia tapped Mitchell for insights and advice on getting into medal contention. Mitchell’s trip to the top followed an unusual course. She had barely pedaled a bike two years before Tokyo when the track team brought her into the fold, straight from an RBC training ground tryout. So there certainly wasn’t any ten year master plan to look back on. Mitchell, like many athletes, is evidence that Visualisation works. In fact- she couldn’t help herself, vivid images of being decorated with the gold medal would occur to her at all hours of the day and night. She almost had to work at NOT visualizing. Mitchell also confides that the oldest advice in the game really worked for her. Trust the process. Trust your training. Do the work and have confidence in your training. That way- when life throws curve balls- a week before her Olympic race, Mitchell came down with a cold- an athlete doesn’t need to panic. Coughs will cease, noses will stop running, and a lifetime- or at least a couple of years- of hard work will take over from there.
Nancy Lee is the IOC advisor on Gender Equality. The straightforward job title belies a serious complexity of work. For starters, Gender Equality is not simple math. 5000 male and 5000 female athletes is not a one- and-done solution. Some events, such as Nordic Combined, are still men-only at the Olympics. That’s changing by the way… but not in time for Beijing. There are issues with some of the proposed fixes for inequality. In some mixed events, men race longer distances than women. Is that equality? Even where there is agreement on plans and programs, the IOC cannot just wave its wand and command change. There are 206 national Olympic committees who each have say in matters. And before that, every sport has its own federation, not all of whom are equally invested in getting a gender balance in place. Equity questions abound, from minutiae to momentous. Why must women beach volleyball players run around in butt floss? How is it possible that Beijing will be the first winter Olympics to do away with “Ladies” events? Nancy won that linguistic battle for women by arguing that if we’re going to call them ‘Ladies’, the guys have to be referred to as ‘Gentlemen’. Aha! The penny drops. Media has a role to play too. Do we see images of active male athletes, and emotional female athletes? Do we linger on video of ‘pretty’ athletes? Do we ask male coaches more probing questions than their female counterparts? Do men’s events get better slots in prime time? Are women competing when audiences are smaller? Anastasia Bucsis asks Nancy to guide Olympic fans through the gamut of things to look and listen for during the Beijing competition. Never one to shy away from contentious issues- Nancy also lays down firm guidance on how the Canadian government should be spending your tax dollars in the area of sports and equality. When groups petition the feds for money to host Commonwealth games, or Canada Games, or Pan Ams, or FIFA events…Nancy wants Ottawa to make sure there are strings attached. Will women be playing soccer on plastic turf while men are on actual grass? Do men compete downtown, and women find themselves in facilities in the boonies? Are there provisions to mentor and bring more qualified women officials, coaches and governance on board? Once you start looking, you can see progress is being made, and still needs to be made. It’s an eye opening half hour, your decoder ring for the politics of equality in sport.
Shortly before Stephanie Labbé dropped a surprise retirement notice on the soccer world, the Canadian national goalie and Olympic champion hunkered down with Anastasia to talk through her motivations, her historic career, and her plans for the future. First thing many people want to know about, is that remarkable, disarming smile on Labbé's face as she braced for Swedish penalty kickers to do their worst, with Olympic gold on the line in Tokyo. Labbé says that was pure joy. With a little bit of gaming thrown in, just to give the Swedes something to think about. But if Labbé was doing exactly what she loves most…why is she doffing the gloves so soon afterward? When its time, you know. And she did. 20 years on the national team, 13 years a pro. 85 international caps. Fresh Olympic gold hanging around the neck. As far as competition goes, Labbé has nothing left to prove to anyone. But post competition? Labbé’s the first to say, Sports is all she really knows. So she’s going to be in the mix somehow. She points out that one of the side benefits of Canada’s historic Olympic win, is pressure is mounting for a professional women’s league to finally come to this country. Good luck keeping Labbé on the sidelines when that comes to pass!
On the eve of Olympic competition, it is bracing to see that Women’s international hockey is no longer a tale of two countries. Canada- USA is the rivalry that North Americans love of course, but Finland, Russia, Germany are all serious contenders nowadays, which is all for the good of the game. Canadian forward Natalie Spooner is counting the days to Beijing now. And it may seem like a paradox, but she is convinced that all the pandemic isolation has actually brought the Canadian national team to new strengths. Nobody asked for time alone, but when it happened, everyone had the scope to work on individual skills, and to focus on the many small things, on ice and off, that can make each separate member of the Beijing roster stronger. Believers in wholistic team building might demur, but there is no arguing with Canada’s domination in last August’s World Championships. And isolation or not, when the team comes together, as Spooner tells POV host Anastasia, it really really really comes together. Veterans like herself are more than happy to help the newest generation of players find their happy place in the mix. Good vibes in the locker room translate to good team cohesion on the ice. This is a national team that has every reason to believe in itself. Like Spooner says, “If we’re a goal down…we know we are a team that can score four times in a period.”
Vernon B.C.’s Emma Lunder began this biathlon world cup season with a bang. She landed a 6th place finish in Sweden, in the 15 k individual competition. That is a deceptively strong result in a sport which Europeans have dominated since, well, forever. And although the Canadian national team veteran recognizes that cracking the top 10 is always a good sign, for Lunder, this year is all about the Beijing Olympics. In Biathlon, as in all competition, everything has to go exactly right on race day, but Lunder is happy to itemize the many ways that her team has their proverbial ducks in a row. From new, specialist shooting coaching, to demanding but considerate leadership from Justin Wadsworth, to good old camaraderie and mutual support among the skiers and shooters…everyone seems to be in 'work hard, enjoy the process' mode. How many successful campaigns begin with that same simple formula? Counting down the days now to the winter Olympics, Lunder, like most athletes, is focusing on staying smart, staying healthy, and giving herself the best chance possible to get on the podium. As she tells Anastasia, nobody has ever competed in the Beijing facility before. It’s a totally new venue. So why not a Canadian podium?
Isabelle Weidemann is having a year. The Canadian speedskater is number one in 3000 and 5000 meter racing. She is the woman the rest of the world is chasing, heading into the Beijing Olympics. Weidemann is also the acknowledged diesel engine in Canada’s pursuit trio, along with Ivanie Blondin and Valérie Maltais. Why Diesel? Because once the lanky 26 year-old gets up to speed, she has fantastic efficiency and endurance. Weidemann hauls her teammates in her wake for extraordinarily long distances. Weidemann hunkered down for a chat with her old teammate Anastasia, at home in Calgary, a short jog from the Olympic Oval. The Ottawa-born skater is as surprised as anyone to find herself a team veteran. Time flies when you are logging hundreds of hours toward saving fractions of seconds. One of the surprises for Weidemann, amid the inevitable slog of training, is the recognition that try as she might in every way to be a better athlete, life away from the ice has more influence than most people acknowledge. The week she got a new puppy was also the week Weidemann smashed personal goals in training. A trip out of town with family set off a streak of racing successes. It happens too often to be a coincidence. For the truly driven athlete…there’s an art to discovering when and how to step back, take the foot off the gas, and return to even greater results. Anastasia has often said Isabelle Weidemann is one of the most underrated athletes in Canada. Before the Winter Olympics get underway, here’s a chance to discover why that quiet background buzz about the Canadian Speedskating team is getting steadily louder.
Veteran speedskater Laurent Dubreuil is having a career season many, many years after he took up the sport. So he faces a friendly and blunt question from Anastasia: “What took you so long?” Dubreuil is quick to acknowledge that he had some great advantages coming up in Canada’s most successful Olympic sport. For starters, he is the child of two Olympians, Robert Dubreuil, and Ariane Loignon. Having made their mark on the sports world, there was no stage parenting going on, no pressure to do anything but try hard and love what he did. Dubreuil had no problem trying hard. His workouts were as long and tough as anyone’s on the circuit. And he had flashes of excellence, but his self-imposed desire to win big was getting in the way. The harder he worked, the heavier he felt, and top tier results eluded him. Away from the ice, life was ticking along beautifully, and Laurent was delighted to announce a new daughter. And that’s where things get surprising. The pull of parenting made Dubreuil decide to spend more time hanging out with baby Rose, and less time training. He did fewer, but perhaps better workouts and his times started to plunge. The less he cared about racing, wouldn’t you know, the better he did. So now, eight races into this world cup season, Dubreuil has eight podiums in a row. He smashed the Canadian record in the 500m this weekend. His idea about rounding into form for the Beijing Olympics is obviously on track. He is having more fun than ever. He is going like thunder in all his races. And Rose, the girl he calls the most important person in his life? She couldn’t care less. And Dubreuil wouldn’t have it any other way.
Truly history-making athletes are few and far between. Nordic skier Beckie Scott qualifies, beyond dispute. What’s quietly amazing about the Canmore, Alberta native though, is that she is still changing the world, fully twenty years after becoming the first North American woman to win an Olympic medal in her sport. It took a while, but that medal became Gold, as the worm turned.
Most athletes have known for years about Scott’s standout integrity in a notoriously doping-plagued sport. The rest of the world woke up to her commitment to fair play when they saw her in the 2017 Oscar-winning documentary ‘Icarus’. Beckie Scott, alongside hurdling great Edwin Moses, did everything in her power to steer the World Anti Doping Agency toward binding rulings for clean competition. In the eyes of many athletes, both WADA and the IOC are still coming up short in that regard. But Scott’s principled fight for fair play kept the pressure and the spotlight on. And if the world ever gets the upper hand on cheating nations and athletes, it will be Scott’s work that led the charge. Which brings Scott to her latest history-making work for fairness. Nearly five years ago, she threw her energy into Spirit North, a nonprofit working with indigenous communities to give young people opportunities for sport that they would otherwise be denied. Why is this historic? Because it’s working. Every year, around 6300 Indigenous kids are getting a first chance to try a variety of land -based sports. Skiing, canoeing, mountain biking… the list of sports, and communities joining the program, just keeps growing and growing. Talking about this today with Anastasia, Scott makes clear that a strong moral compass has been her guide all along. An analogy that served her WADA years was that doping was like being a starting gate that is ten meters ahead of everyone else. Scott points to the convergence of historic, systemic factors and practices that have relegated many young indigenous kids to a starting gate ten meters behind other Canadians. For Beckie Scott, it’s a clear matter: a deep unfairness needs to be redressed. Making history again? That just goes with the job. And on a minor note, Beckie Scott is helping us make history yet again…By our calculations, she is the one hundredth guest on CBC Sports’ Player’s Own Voice podcast.
Mark Arendz delivered performance after performance at the 2018 Pyeongchang Paralympic games. He skied and shot his way into uncharted territory, nailing an incredible six medals in six events. Which left Canada’s undisputed star of the games in something of a motivational bind. It’s relatively easy to train with a goal of doing ‘better next time’. But how to focus on improving after an outing like that? Heading into the Beijing games, as Arendz explains to Anastasia Bucsis, means evolving as an athlete. ‘More’ is not the answer, but ‘different’ might be. Arendz' relentless pursuit of technique and fitness has led him to a place where he can still find flaws in his own gold medal races. He can still see ways to hit more bullseyes, more quickly. He can still bring more of his phenomenal talent and drive to bear on all the notoriously difficult Nordic disciplines. In conversation on the edge of ‘Frozen Thunder’, the shoulder season cross country training track at Canmore, Alberta, Arendz slowed down long enough to describe how his passion for technical excellence in sport likely evolved from his early need to solve the daily challenges of living minus an arm lost to a childhood accident on his family farm in P.E.I. 24 years of overcoming physical problems, as it turns out, is excellent preparation for an unparalleled athletic career. It should come as a surprise to no one that Arendz is already visualizing precisely where he’ll be at noon on March 5th, 2022…the minute, hour and day that his next Paralympic Nordic race gets underway.
It’s kind of an open secret, regarding Curling in this country: the best of the best will agree that qualifying for the Canadian Olympic team is harder than facing the entire world at the actual winter games. If that sounds unCanadian, maybe a little too bragodocious, judge for yourself in the week ahead, as Saskatoon hosts the national team qualifying tournament. If you need some insights about how that’s all going to play out… can we recommend lead Ben Hebert? The gold medallist, world champion, and four-time Brier winner is an excellent source of unvarnished wisdom about the game that he has devoted 25 years to perfecting. According to Hebert, at this level, and with these teams in the running, the whole tournament might come down to a couple of shots. Which means it could be anybody who’ll get to wear the maple leaf once Beijing begins. And - looking ahead to the Olympics themselves, Hebert is quick to say, Sweden and Scotland are the nations to respect, come February. Connecting in Calgary with his old Olympian pal Anastasia, Hebert holds forth on crucial topics such as whether a Saskatchewan team winning gold in Curling, or the Rough Riders winning the Grey Cup, would make Sask hearts beat hardest… on his lingering dismay at being swept off the podium in PyeongChang, 2018… and on how money and medals have driven everybody in the game to heights of professionalism and athletic fitness that would be unheard of barely a generation back.
She makes it look easy, flying around the oval at world class times, but for Speed skater Ivanie Blondin, the years since her medal-less return from the PyeongChang winter games have been marked by deep depression and poor mental health. Strangely enough, the versatile long-track athlete takes comfort in that history. Her attitude is: if she can still post winning times, even when she’s not feeling anywhere near top form, then she has to admit, the process is working. Fresh off becoming the new national champion in the 1500m –while still feeling sub par- the skater sat down to chat with Player’s Own Voice host Anastasia Bucsis, surrounded by a small menagerie of rescue animals. Blondin lays out her plans for the road to Beijing, and goes deep into the unusual living arrangements she and her husband, Hungarian speed skater Konrad Nagy, find themselves in, as the two athletes train and practise an ocean apart in Canada and Europe. Blondin has tasted competition peaks and valleys and she is making no secret of her drive to perform better than ever at the Beijing Olympics.
There’s a buzz on about the Canadian Speed skating team, heading toward the Beijing Olympics. The recent national trials revealed surprising strengths and plunging race times from veterans and newer hopefuls alike. Before the cheering echos from the trials had a chance to dwindle away at Calgary’s Olympic Oval, Player’s Own Voice podcast host Anastasia Bucsis convened a 'state of the skate' meeting with three champions of the sport. It's a raucous sit down chat about Speed Skating then and now. Chef du mission for the Canadian team, Catriona Le May Doane, Assistant team Coach Shannon Rempel, and multi medallist and commentator Kristina Groves all piled around the table to talk through the challenging pursuit of crazy speed on dime-thin skate blades. None of these women care much for clichés, but they all agree- this is living proof that if you build it, they will come. Canada’s most successful winter Olympic sport got to be that way, because decisions were made, back in 1988, to keep the Olympic skating Oval and institution, and coaching, training and expertise firmly in place. There are Olympic medal hopefuls right now, who got to be that way because they could see and skate alongside the best of the best, when they were first trying it out. Legends of Long track- this week on POV podcast.
Ten years after Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier began Ice dancing together, they have landed in a spot that is novel for both of them: Top of the heap. Creative, athletic, and artistic as they have always been, the duo’s dynamics have long contended with outsized competitors like Tessa & Scott and Kaitlyn & Andrew. It’s Piper and Paul’s turn in the sun now. And with the Winter Olympics coming on fast, they don’t have time to savour the spotlight. It’s all about getting their programme honed to perfection. Long-standing fans of the duo will be thrilled to learn that their latest long performance is built around The Beatles’ “Day in the Life”- interpreted by the same remarkable busker team whose ‘Starry Night’ electrified crowds for Piper and Paul starting in 2018. The Ice Dancers share secrets of an enduring partnership. Perhaps it’s counter intuitive, but in their case, the professional success together is firmly based in respect for one another’s personal lives. Paul jokes that he doesn’t trust any skate partners who never argue, but he and Piper are serious about making sure that support for one another comes first in every discussion, no matter how heated.
Nate Riech came into his first Paralympics under a burden of heavy expectation. Not just because his family tree is overstuffed with elite and pro athletes. Riech owns the world record in the T38 1500m. He set it, and then lowered it, in the months leading up to Tokyo. So he was confident and ready to race when the gold medal day dawned. But that’s where the going got interesting.... As an athlete enduring traumatic brain injury, Nate has learned to roll with a variety of symptoms. But even he was a bit freaked out to discover his right leg was suddenly not working properly during race day warm up. Incredibly, he and his coach had a backup plan for just such an outcome: he ran a series of short sprints designed to reboot his unpredictable nervous system. It worked. He’s sporting the gold now. And hungrier than ever to keep tearing up the record books, keep showing the world what determined people with TBIs can do, and keep inspiring anybody, who like himself, woke up one fateful day,young and motionless in a hospital bed. The term is overused, but Nate Riech is an inspiration, and a fascinating young runner to get to know on this week’s Player’s Own Voice.
Clara Hughes is one of those rare athletes who finishes an exceptional competitive career, and goes on to even more widespread fame. The former speed skater and cyclist met overwhelming success with her work in support of mental illness in the ‘Let’s Talk’ initiative.
The advocacy and outreach work proved so involving that Hughes needed to step away again to recharge, and that led to an ongoing series of epic hikes. Clara Hughes has walked the famous east and west coast mountain trails for thousands of kilometers. Usually solo, always finding reflection and meditation in the process.
For her old speed skating teammate Anastasia Bucsis, Clara’s reflective state opens the gate to lingering memories from a stellar career, and also to thinking through how today’s vocal athletes, like Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles, are ushering in social change that extends to every corner of the workplace. If that all sounds a bit nutritious, Clara Hughes has not lost her knack for blunt assessment of any situation, including her own delight at a 43rd place finish, not sooo long ago.
Also, and this made us feel thoughtless, we got messages from our deaf audience, readers of the POV essay series, asking for transcriptions of the podcast. Hoping to make this a permanent part of the publication...
Erin Ambrose, pro defender in the PWHPA and on the national team, has a decidedly un hockey - like tendency to blow right through the usual scrum clichés... She's honest about all of it. Team USA?. Ambrose makes no bones about hating them. Is that the word she wants to use? Oh yes. She hates them. And guess what- she says we should love that hate. There's plenty of fire in that outlook. And having a brand new IIHF championship gold medal slung around her neck allows Ambrose to visit fresh memories of those excellent hard feelings. But she's not just another hockey star with a gnarly temper. Ambrose's passion is just as strong on the other side of the emotional spectrum. She is a supremely compassionate advocate for mental health, having fought, and continued to deal with her own intense anxiety and depression. Feared on the Ice, Erin Ambrose is welcomed everywhere else, because her mental health advocacy is so respected and received. She is a complicated and fascinating figure.
Everybody reacts the same way when watching Paralympics for the first time: “Those people are amazing!” The more they watch, the deeper the appreciation. “ Didja see how fast that guy swam the 100 free, and he only has one leg! How did that completely blind woman log such a blazing triathlon?” It never fails. If we like the Olympics for the athletes’ stories, we love the Paralympics for the same reason. Which brings us to Cindy Ouellet. Prepare to feel like a slacker: Ouellet is dominant in winter AND summer para sports, finishing a PhD in biomedical engineering, she’s a bilingual advocate for people with disabilities, LGBTQ2 people, mental health and anti- bullying causes, she’s developing a university course, and to top it all off, she’s like Mike Holmes with the power tools. Build it, Fix it, no problem. That’s not to say it’s all smooth sailing for the Captain of Canada’s Wheelchair basketball team. Cindy has suffered mental and physical setbacks that would knock anyone off their game. But we can safely add ‘determined’ to Cindy’s laundry list of admirable attributes. Just what the team needs, rolling into Tokyo. A little while before the Paralympics began, Anastasia caught up with Cindy at her home in Quebec City.
Devotees of endurance running will tell you, the beauty of a 5,000 or 10,000 meter race is that those long, fast laps are the closest thing to a chess board that track and field offers. Physical endurance counts. An ability to compartmentalize pain helps. Raw speed matters. But it’s those long minutes of strategic survival...taking and relinquishing control, testing opponents’ fitness, staying upright in a jostling pack of spikes, and carving a path to the finish line. It’s that real time running mental game that thrills. Mohamed Ahmed has emerged as North America’s fastest 5,000m man. His duel with some legendary African names in the semi finals and then on to the capper, his silver medal 5000m race? That was a game changer for Canadian distance running. Which is why Anastasia gave in to temptation and went ‘inside baseball’ with Mo Ahmed. It's a rare, almost moment by moment technical breakdown of Canada’s finest 5000m race. You don’t have to love running to enjoy this talk from Tokyo, but it’ll help!
Athletics experts are losing their minds over Damian Warner’s performance in the Tokyo Decathlon. Sports scientists might accurately say what he did was an order of magnitude greater than a single event gold. And in fact, what Warner achieved would have got him in the finals or on the podium in at least a couple of the individual versions of the decathlon’s ten events. But those are details in the face of the two real headlines. First- Warner scored over 9000 points. In the history of his sport- which is either 140 years old or ten times that age, depending on who you argue with, only three people had managed that tally before yesterday. And not one of them at the Olympics, until Warner battled the field, and enervating heat to deliver 9018 points. The other headline only needs four letters. GOLD. No Canadian has ever done that in Decathlon. Warner is happy to acknowledge all the above. Just don’t make him wear the ‘world’s greatest athlete’ label. That traditional accolade for the Olympic Decathlon champion fits the London, Ontario man better than it does anyone else, but Warner is not given to that kind of swagger. As he says to Anastasia, all he really wants now, after two days of beyond- intense competition, is to get home and make funny noises for his baby boy Theo.
Just like a balance beam routine, Gymnast Ellie Black’s entire Olympic experience teetered on the edge of disaster. She managed to salvage an inspirational fourth place on the beam, despite a freshly re-injured ankle. Which really was a matter of snatching improbable triumph back from the brink of a much more likely painful retreat. Perhaps the least-surprised person in this Olympic drama is Black herself. The 25 year old Canadian Artistic Gymnastics team leader has always led by example, always rolled with the bad breaks, and always encouraged her teammates to see that setbacks are the proving ground for great competitors. Fuelled by very little sleep and even less breakfast, Ellie Black sat down with Anastasia to try and make some sense of the Tokyo experience. This conversation also flirted with disaster, as Black’s exhaustion ran up against a tide of excitement about heading home to Halifax. If we have learned one thing, watching this three time Olympian in action though: she always shows up on game day.
In a crowd of perhaps overly media-trained athletes, Penny Oleksiak lets it all hang out. Canada’s most decorated Olympian has a knack for saying exactly what’s on her mind in interviews. Shortly after Penny scooped medal number seven into her loot bag, the swimming phenom came through the International Broadcast Center in Tokyo to do her duty with the awaiting media. CBC Sports Player’s Own Voice podcast seized the moment to document a not-too polished picture of the Olympic experience from an athlete’s point of view. What’s really on your mind amid all the hubbub and cameras? How does it actually feel to win more Olympic medals than anyone in Canadian history? Exactly what kind of fun will you grant yourself before buckling down again? How much did you hate practising through all those early, unsung years, and do the podium trips make it all worthwhile? It’s a funny and freewheeling fifteen minutes...Anastasia Bucsis puts her new besty at ease, and barely a responsible word is spoken.
Rosie MacLennan has never lacked for admirers. But the four-time Olympian and only Canadian ever to deliver back-to- back golds in the same event earned a whole new level of respect in Tokyo this week. It wasn’t just that her trampoline routine drew gasps from judges, or that she soared to fourth place on a barely healed ankle fracture. It was more that MacLennan’s first thoughts as she entered the obligatory mix zone, were congratulations to her fellow competitors. A graceful gesture in the spotlight , sure, but MacLennan has lived those words behind the scenes for nearly two decades now. She is devoted to the causes of women and girls in sport. Her masters research was all about rights and responsibilities for athletes. And while school kids across Canada have suffered academic setbacks during the pandemic, Rosie has consistently fought to keep physical literacy on the agenda too. Taking a thoughtful fifteen minutes in the International Broadcast Center with Anastasia Bucsis this weekend, MacLennan was obviously happy to skip any talk about her historic competitive career... and argue instead for the virtues of 'disorganized play' among youngsters. Which only confirms what her fellow athletes have said about her all along. Give MacLennan a platform, and she’ll rise to it, for all the best reasons.
Felix Auger-Aliassime’s first Olympic tennis events did not end the way he wanted them to. But the world’s youngest top 20 player has perspective on the experience that would be admirable in someone twice his age. His early singles upset loss was partly about his serve having less than its usual impact. That’s tennis, it happens. But Auger-Aliassime corrected his service nicely when he moved on to his first-ever mixed doubles match alongside Gabriela Dabrowski. Imagine trying an event for the first time, at the Olympics. Auger-Aliassime absorbed huge lessons from his new situation. The geometry, the mixed doubles strategy of forcing unlikely angles on opponents, he soaked it up in a hurry. But the main takeaway for Auger-Aliassime was that, while some professional athletes are less enthusiastic about competing at the Olympics, he was all-in for Tokyo, if only because it met his own personal sense of what’s right. Auger-Aliassime tells Anastasia that there’s no question, the essence of the Olympics is that every country sends its best athletes. When the country asks, you go. And meantime...Paris is only three years away. Should be a better outing, even at the ripe old age of 23.
She's the 2019 world number one junior tennis player. Still only 18 years old, the Canadian competitor has just finished a very respectable Olympic debut. Fernandez won her opening match, and only fell short against Barbora Krejcikova, who happens to be this year’s French Open winner in both singles and doubles. But if you think this young player finds solace in being outplayed only by a current grand slam winner, you’d be sorely underestimating the competitor’s mind. Fernandez hates to lose. Period. She also hates it when so-called tennis experts dismiss athletes who don’t have classic physiques. Fernandez is adamant that you needn’t be a giant to thrive in sport. All it takes is for coaches and federations to recognize and work with a player’s raw attributes. She makes it very clear to Anastasia, Instinct and drive can take it from there.
Tammara Thibeault, Canadian middleweight, has her first Olympic bout tonight. That’s got to be an anxious time for many boxers, but when Tamm steps into the ring, it's usually kind of a zen experience. Just before the opening bell, no matter what her opponent is up to, Tammara finds herself calm, focussed, knowing her business. When people call it the sweet science- that’s a euphemism, but not Thibeault. She‘s a fan of what she calls ‘pretty boxing’. Thibeault is a mover, a technical fighter, and she’s got a wicked jab. There’s a dance happening when she’s on her game. Of course, it takes two to tangle, and tonight’s dance card sees Tamm facing Nadezhda Ryabets, of the mighty Kazakh Boxing team. But as Thibeault tells Anastasia, she does her homework before every bout. She knows who she’s up against, she’s got a battle plan, and a realistic outlook. “It’s not tennis, right?” Tamm Takes a beat before delivering the closer. “Somebody’s going to get beaten up.”
When it comes to bike racing, the biggest compliment your peers can pay you is when they stay on your wheel at all times. If you aren’t a threat to win, nobody needs to chase when you try to ride off the front of the peloton. So coming into the Olympic road race, Canadian Michael Woods had an excellent strategy in place: keep an eye on the winner of the last two Tours De France, Tadej Pogacar, and do his best to chase Belgian climber and sprinter, Wout Van Aert. Trouble is, guess who those two professional beasts were following in the field of 100 racers? Bingo. The pack has wised up to the fact that when conditions are hot, wet or windy, climbs are relentless, and distances above 200 kilometers...Rusty Woods is the man to beat. He is too modest to say so, chatting with Anastasia today from the Olympic Village, but Woods played his cards perfectly Saturday. He was super aggressive on Mount Fuji, climbing to the front of the field, but the world’s best riders were nervously marking his every move. Woods' fifth-place finish is a deceptive result...in a six hour race, he missed a silver medal by hundredths of a second. The Canadian gets the last laugh though. While the rest of the cyclists were off to yet another dreary ice bath...Rusty was hopping a plane home to Andorra, where he and his wife Elly are expecting a little brother for their toddler daughter any second now.
Skylar Park is one of only two Taekwondo athletes that Canada has sent to Tokyo. But she’s aiming for the finals in the Olympic 57 kilogram class. The friendly but lethal young Winnipegger has caught the attention of the martial arts world. With sixteen black belts in Skylar’s immediate family, she has been sparring for 20 of her 22 years. That’s not a typo. She was two when she got into the Korean martial art! Just before the high kicks started flying, Park caught up with Anastasia to talk about her odds for gold (respectable) the source of her confidence (she’s been beating up older boys since she was three) and her family’s remarkable footprint in the prairies (their Taekwondo school is a Winnipeg institution). The Tokyo Summer games are Skylar Park’s first Olympics. She has every intention of returning for Paris 2024, and when those games roll around, there’s a solid chance she’ll have her two little brothers as teammates.
World champion Hurdler and acclaimed new author, Perdita Felicien will be covering track and field events at the Tokyo Olympics. She shares her insights about the racing days to come on the Player's Own Voice podcast this morning. Spoiler alert- there are no firm predictions about who is going to take the women's 100m finals, but plenty of confidence in saying that particular race will be one for the ages. Felicien is also frankly obsessed with Beach volleyball. And weightlifting. Which only proves, when it comes to the Olympics, everyone has their thing. Host Anastasia Bucsis can't resist probing some of the still raw stories from Perdita's book. 'My Mother's Daughter' describes she and her mom's own childhood, and the precarious circumstances that the two of them managed to overcome as they fled poverty, abuse, and uncertainty. Perdita tells a story like she runs: Fast. Powerful. And leaving you no choice but to pay attention.
Lauren Bay-Regula is exactly where she wants to be. Thirteen years since the last time she played Olympic fastball, the pitcher is back on the mound, throwing heat and helping a team of mostly much younger players wrap their heads around playing the game at the highest possible level. Just a few weeks before their first tilt (a four- nothing win over Mexico) and a few days more before the Tokyo opening ceremonies, Anastasia Bucsis caught up with the mother of three, and second time around baller. It has not been an easy return to full time sport for Bay-Regula, or her business partner/husband. But he and the kids got behind her dream. She needed every bit of that support while she was working her way through a serious post partum depression, and the lingering miserable memories of having missed the podium by a tiny margin back in 2008. Compared to that, throwing fastballs for the first time in more than a decade was a piece of cake.
Bo Levi Mitchell is back in business. He had his iffy shoulder fixed during the CFL’s pandemic furlough, and he’s raring to QB Calgary toward another Grey Cup. Even though the twice- league MVP is known for his cannon, he takes a back seat to no one in the conversation department. Settling in behind the mic on Player’s Own Voice podcast this week, Bo holds forth on Football in Texas, and his ownership of high school records in that state. He leads us through the highs and lows of his college campaigns. He threw the most interceptions in NCAA one year, and won it all the next. Bo envisions an XFL-CFL future, with gambling, The Rock, and Drake or Biebs luring younger eyeballs back to the gridiron. And he’s all in for the Canadian game, by the way. The big field, three downs, those are sacred once the two leagues get serious about matchmaking. He’s also got a blunt assessment of economics and the NFL...When is major money a major problem? When it scares owners into dangerously slow development of new players. If the second quarterback looks sharper than the 90 million dollar guy? Owners don’t care for looking like they overpaid. Bo Levi Mitchell is a bit of a lightning rod. He’s probably never going to get hugged on the streets of Saskatchewan, but he’s also never going to zip it for fear of riling the critics. And he’s in fine form today.
Watch out for the athletes who make it look easy. They are the ones who have poured agonies of effort into every millisecond of their game. Olympic Gymnastics Champion Kyle Shewfelt is a prime example. The ‘Style of Kyle’ was practically balletic, but every ‘effortless’ gesture was the product of intense, obsessive hard work. CBC’s Gymnastics and Trampoline analyst explores the many layers of mental and physical effort that excellence demands in his new autobiography ‘Make it Happen’, but almost more fascinating than his years of chasing a perfect routine, is his time spent adrift when the competitive career ended. Kyle tried to fit into a few new careers, and he is no enemy of hard work...but it wasn’t until he was slapped in the face by the obvious that he remembered- Gymnastics! That’s what I love- I’ll open a gym! Kyle and his fellow Calgarian Anastasia Bucsis broaden the talk to issues that define his sport internationally now. Why are male gymnasts revered in Germany and Japan, but elsewhere seen as lesser athletes than those in team contact sports? Why can't robo-judging take some of the bias out of artistic gymnastics scores? And why do Gymnastic routines and difficulty points never stay the same from one season to the next? You'll be watching Gymnastics like a pro when the Tokyo games get underway.
If you want to get inside knowledge about Canadian, American, and British soccer, you could buttonhole three players from the three systems, or you could simply check in with Janine Beckie. Born to Canadian parents in Colorado, she’s played top level footy for both countries, and she’s currently under contract with Manchester City. So the forward has deep knowledge about the quirks and qualities of most of the leading women in the game. Sometime teammates, sometime opponents, often both. At this moment, Beckie is digging in her cleats for the Olympic tilt, and that’s top of mind as she catches up with Player’s Own Voice podcast host Anastasia Bucsis. How is the Canadian team taking to new coach Bev Priestman? What’s going to make the difference in Canadian efforts to finish even higher on the podium than the 2012 and 2016 Bronze wins? What’s the thinking on the current roster? Beckie is forthcoming about the peaks and valleys of her career, and she shows particular class in describing one stinging moment, a missed world cup penalty kick in 2019. Beckie took exactly the right lesson from that saved shot, which is, she is an aggressive, confident penalty taker, and not a dang thing is going to change about that!
Andre De Grasse, Canada’s top sprinter, was a very young man when he dashed his way into international stardom at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Five years later, the phenomenal athlete has evolved into a competitor who seems wise beyond his years. He’s a plugged-in and thoughtful parent now, who credits his three year old daughter with teaching him patience on the daily. He’s also a published author, having filled his unplanned pandemic down time with dedicated writing practise. His ‘Run With Me’ is an inspirational children’s book about mindfulness and perseverance. De Grasse is healthier now too, having learned patience the hard way, enduring the long and bumpy process of rehabbing a nagging hamstring injury. The only area in which De Grasse remains unchanged, we are delighted to learn, is in his approach to big race days. De Grasse has always had an instinct for saving his best performances til it matters most.
Season FOUR woot woot! Kicks off with Marie-Philip Poulin, Captain of Team Canada, who is doing all she can amid the biggest shortfall in Canadian sports: Women’s Hockey faces roadblocks to play, left right and center at the moment. World Championships postponed, international play down to almost nothing... and years after the CWHL folded, still no professional game and league in Canada that elite players can agree to. Poulin is practically begging for some resolution to the unnecessary friction between PWHPA and NWHL . Host Anastasia Bucsis brings her friendly ‘human first, athlete second’ approach to the chat, and even though Pou is disturbed by the current situation, there’s room to laugh through the many good times that followed Canada’s four Olympic gold medals in a row .
Winter Olympics are unique for Canadian sports fans. They are one of the rare sweet spots, where national pride reliably lines up with winning results. We can swagger, a little, with apologies, when the games of snow and ice are underway. And maybe, with the Beijing Winter Olympics' fast approach, there's call to celebrate early. Catriona Le May Doan has just been named Chef de Mission for 2022. A reminder of what the speedskater accomplished as an athlete: For about five years, around the turn of the millennium, Le May Doan was the one sprinter no one could catch. She actually broke the record for breaking records! She's the only woman ever to set eight consecutive World Records in one distance. So with three Olympic medals around her neck, including back-to-back golds from 1998 and 2002, Catriona Le May Doan brings a lived experience of winning to her new role. She's also an author, hall of famer, and Order of Canada recipient. It would seem to be an understatement to say Canada's current crop of winter athletes are in good hands. Player's Own Voice Podcast host (and fellow speedskater) Anastasia Bucsis draws Catriona Le May Doan into friendly and funny talk about the road ahead for Team Canada, strategies for safe sport, and also some gentle ribbing about Le May Doan's mature passion for league hockey. Spoiler alert: nobody beats her to the puck, ever, but her stick work? Umm, next question please.
No matter how sporty your family happens to be, Kia Nurse has you beat. CFL dad, high performance basketball mom, brother in the NHL, cousin in the PWHPA… and Kia herself, professional and Canadian national team basketball star. When the Nurse family gets together, there isn’t much about the big leagues that they can’t discuss from first-hand knowledge. Which gives Kia the unique perspective from which to consider one of the weirdest years that professional sport has ever seen. From the logistical triumphs and setbacks of the ‘bubble’ seasons, to the Tetris puzzle of building teams amid anything but normal schedules, it has been one for the history books. Amid this year’s upheaval though, one constant remained: the WNBA stayed at the vanguard of social justice causes. Kia Nurse explains how and why her league has normalized good wages and benefits, and standing up against racial, and many other forms of injustice.
As goaltender for the national team, Karina LeBlanc was part of the generation that put Canadian soccer on the world map. Olympic medals, World cup expectations, the sky’s the limit. But for LeBlanc, it was never just about the play on the pitch. Even in the big wins- her team aimed beyond the game of the day. The really big idea is to make women’s football a force for global change. Helping young women, particularly, assess themselves in a new light, once they get the chance to participate in the world’s game. Since becoming Head of CONCACAF Women’s Football, LeBlanc has had the privilege and pleasure to see it happen again and again in the 41 countries that represent the FIFA association. A shy girl comes to the pitch for her first time, and within a few hours, sees herself as a player, with all the confidence, enthusiasm and strength that goes with it. Player’s Own Voice podcast host Anastasia Bucsis leads Karina LeBlanc through a refreshingly optimistic conversation about a career in sports that even now still feels like the best is yet to come.
The President of the Canadian Olympic Committee, Tricia Smith has presided over a four year - and counting - cycle for which there is no precedent. Smith was at the helm when Canada put athlete's health ahead of 'compete at any cost' thinking, which helped tip the international decision to delay the Tokyo games. But this pandemic year is certainly not Smith's first experience with interrupted games. Looking back to the boycott years in the 1980s, while she was an Olympic rower, Tricia Smith says the important thing to do now is remember the purpose behind the Olympic games. More than ever, she wants to renew efforts to keep politics out of the Olympics. The lawyer, businesswoman, and long serving defender of institutions that promote fairness in sport looks back over her 35 years in the Olympic movement and sees a mostly good, but still mixed bag of results. Gender equity would appear to be a winning battle. Inclusion for more athletes who come from less wealthy backgrounds? That's still a work in progress. Anastasia Bucsis, host of CBC Sports' Player's Own Voice podcast, leads the conversation through a friendly review of a long strange year indeed.
Malindi Elmore is either Canada's greatest gift to mature athletes, or she's yet another taunting for every runner who is racing the calendar more than the clock. In January of this year, the now 40 year-old mother of two shattered the Canadian Marathon record, running 2:24:50 in Houston. While endurance running fans were letting that sink in, even more amazing facts emerged. This was only the second marathon Elmore had ever run. An even more unlikely detail: she was done with running, burned out, disillusioned, finished, fully ten years earlier. So how does a decade-retired middle distance runner smash a national endurance record? On Player's Own Voice podcast today, Elmore says the secret was in really truly no longer caring about the results. As soon as she started running for her own pleasure, on her own program, with her own young family in the mix, her times started to plummet. She's qualified for the Tokyo Olympics now too, sixteen years after she competed in the 1500m in Athens.
The NHLPA and the hockey writers association are in full agreement: Leon Draisaitl is the best player in the league this year. With Hart and Ted Lindsay trophies in his collection now, the superstar from Cologne, via Prince Albert ( and how many people follow that route to stardom?) is reflecting on the circumstances of winning individual honours, while his Oilers fell out of the Stanley Cup running sooner than anyone might have expected.
In sum, Draisaitl is grateful for the accolades, but he’d trade them in a second for an Edmonton cup.
Draisaitl joined Player’s Own Voice host Anastasia Bucsis from Germany, where he is both training and relaxing. In a topsy-turvy period for the seasons of all professional sports, Draisaitl can say with certainty that when the call comes to get back to play, ‘you better be ready’.
When Ted-Jan Bloemen was a young speedskater, he struggled to find his place in Holland’s fabled star system. He was a good skater, in a place that creates the absolute best . Ted-Jan never found that mix of coaching, practice and competition that great performances demand. It’s hard to overstate how much strength of mind it took for him to leave the Dutch team behind and come to Canada, in pursuit of better results. It’s also hard to overstate how incredibly well that decision worked out for him. Ted did not just thrive in Canada, he became one of the top two or three endurance Speedskaters in the world. Smashed the 10,000 m record. Olympic Gold. World Champion. And this is an area that Canada had never ever done particularly well in. Ted-Jan Bloemen made the world look at Canada’s speedskating system in amazement. His success here has also opened doors for the next generation of Canadian Speedskating greats. Young athletes have an example to follow now, and a program that has proven to work. As he tells fellow speedskater Anastasia Bucsis in this episode of Player’s Own Voice podcast, The Dutch system has so much talent, it can afford to let a prospect get away. For someone like Ted, who needed a little more time to find his wheels, Canada’s openness to developing a promising talent was just the ticket.
If there were awards for weathering setbacks, the Canadian Women’s Softball team would clean up. The National squad has found creative workarounds for obstacles since at least 2008, the last time Softball made an appearance in the Olympics. Now that the sport is back on the roster for Tokyo 2021 the team has high hopes to rewrite their fourth place finish. That left a sour aftertaste for veterans - and yes, thirteen years later, there are still four women on the team with personal stakes in winning bigger at the Olympics. For team Captain Victoria Hayward, the answer is in big picture thinking. Canada’s National Team also plays as 'The Wild of Southern Illinois', where international softball competition is fierce, which is exactly what you want to sharpen team skills. Today Hayward talks about the latest innovation, a 56 player new softball league, which is truly revolutionary for the sport. 'Athletes Unlimited' combines the best of fantasy league and the best of traditional play, to create a model that has already caught on like wildfire with fans. Players are drafted each week, scoring combines team wins and individual contributions. Players get points for hitting singles, and stealing bases...and profit sharing is meted out accordingly too. It’s a head spinning idea, but it has already brought more money and attention to the game than it has seen in many years.
Jessica Tuomela is an extremely competitive para Triathlete. She was a world leader in swimming before adding the bike and run to her game. Tuomela won the Tokyo paralympic triathlon test event. And while all athletes are bumping up against pandemic-related challenges, the completely blind competitor’s sport is tackling existential questions. Para triathlon brings guides and athletes into extreme close contact. It’s one big scrum of bumping, breathing and sweating all over one another. Not safe. An answer might be in turning the events into time trials, but losing the mass start and sight or sound or any other sense of close competition would be a head spinning change for most para-triathletes. And while the Sault Ste. Marie native ponders the possibilities, she still has to keep honing the extreme competitive fitness that got her to the top of the sport last year. How to do that, when elite guides and training partners can barely travel? Tuomela jokes about it, but her intensely independent streak (did someone say incredible stubbornness?) is serving her well.
When an athlete stands on the Olympic podium, a spectrum of emotions come into play...not all of them joyful. For Brittany MacLean, Canadian national record holder in the 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle swim, the Bronze medal in Rio was a serious eye opener. Objectively, she knew it was a huge achievement, but inside? The normally exuberant young woman felt mostly disappointed and depressed about the experience. MacLean took that insight, and built a deep understanding of problems that many athletes face. When competitors pour all their energy into one goal, it can be dangerous. Self- worth gets caught up in results that are beyond an athlete's control. And even if everything goes perfectly, careers come to a halt, eventually. What self esteem can athletes retain, once they stop doing the sport that defined them? MacLean has come to grips with her own depression, and continues to grow from it to this day. Just because this is a time in history when extraordinary numbers of people are suffering mental health setbacks, does not mean that our own problems are any less deserving of respect and attention.
John Morris has deep perspective on Canadian curling. Morrises have been making waves at Briers since the 1930s. Gold in 2010 in Vancouver, Gold again in 2018 at Pyeongchang, he has played with all the Canadian greats. For Morris, it’s about staying motivated. That’s partly why he needs new teammates- if he can’t face new challenges, solve new puzzles, he just can’t compete with maximum intensity. And that intensity question will make things interesting now that Morris has signed on with Skip Kevin Koe. How will the easygoing team leader, and the ultra intense second get along? Morris says his broom-snapping days are behind him now, but there’s no denying, he remains one of the most focussed and competitive athletes on the ice. You need a mix of personalities to keep a team balanced, is how he puts it. With the Oympic trials starting to nudge onto the horizon, you can be sure Morris is already plotting his shots. Given the depth of talent in the Canadian game now- he’s quick to admit, Olympic curling is almost a relief compared to the effort involved in rising to the top of domestic competition.
Brock McGillis loves a good old hockey game. His passion for playing the sport drove the goalie all the way to the bigs. But McGillis is a gay man in a sport whose culture does not readily accept queer males. So he turned his own miserable experiences, butting up against 'bro' culture, into a working practise- helping leagues become more inclusive. McGillis believes cultures can learn and change. He is determined to mend environments where racism and homophobia are the unspoken norm. As he explains to Anastasia Bucsis, host of Player's Own Voice podcast, inclusion goes far beyond outward displays of rainbow stickers, and BLM hashtags. It's all about teaching influencers in the locker room and the boardroom to see and hear beyond their often insular surroundings. Humanizing "the other" is a great first step. As the first gay man to openly be out in Pro Hockey- McGillis has made himself a clear mission- to use advocacy and education to help sports change for the better.
Speed skater Jackson Tomlinson recently won two golds and a Bronze medal at the Special Olympics National Games. But the wins, delightful though they are, aren’t really what turns his crank. The Milton, Ontario native, like many young men, just loves going extremely fast. He calls speed skating ‘ Nascar on Ice’, which is a good phrase for anybody to coin, regardless of where they land on the spectrum of neuro-diversity. Tomlinson talks shop with his speed skating ‘spirit animal’ Anastasia Bucsis, herself an Olympian long tracker, and host of Player’s own Voice podcast. When he describes the confidence he gained on ice, and how it followed him into other areas of life, the young man is a living argument for the many societal benefits of inclusion.
Kendall Coyne blazed her way through the speed skating skills contest at the 2019 NHL all star break, and her performance is still creating ripples in the proverbial hockey pond today. Girls who watched that high profile performance were inspired to get into the game. Adults were reminded yet again of the intensity and excellence of the women's game in North America. And For Coyne herself, the attention was a watershed in her understanding of how platforms can be used to greater ends. She is a six time IIHF champion, and a gold medallist at Pyeong Chang, so her personal trophy collection needed no further polishing. But seeing the attention that high visibility events can create- spurred the Chicago native to help drive professional women's hockey towards a bigger and better future.
French Figure Skater Surya Bonaly's career truly is the stuff of legend. She is the first female skater ever to perform back flips in competition- the jump remains illegal to this day. Her gymnastic virtuosity set her apart from her contemporaries, and so did her principled defiance at unfair judging. When she handed back her silver medal at the 1994 world championships, the gesture was compared to the raised fists in Mexico City, 1968. Bonaly revolutionized her sport, and yet never considered herself to be a rebel. She quietly did what she thought was right, and let the figure skating world create its own uproar in reaction. A classic Surya Bonaly skate performance delighted fans, brought entire arenas to their feet, and left judges freaked out, bound by the rules to award her low-seeming scores.
Georges Laraque is probably the nicest guy ever to make a living terrorizing opponents on the ice. He combined heavy fists with a light touch around the net for 14 years in the NHL. He is an inspirational figure in the effort to rid hockey of racism, a faithful ally of LGBTQ communities, Vegan. a former deputy leader of the federal Green party. His autobiography was a bestseller in both official languages. And- he caught COVID-19 while he volunteering with seniors in Montreal, doing what he personally could to protect them from the virus. Anastasia Bucsis, host of Player’s own Voice podcast, has her own not-so- secret reasons to admire The Rock: he came to hockey by way of speedskating. In fact, this is the first cbc sports podcast to conclude with a challenge: a head to head speedskate racet for charity.
For Arianne Jones, Canadian Olympian Luge athlete, body size and function played an outsized role in an always surprising career. Naysaying experts drove Jones to compensate for her small mass by working obsessively on every possible technique of the sport. Overtraining led to a broken back in 2015. She rehabbed and went on to World Cup gold barely eight months later... and THEN she contracted Lyme Disease. Still fighting her way back to fitness, four years later, Jones tells Player's Own Voice podcast host Anastasia Bucsis about how her intense focus on nutrition has given her cause for optimism.
At barely 5'10" Michael Linklater did not have an obvious path to basketball stardom. The constant grind of racism did not help the Saskatoon, Thunderbay, and Thunderchild First Nation phenom either. But he turned every slur and slight into fuel for his personal fire of ambition. Linklater played on the Canadian national team, was ranked among the very top tier of 3x3 players worldwide, and retired with the 2019 CEBL championship to his credit. (Go Saskatchewan Rattlers!) Now he's pouring his energy back into helping indigenous youth. He’s the founder of ‘Boys with Braids’, a senior coach for NAIG, and the director of Prime Basketball Development, which gives first nations kids everywhere the coaching and mentorship that can make all the difference
Here's the goal: a professional soccer league for Canadian women. We love watching FIFA and Olympic play. We’ve already got stars. It’s the world’s game, and Canada embraces immigration. Should be an open net, right? Carmelina Moscato is working on it, starting with League One in Ontario. The former National Team star, and internationally accredited coach is a first-principles kind of thinker. You want success in ten years? You need to start now with keeping young girls in the game. While you’re at it- you better give high performing young players careers to shoot for if they are going to practise and commit. And why should our budding stars always have to head to the USA for scholarships? And what about a tier of women’s soccer leagues for lifetime participation and general health? And then there’s the jobs a soccer nation needs. Coaching, managing, training, physio... Oh. and you also have to rework the mindset that Mens’ professional sports are an investment, while Women’s pro sports are a tax write off...Lots of moving parts, bur Moscato is on the case. Stay tuned!
When Canada’s most decorated female skater, Kaetlyn Osmond, retired at the ripe old age of 23, she was startled to learn that stepping away from the on-ice judges, did nothing to alleviate the sense of being judged. Body Image issues- which had stayed somewhat in check during the years of intense training and competition- flared in her new ‘more relaxed’ schedule. And a lifetime of bouncing between the extremes of perfomance, crowd adulation, and a natural tendency toward introversion left her emotionally knotted. But Osmond has not lost the athlete’s discipline, and she’s turned it to work on her emotional and psychological discomfort with determination. She says she lost her identity altogether when she stepped off the ice for the last time, but she has been methodically building it back up ever since.
John Smythe, Canadian National field hockey player, was developing as a young contender when he was hit with a series of mysterious and painful symptoms - as he says- from gums to bum. Crohn’s disease is not a straightforward diagnosis to make and it is not an easy disease to live with. For a high performance athlete, it’s even more of a challenge. The physical stress of an intense workout all by itself can be enough to trigger flare-ups. But after multiple surgeries and ultimately four years away from the sport, his recuperation is lasting, and so is his ability to quickly recognize symptoms and triggers. Smythe shares the remarkable story of how he has learned to live with Crohn’s to the extent that he’s now full speed ahead for the Tokyo Olympics
Jayna Hefford is the rare athlete whose work post-competition threatens to overshadow a brilliant career. There’s a reason why the best player in the league wins the Jayna Hefford trophy each year. But Hefford’s work now goes to the core of almost every issue facing professional women in sport in Canada. As the head of the PHWPA, Hefford leads a group of the 200 best players in the game. They are demanding a living wage, decent support staff and facilities, more coverage and more attendance. Everybody has an opinion about what needs to happen to build a league that reflects the quality of the women's game. The hockey legend takes us through the latest in the struggle.
Jennifer Jones, The Manitoba Skip, was recently named the greatest female curler of all time.This year she negotiated the biggest trade in Curling, bringing Lisa Weagle onto team Jones as a Fifth. Fans of the sport will be quick to ask: How much fire power can a team possibly have if Lisa Weagle is fifth curler? J-Jones answers that neatly. The true value of the fifth is best revealed at the Olympics...so why wait til the last second to build the team that is going for gold on the biggest stage? Jones also addresses her famous intensity, and helps us understand how being competitive can be compartmentalized. She insists that her focus on winning melts away when she’s off the ice. Fierce and friendly seems like an oxymoron, but she’s living proof it can happen.
She is the all-time leading scorer in International Soccer. She is also a proudly private person. We learn some home truths about Christine Sinclair today. For one thing, shy does not mean unfriendly. Sinclair tells Anastasia Bucsis that she allows the public to glimpse 10% of her life. Sinclair reveals surprising backstories behind the unwanted fame that followed on her playing with a badly broken nose during World Cup 2011. And the reasons behind Janine Beckie taking that penalty shot vs Sweden in last year's world cup...and she goes deep on the relentless attention that came as she neared the goal scoring record. Did she celebrate that moment?...Umm. not really. She was busy. And exactly how does an introvert wear a C? With pride of course!
Player's Own Voice podcast records a carefully- distanced check in with Canadian soccer star Diana Matheson, who is thinking about the big picture role of sports during the COVID-19 upheaval.
When the COC came knocking- asking Anastasia Bucsis about running a live podcast for an audience of Canadian Olympians heading to Tokyo, the first question was: what is it we want to help athletes understand?
The answer was 'Flow'. That quicksilver, dialed-in state where an athlete enters a focused zone of excellence. Flow is relaxed and alert, fast and unhurried. Steady amid the chaos. Very zen. For Anastasia, it was obvious who to call to work through the idea.
Kristina Groves has four Olympic medals and a million world championship titles tucked somewhere under her spandex speed suits. She is one of the most consistent athletes Canada has even known. If anyone, by virtue of practice and habit, can summon that flow state of mind, Long Track Speed Skating phenom Kristina Groves' the one to do it.
This edition of the Player's Own Voice podcast was a bit of an experiment. We liked the live feedback. We may try it again if we come across another captive audience. Meanwhile, we are still recharging the batteries and lining up our ducks for season three. We'll be back in full swing in a couple of months.
As the NHL undergoes the long process of helping coaches and players figure out how to communicate without intimidation or prejudice, the league could do a lot worse than to listen and learn from Canada's reigning world champion beach volleyball duo of Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes.
The two-woman team and their coaches have managed to dominate the world's best in large part by working long and purposefully at learning how to respect one another, how to communicate properly in the heat of competition, how to allow junior voices to be heard without fear of senior reprisal, and most of all, how to generate a team environment in which the will to win eclipses the fear of making mistakes.
The Canadians share the secrets of their quiet confidence with host Anastasia Bucsis, who concludes season two of the Podcast series with this story of a team which has every prospect and possibility of reaching the top of the podium in Tokyo.
Stu Grimson's new autobiography is aptly called The Grim Reaper, but the book's subtitle – The life and career of a reluctant warrior – rounds out the picture of the infamous NHL enforcer.
Grimson was a serious handful, a heavyweight who knew exactly how to flatten a foe in as few punches as necessary. But he is conflicted about that role - and much more proud of his leadership in the locker room and on the bench.
The fact that Grimson liked using his noggin more than his knuckles became obvious once he got his law degree and started negotiating in NHL labour disputes.
Host Anastasia Bucsis gets the NHL veteran talking about the main preoccupations of a heavyweight during the height of the enforcer years.
Manny Osborne-Paradis has been a mainstay of Canada's Downhill and Super G teams since way back in 2005. For an Alpine skier, that's an eternity. So it's kind of amazing to see how hungry Manny still is, 14 years later. Having a no-compromise drive to win at 35 years old is even more rare when we also consider that Manny is also a full year into recovery from an injury that almost cost him his left leg.
A blunt assessment would be: he's old and he's banged up. But you still won't find anyone betting against a podium for the irrepressible Osborne-Paradis on any given day. There's a silver lining in all that rehab too, which is that instead of a year in competition, with all the nagging bumps, scrapes, tweaks and wear & tear on a skier's body, Osborne-Paradis has actually had twelve long months of rest and recovery. Athletes hate to admit it, but there's nothing quite like rest on the road to hitting new performance highs.
In the great Canadian conversation about sports and culture, hockey always elbows its way to the microphone. But if we want fresh insights about how this nation is wired…Player's Own Voice podcast thinks that the CFL has lots to teach us about ourselves.
No better time to think about it than around Grey Cup week.
And no one better to help us mull it over than one of the greatest players in the history of professional ball, Damon Allen. The American born prodigy left San Diego of all comfy home towns, for Edmonton…in March 1985 no less, and stayed with the CFL for 23 record shattering years.
Host Anastasia Bucsis and the legendary quarterback kick around some ideas: Canada has cooked up a beautiful game with its CFL rules. Canadian football has deep history, hometown teams and athletes who locals can actually get to know and care about. Heck, if you are willing to pay the person who comes along to make sure you don't damage the thing, you can bring the actual Grey Cup to your next house party. But our game has long suffered in financial and media comparison to the NFL. Why should a Toronto football fan look to Buffalo?
There's a million ways to try to understand the Canadian-American mindset. Or you could just settle in for one smart CFL – NFL conversation with the remarkable Mr. Allen.
Reigning Olympic Ski Cross Champion and multiple X-game and world cup medallist, Brady Leman is not one to cut corners in the gym. The man is a conditioned brick of muscle. But for such a physical specimen - Leman is a surprisingly devoted student of the mental game.
Against the mayhem and injury of competition, Leman works at mindfulness, visualization, and meditation, and he is more convinced all the time that psychological training is what's driving his world-beating results. The literal calm amid the storm is what it's all about.
Host Anastasia Bucsis gives Leman the conversational room to expand on his thinking about best mental practises for competitors. After that, she reminisces with her fellow Calgarian, about all the ways their home city supported developing winter athletes.
When she was fifteen years old, Keely Shaw had it all figured out.
Hockey would be the through line on a life plan consisting of high performance competition, scouting, scholarships, Olympics…sky's the limit.
So when the grade nine girl was thrown from her beloved horse while she was out on the prairies, sustaining brain injuries and partial paralysis, Shaw's first reaction was furious resentment at the sport that was suddenly denied to her.
It took a few years, a tonne of discipline, and working through significant psychological setbacks, but Shaw has found high performance sport again.
Shaw is a world class road and track paralympian cyclist now. And when she isn't pounding the pedals, she's also chasing her Ph.D. Believe it or not, Shaw is studying the performance benefits of dark chocolate at high altitude!
The plan always was to be competing at Tokyo 2020, but Shaw just never imagined this particular path would be the one to take her there.
Host Anastasia Bucsis meets the Canadian paralympian as she sets her sights on the next world championship races in Milton, Ont.
Pierce LePage does not waste a lot of time second-guessing himself. Fresh off a strong debut at the IAAF World Championships in Decathlon in Doha, the young track and field star figures his fifth finish is a pretty good place to be at this stage in a career and Olympic cycle. The way he sees it, with some work on his throwing, he's got a path to a podium in Tokyo 2020.
It's not the ambition that surprises with this phenomenal athlete. It's the chill attitude. So when LePage says his javelin and shotput are sub par, he says it with a chuckle, and he figures that with his height and wingspan…he's got the levers to be a throwing great eventually. It'll come when it comes. In the meantime, he's laying down 10.3 second 100 m dashes. At 6'7" that blazing speed looks surprisingly unhurried. Unhurried and unworried isn't such a bad way to go through a career, and with a long season of competition drawing to a close, LePage tells host Ansastasia Bucsis that it's time to take on a serious challenge anyway: The decathlete is a former pro video gamer... and he's fixing to spend the off season thumbs deep in League of Legends.
The 2019 Skate Canada grand prix underscores the new normal on the national figure skating scene. Today's skaters are younger, and to the casual fan, less familiar than the stars of recent vintage.
With one exception: Kirsten Moore-Towers. The reigning Canadian Pairs champion is keenly aware that she alone has yet to retire from her star-studded generation. Does that make her wistful? Not at all. For 'KMT', it's all about being grateful to still be at the apex of her sport, still loving competition.
She joins host Anastasia Bucsis to talk about the maturing athlete's changing relationships with coaches and partners. Kirsten is a fierce competitor on the ice, and a constantly thinking athlete the rest of the time. She has a growing desire to help shape the sometimes unhealthy body image (and eating disorder-prone) culture of her sport. Moore believes we can avoid the messaging that all too often accompanies rewarding female figure skaters for being lithe and lean and preformative in skimpy outfits.
At the ripe old age of 27, the veteran has a plan to leave her sport better than when she found it.
Dylan Moscovitch enjoyed a long and storied career as a pairs figure skater, but he's in his early thirties now, and even though he's still a young man, he knew two years ago that he was done with competition.
So Dylan did some reflecting: he had spent half a lifetime learning how to be an elite athlete. What could he do with those hard-won skills in act two of his life? Physical performance? Check. Ability to memorize, rehearse and sell gestures and moods? Check. He was comfortable in front of audiences and clusters of judges. He figured it out pretty quickly- he had nailed most of the core skills for professional acting.
But as he says to host Anastasia Bucsis, there was an unexpected wrinkle. Athletes are trained to perform with confidence, while actors need to perform with vulnerability. How do you learn that?
Reinventing yourself is what it's all about on this week's podcast.
It is hard to think of a more famous 9.84 seconds in Canadian sports. It took a lifetime of confident concentration to bring sprinter Donovan Bailey to the line for the race that made him king of the world.
This week, host Anastasia Bucsis explores self-assurance with Bailey. Without that confidence, track history could very well have been different.
Bucsis and Bailey zero in on one race to talk it through, because the thing we may forget, looking back at his triumphant 100 metres in the 1996 Olympics, was just how agonising the race was for competitors. It took an eternity to get underway. False start followed false start. The disqualified Linford Christie even refused to clear the blocks for a while. But through it all, Bailey kept his composure and his certainty of victory.
He gives full credit for that confidence to his parents. Which is not to say they were stroking his ego. On the contrary, when Bailey was breaking world records, his folks often didn't even choose to attend, and both loving parents maintained a cool attitude about their son's growing fame and accomplishments.
No Canadian has seen greater Olympic glory than Marnie McBean. But the rowing legend says one of her most memorable moments came at the Sydney games, where she was injured out of competition. The support she got from her fellow athletes and from Team Canada, changed her outlook dramatically, and made the Olympic movement the enduring focus of Marnie McBean's life.
Canada's Chef du Mission for the Tokyo Olympics comes into studio to share her understanding of Olympic sport culture with host Anastasia Bucsis. Beyond the individual insights she has picked up from years of mentoring, McBean has invested serious thought in the areas where the Olympics struggle. How do host cities justify the cost of building so much infrastructure? What is the work that still needs to be done to keep athletes safely away from steroid use? Are we any nearer clarity in the shifting sands of gender and competition?
The chat raises more questions than answers, but the questions matter if sustainable Olympic games are the goal.
Rosie Maclennan is the only person to have won back to back Olympic gold medals in Trampoline. The way she sees it, that's history. You can't change history, can't take it away, no matter what you do in the future. So when it comes to Maclennan's approach to Tokyo 2020, call it a threepeat if you want, but that won't change her plan of attack: to be the best she has ever been on trampoline.
Which is not to say that Rosie makes light of her legacy. Maclennan is proud of the fact that a whole generation of young athletes joined the sport because of the example she set. She tells host Anastasia Bucsis about her work with Right to Play, The Gist, and other female sport initiatives. The involvement goes well beyond lending her name to good causes. Maclennan recently earned a masters degree, focusing on Athlete's rights and responsibilities, and she ploughs into the work with serious purpose.
Maclennan is also extremely persuasive on the matter of physical literacy in Canada's schools. She's at the peak of her game, in every sense… The concussion-like injury of several years ago is no longer a problem and a recent foot fracture is healing nicely.
Rosie has written about her recovery from injury for CBC Sports' Player's Own Voice essay series.
When Battle of the Blades contestants throw it down on the rink, they are not chasing personal riches. They are in it for their favourite charitable cause, which sounds like a perfect summary of Sheldon Kennedy's life work.
The former NHL player, who is strapping on toe picks for the first time for BOTB, is quick to say his life and career was permanently scarred by the sexual abuse he suffered as a youth. Before Sheldon, nobody talked about coaches as predators. And, in fact, the silence surrounding the issue nearly killed him.
But Sheldon Kennedy has changed the world, and his own life story, by advocating for victims and training more than one and a half million sport volunteers and workers to end the abuse.
How's he doing now? Well, he's a new farmer and a new father and he's having fun on the new skates. Host Anastasia Bucsis checks in with that rare hockey legend whose greatest work is happening off the ice.
Keegan Messing is serious about having fun.
His goal is Olympic gold in figure skating, but that doesn't stop him from dreaming up a new Olympic contest. His idea is three kinds of skaters — speed, hockey, and figures — all duking it out in tests of overall skating supremacy. Unlikely, but fun idea, right?
He is no stranger to unlikely plans. Born in rural Alaska, in a home with no running water, a young Keegan watched a DVD of Canadian figure skating great Elvis Stojko and knew that a men's singles Olympic gold medal was exactly what he wanted. He quickly figured out that Team Canada was going to be his best way to get there and having a Canadian mother opened the eligibility door.
Like many Alaskans, the 27-year-old is at home in the outdoors. He can fix his own cars and dirt bikes with the best of them. His career makes him a jet-setter, but his heart sings when he's way off the grid. What sets Messing apart is the power he brings to performance on the ice. Coming up in the Patrick Chan years, Keegan's intense strength and jumping ability almost feels like a throwback to a previous era.
He is in the driver's seat now as Canada's top male skater. Working hard and having fun every step of the way.
There are contradictions in most athlete's careers, but Canadian professional bike racer Michael Woods embodies a doozy. In the last year, he has posted career highlight results in the world's biggest races, even as he was battling injury and personal tragedy at home. Grand Tour racing is famously a sport whose athletes embrace suffering, but even so, Woods has found a way to harness setbacks and managed to train and race even harder through them.
He gained the respect of thousands of racing fans, along with a lot of sympathetic winces with his performance at this year's Tour de France.
He tells host, Anastasia Bucsis, that he picked up some of his mental techniques from Wayne Gretzky. He describes literal out of body experiences that he has had while winning some of the most gruelling mountain races in the world. Certainly a lot of years of punishing practice in the saddle and on the running track went into the mix as well.
Those early years as a super elite track runner set Woods apart in other ways. For most of the peloton- winning a Tour de France is the dream …but as an early career runner- it's Olympic glory that fuels the fire for Michael Woods. Barring disaster- he has already marked a big X on his calendar for Tokyo in 2020. Oh- and about that nice smelling Peloton? Cologne. Plenty of it splashed around, especially on the Giro D'Italia. Who knew?
Four time Olympian Sam Edney is Canada's best-ever male luger. He recently peeled off his speed suit for the last time, and is about to begin a new sporting career, as high performance manager for the national team.
This week, even before doping concerns swirled around Canada's canoeing hopes, host Anastasia Bucsis and Sam Edney sat down to talk about how Russian doping had such a dismaying effect on Edney's peak competing years.
His doping rollercoaster began with a disappointing fourth place team finish in Sochi. Three years later, temporary redemption came with the announcement that due to positive results on the Russian team, Canada would become bronze winners after all.
The sucker punch was delivered mere days before the Pyeongchang winter Olympics, when that decision was reversed. The Canadian luge team strongly felt that they had been cheated of the same medal twice!
But whatever else the eve-of-competition setback did to the team mindset, Edney and his teammates regrouped and raced to a Silver medal at the 2018 Olympics.
Now, the new High Performance manager can look ahead. His focus is on development, of the new luge track in Calgary, and the new crop of Canadian hopefuls.
Rebecca Johnston is eyeing a fourth trip to the Olympics. She has already helped deliver two golds and a silver medal. She has lived the experience from within as the pro game patiently built over the last ten years — but she has never seen a setback quite like the collapse of the CWHL. Host Anastasia Bucsis takes time with the all-star forward to talk about establishing one permanent, professional, equitable league. Having high quality refs, skate sharpeners on site, and some kind of broadcast schedule would be a nice bonus.
As one of the premier players in hockey, Sudbury's Johnston has no shortage of ideas about the game's needs. As she sees it, away from the Olympics, and the Clarkson Cup, the women's game is played out in media silence. It is too easy to ignore what we cannot see or hear.
Erica Wiebe, Canadian Olympic wrestling champion, discusses the oddly isolating experience of stepping atop the podium, her newfound role as mentor to a generation of young women in the world's oldest sport, and her surprising reasons for avoiding a WWE career, despite the paycheque, her obvious fitness for the work, and an outsized personality that would seem to be tailor made for the theatrical ring.
Cassie Campbell-Pascall has earned many milestones in Canadian sport. As Captain of Team Canada, she helped deliver some of the sweetest wins in national hockey history. She went on to make broadcast history as the first woman to do colour commentary for Hockey Night in Canada. Her career in the broadcast booth, like her time on the ice, is a story of big wins earned through hard work- and the occasional flash of lumber in the corners as required.
Cassie sits down with host Anastasia Bucsis for a sweeping talk about the good ole hockey game, of course, but also about the challenges all women’s team sports face today.
In Hockey, as in Soccer and Rugby, Canadian women are competing at the highest levels in the world- and so what are the steps that need to be taken to get their fan base, their money, their infrastructure, their leagues, fully on par with the men?
The conversation goes deep into the one topic that is seemingly unavoidable in women’s team sports- which is that legendary, ornery, take-no-prisoners rivalry that fuels Canadian-American tilts. Campbell has a deeply funny but nuanced take on the grudge. It defined her time in the sport, and she admits it still bugs her badly when Americans win, but 13 years out of the game, she can socialise with her former foes now, but still.
Ultimately, in a conversation that all athletes can relate to, Campbell-Pascall shares insights about the delicate business of retiring from sport and finding your way in the long second act of working life.
When he started playing wheelchair basketball, they called Patrick Anderson the Michael Jordan of his game. Mid career, that label changed to the Lebron of the wheelchair sport. He's back with the team at the Pan Am games, trying to qualify for the Tokyo Paralympics this July… so do we call him the Kawhi Leonard of his sport now?
Host Anastasia Bucsis asks Anderson about the burden of being an inspiration. How to respond to being recognized as the greatest of all time in his sport? As you might expect from a true champion- he deflects that with a great deal of finesse. For one thing- Anderson is not convinced that inspiration isn't a dirty word. With the injuries some paralympians have overcome- he is acutely aware that he risks being applauded just for getting out of bed.
The trick for Patrick Anderson is in trying to play the sport like it's an art form. Devising and demonstrating a perfect play, competing at the highest possible level…that's where the athletic and the aesthetic can meet. Getting there is still what keeps Anderson motivated, gold medal after gold medal later.
All paralympians have interesting back stories. Patrick Anderson fascinates for a dozen reasons. He's 39 now, playing for the record books again after five years away. His thoughts on returning to the game at its highest level? The challenge is not that he's getting older, it's that the entire sport has become much more competitive, harder, stronger and faster than it was even five years ago. As Anderson sees it, that is an excellent problem to have.
Brooke Henderson is the most successful golfer in Canadian history. She's just 21 years old, but she has already won more majors than any other Canadian- an incredible nine tour victories to her credit since 2016. And despite the overwhelming attention that is always showered on star athletes, she is a remarkably poised and level-headed young woman. Anastasia Bucsis' guest on Player's Own Voice podcast this week attributes her composure to being surrounded by family to an unusual degree. Her dad is her coach, and her sister Brittany (a pro golfer in her own right) has been alongside her as caddy for all her biggest wins.
It's probably not an exaggeration to say that Canada has never had another athlete like Kaillie Humphries. The three time Olympian Bobsledder isn’t just a game-changing competitor, and ground breaking female pilot, she’s also a magnetic presence for fan fascination. Almost every aspect of her career and personal life attracts notice. Kaillie joins Host Anastasia Bucsis to talk about all the things that keep her at the top of sliding sports fans attention.
First of all, there’s her relationship with brakeman Heather Moyse. They were not racing together at Pyeong Chang in 2018, but the partnership obviously still occupies a great deal of her introspection time. Kaillie calls brakeman-pilot relations ‘arranged marriages’ a description which works on many levels. Sled mates may be very different types, and love is not essential, but they are yoked together, and bonded in a common purpose.
All has not been cool runnings for Humphries post 2018 Olympics, either. She slipped into a significant depression during the off season, which she is really only recently clawing her way out of. Humphries links the down turn to a harassment claim that she has launched against her sport federation.
Humphries is always thoughtful about the matter of representation — as a fierce female in a traditionally all masculine sport. Sometimes she lets her tats do the talking, and when all else fails, there’s always, as she says, good old kicking ass and taking numbers on the track.
Some early adversity is clearly a good thing, at least when it comes to Rugby. Ghislaine Landry, who is now the leading point scorer in world series history, was told time and again that she would never play international rugby. 'Too small', the experts told her. So much for the experts. Union and Sevens, Landry is one of the world's most dominant forces on the rugby pitch, compact stature and all.
In this week's episode, Ghislaine joins host Anastasia Bucsis to celebrate the rugby player's victories and explores the idea that in sport, nothing comes for free. Beyond the constant demands of training and practise and international competition, how is a member of a centralised team even supposed to see family, let along achieve that mythical life balance? For Landry, it's about finding room for two loves: love of sport and love of family. And the silver lining? Time off is that much sweeter when there is so little of it in a regular season.
A history-creating guest. Midfielder Diana Matheson's stoppage time goal against France at the London Olympics in 2012 gave Canada a bronze medal. She backed that up with a second Olympic bronze at Rio. Matheson has more than 200 Caps with the Canadian National team. Four World Cups. Three Olympics. Team Canada since 2003. She plays professionally for the Utah Royals...and along the way she also picked up an economics degree from Princeton.
There's a good news - bad news story in Diana Matheson's 2019 FIFA campaign. The bad news is, a foot injury has sidelined her for the duration of the tournament. The positive spin on that is she's freed up to provide expert colour commentary on the tournament, and help give viewers insights on Team Canada's mindset, throughout the World Cup.
Very few people can touch Brian Burke’s resume. The Hockey Night analyst was president of Hockey for the Calgary Flames, ran the Leafs, was GM for the Ducks, the Canucks, and Hartford Whalers. He led the U-S men’s team that took home a silver medal from the 2010 Olympics. Brian Burke is also a kind and charitable man with a hellacious temper. On this week’s POV podcast, Brian joins host Anastasia Bucsis to talk about the highs and lows of his career, the importance of advocacy, and his unwavering perseverance.
She’s half of Canada’s greatest Ice Dancing duo — the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history — but just because Tessa Virtue is gliding into a dazzling professional career, doesn't mean she has forgotten the highs and lows of Olympic competition. Nowadays, when she and skating partner Scott Moir and the cream of figure skating aren’t performing to packed houses, Tessa has advocacy work and endorsements and campaign partnerships; almost too many to name. Listen as Tessa and host Anastasia Bucsis discuss her greatest Olympic memories, her relationship with Moir, and the future of her ever-changing career.
Figure skating can open a lot of career doors - but becoming a doctor? Olympic figure skater, Joannie Rochette, soon to be Doctor Rochette, says it's an easy fit. All those long, lonely hours of focus and practise set her up perfectly for the long lonely hours of studying in med school. On this week's POV, host Anastasia Bucsis and Joannie look back on the skater's glorious career - 2010 Olympic bronze, World silver medalist, Four Continents silver, Grand Prix Final bronze, six-time Canadian champion, and the moment that had Canadians holding their breath - when Joannie skated in Vancouver 2010, only a couple of days after her mother's fatal heart attack.
At only 15 years old, Alexandre Despatie took his first Olympic dive at the 2000 Games in Sydney. He placed fourth against some of the world's best, but when his excitement was met with media disappointment over a 'missed podium', Alexandre discovered that measuring up to his own standards was the most important thing. The lesson stuck with Alexandre as he went on to win two Olympic silver medals, become a nine time Commonwealth Game champion, and a 37 time Canadian National champion. Listen as he and POV host Anastasia Bucsis discuss avoiding the pitfalls of early success, overcoming disappointment, and knowing when to hang up the towel.
John Fennell has made some tough choices during his career. The Luge athlete is a citizen of both Canada and the United States, and he has competed and trained for both nations. John has unique perspective on the differences between Canadian and American sport culture. He opens up to POV host Anastasia Bucsis about owning his life decisions, and the importance of not letting singular moments of success or failure define a career.
For some athletes, the decision to retire comes fairly quickly - but this was not the case for Benoit Huot. In fact, the famed Paralympic swimmer has been thinking about hanging up his towel for ten years. On this week's Player's Own Voice, Benoit opens up about his long and decorated career in which he won 20 Paralympic medals, was named a Member of the Order of Canada, as well as made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. Listen as he and POV host, Anastasia Bucsis discuss retirement, how Benoit stayed motivated throughout his storied career, and the continuing growth of the Paralympic movement.
It's been 25 years since Mark Tewksbury won gold at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, but the Calgary born swimmer remains at the heart of the Canadian Olympic movement today. His work as a public speaker and writer have inspired countless athletes, and Mark's voice has been a powerful addition to several athletes' causes, including Olympic reform and advocating for the rights of LGBTQ athletes. Listen as he and POV host Anastasia Bucsis discuss advocacy, LGBTQ visibility in sport, and the future of the Olympic movement.
Caroline Ouellette's hockey career is beyond impressive. The Montreal athlete is one of the very few in history to bring home gold medals from four consecutive Olympic games. Caroline's love of the sport extends far beyond her playing years - she coaches and mentors, and runs a network of hockey camps with fellow player Marie-Philip Poulin. Caroline shares her vision for the future of women's hockey with POV host Anastasia Bucsis, and she also describes how it felt to watch her teammates face off against the USA in Pyeong Chang, while sharing a couch with her partner - former team USA player, Julie Chu.
Even though figure skater Paige Lawrence competed at the Olympic level, she has never forgotten the lessons she learned growing up in a rodeo family in rural Saskatchewan. Among these lessons are her formidable work ethic, her resourcefulness, and her motto- 'safety third'. Listen as she joins host Anastasia Bucsis to discuss her difficult decision to retire, the importance of giving back to her small town community, and the artistry of figure skating.
She is undoubtedly one of the greatest athletes to come out of Canada. She's also notoriously shy around the media. Join Players Own Voice host, Anastasia Bucsis, and the Queen of Speed, Cindy Klassen, as they candidly hash-out an extraordinary career, through giggles, and an intimacy that is only found when old teammates reunite... over a piece of chocolate cake.
Player's Own Voice began with a simple goal- to interview world class athletes as human first, and athlete second. With the help of our growing base of listeners, this goal has been a resounding success. And as a thank you, we've compiled some of our favourite moments from the show so far, and included a few clips of what's to come in 2019!
Desiree Scott is a two time Olympic bronze medalist, Zumba instructor, self-proclaimed "hopeless romantic", and yet, her nickname is "the destroyer". Desiree is undeniably one of the most physical players in the world of soccer, which helped her bring two Olympic bronze medals back to her hometown of Winnipeg. Although Desiree is fierce, she swears she leaves it on the field, and has a laugh when discussing her contrasting dispositions. There are layers to this Canadian midfielder, and Player's Own Voice host, Anastasia Bucsis, peels them back in this light and refreshing conversation.
Kaitlyn Lawes - Canada's first ever back to back Olympic curling champion - has become a world leading athlete in the sport. The two-time Olympic gold medallist won in Sochi 2014 with teammate Jennifer Jones, and won again in the sport's Mixed-Doubles debut in PyeongChang 2018 alongside John Morris. Listen as Kaitlyn and POV host, Anastasia Bucsis chat about The Olympics, their shared love of the ice, and some of the best players in the sport of curling.
Jesse Lumsden's career has spanned the NFL, CFL, and three Olympic Bobsled campaigns. When people talk about being a pure athlete - he's what they mean. So it is kind of amazing to learn that one of Canada's most respected sportsmen, has been denied Super bowls, Grey cups, Vanier cups, and Olympic hardware. Does missing those big ticket team wins haunt him? Absolutely. But Lumsden points out - the absence of a victory does not mean the presence of a failure. As an athlete, his conscience is clean as can be. He has given himself every possible preparation and opportunity to succeed. If that sounds like he's saying the medals are not as important as the process of getting there... well, he probably is.
Despite having retired from competition over 20 years ago, Olympic rower Silken Laumann remains a major voice in the world of sport. Since retiring, Silken has advocated for a greater focus on mental health amongst athletes. Listen as Silken and POV host Anastasia Bucsis have a frank and honest conversation about their own struggles, and discuss why it's so hard for athletes to talk about mental health.
Kaitlyn Weaver is one of Canada's most celebrated figure skaters.
But the three time world champion, two time Canadian champion, and two time Olympian's road to success hasn't always been a smooth ride. Kaitlyn and her partner, Andrew Poje, missed being on the Canadian Figure Skating Team Event that won gold at PyeongChang - but turned the disappointment around almost immediately with killer performances at the worlds.
Listen as Kaitlyn opens up about the highs and lows of her career, how she finds motivation in the setbacks, and what Canada has come to mean for the American born skater.
Jillian Saulnier - alongside her teammate Blayre Turnbull - became the first two women from Nova Scotia to play Olympic hockey, bringing home a silver medal at the 2018 winter games in PyeongChang. In this week's episode of POV, Jillian opens up about the humbling nature of her Olympic journey, what her medal means to her, and how a mix of "adrenaline and tape" allowed her to remain on the ice despite a torn MCL.
Alpine skiing, skicross, and track cycling - Vancouver's own Georgia Simmerling has mastered them all. She is the first Canadian to compete in three different Olympic sports at three separate Olympic Games. But Georgia's story goes deeper than just being a multi-sport talent. She has bounced back from medieval injuries, including broken legs, a broken back, and a bit-off tongue! Listen as Georgia opens up about her seemingly never ending recovery, and what keeps her returning to sport and competition.
Patrick Chan- the figure skater whose athleticism and artistry defined a generation, talks about how his mindset made all the difference in his performances. 'Sports makes you live in the moment' is just one of the lessons Patrick says that his career has drummed into him. Bonus content: He and Anastasia also share a laugh about the time he did an axel wearing Anastasia's mum's dull old hockey skates.
Dr Randy Gregg, Captain of Hockey's Team Canada, met olympian speed skater Kathy Vogt at the Lake Placid games. Together they have raised three more incredible athletes, and coached countless others to Olympian heights. So what are the secrets to nurturing a genetic gift...and raising kids to be the best- and best adjusted- athletes they can be? This family has done everything right. Nobody's preaching here, but there's wisdom that any parent could use.
The former captain of Team USA, Julie Chu has an unbelievable four olympic campaigns under her belt. Despite the ferocious rivalry between Canada and USA - Chu and Montreal's Caroline Oullette have a daughter together, and an agreement to compartmentalize that one international grudge. Chu shares wise perspective on the women's game, and its winning fight for fair treatment and compensation.
One of Canada's greatest net keepers won't let penalties or politics pass her without a fight. Labbe had the chops for the premiere development league but got barred by a men-only ruling. So the Canadian national player moved to the top Swedish pro league, where she's thriving, thanks. Want to know her secret strategy for world cup 2019 and the Tokyo Olympics? It's right her.
In a sport where money is literally the measure of success, this rodeo star's life changed the instant he won a cool million bucks in a single day's competition. The young bareback rider suddenly had to cope with expectations and pressures to perform like never before. Meantime- Rodeo itself is in transition. Sorta like golf, it has suddenly become the arena of very fit athletes, and more and more sponsor dollars are sloshing around. But if wild horses can't throw Richmond off...neither should physical trainers and accountants. He and Anastasia talk about the rodeo life, career cowboys and the slippery allure of a Texas accent.
His speed on the Oval ought to be enough for everyone, but Gilmore Junio's big choices are what sets him apart for Canadian fans. He seemed to embody everything good about the Olympian ideal in 2014, when Junio elected to give up his own qualifying spot to teammate Denny Morrison, in order that his friend could race for a medal. More recently, Junio's decision to take his training to Norway after years of working in the Canadian system raised eyebrows too. Gil's fine with that. The question now is what bold choices does the future hold?
The Gold medal winner had no idea he was the first openly gay man to take top honours at a Winter Olympics. Eric takes Anastasia back to his early teen years in Northern Ontario, and his puzzlement: why was he being bullied at the rink? He just wanted to excel at his sport! Quiet determination was his method then, and it still serves him well today.
Tessa Bonhomme has killed at every sport she ever played, but hockey is where she shone brightest. A pro in the CWHL and a national team defense player, Bonhomme helped Canada win Gold over the USA. Her on-ice arsenal includes a knack for chirping, and that wit serves her well talking and reporting hockey at TSN. Tessa and Anastasia huddle to talk about life inside the crazy intense competition of Canada-USA women's hockey. There are layers within layers of rivalry between those two teams, and we peel back a few of them today.
The first openly Transgender athlete on a U.S. national team- Chris Mosier is a duathlete, triathlete and role model for a generation of LGBTQ2S competitors. He and Anastasia explore questions of gender equality, and steroid use- issues that are testing sport governing bodies come to the fore in Chris' career. And his perspective on male privelege should give everyone pause for thought.
Olympian lead curler Ben Hebert takes a back seat to none when it comes to speaking his mind. Sure, that chirpy tendency will get him kicked out of beer league hockey games, but it also makes him a hilariously honest friend. Ben and Anastasia have a meeting of the minds on the subject of competing at the highest level, and being driven athletes who also need to find a place off the ice in regular society.
As Scott puts it, being in a relationship with an Olympian is not so peachy. The winningest figure skater in Canadian History manages yet another delicate dance in this conversation... Scott recounts, among other things, how he negotiated relationships in his personal life at the same time that he was being judged for the performance of a relationship on the ice with Tessa Virtue. He's genuinely funny in the way he describes things, but Scott's situation makes you think.
Anastasia Bucsis, host of Player's Own Voice podcast, tees up a quick selection of excerpts from her chats with figure skater Scott Moir, Hockey player and broadcaster Tessa Bonhomme, and curling lead Ben Hebert.