Player's Own Voice

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.

David Giddens 09:40 (1 hour ago) to me 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.