Player's Own Voice

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.