Player's Own Voice

French Figure Skater Surya Bonaly's career truly is the stuff of legend. She is the first female skater ever to perform back flips in competition- the jump remains illegal to this day. Her gymnastic virtuosity set her apart from her contemporaries, and so did her principled defiance at unfair judging. When she handed back her silver medal at the 1994 world championships, the gesture was compared to the raised fists in Mexico City, 1968. Bonaly revolutionized her sport, and yet never considered herself to be a rebel. She quietly did what she thought was right, and let the figure skating world create its own uproar in reaction. A classic Surya Bonaly skate performance delighted fans, brought entire arenas to their feet, and left judges freaked out, bound by the rules to award her low-seeming scores.

Georges Laraque is probably the nicest guy ever to make a living terrorizing opponents on the ice. He combined heavy fists with a light touch around the net for 14 years in the NHL. He is an inspirational figure in the effort to rid hockey of racism, a faithful ally of LGBTQ communities, Vegan. a former deputy leader of the federal Green party. His autobiography was a bestseller in both official languages. And- he caught COVID-19 while he volunteering with seniors in Montreal, doing what he personally could to protect them from the virus. Anastasia Bucsis, host of Player’s own Voice podcast, has her own not-so- secret reasons to admire The Rock: he came to hockey by way of speedskating. In fact, this is the first cbc sports podcast to conclude with a challenge: a head to head speedskate racet for charity.

For Arianne Jones, Canadian Olympian Luge athlete, body size and function played an outsized role in an always surprising career. Naysaying experts drove Jones to compensate for her small mass by working obsessively on every possible technique of the sport. Overtraining led to a broken back in 2015. She rehabbed and went on to World Cup gold barely eight months later... and THEN she contracted Lyme Disease. Still fighting her way back to fitness, four years later, Jones tells Player's Own Voice podcast host Anastasia Bucsis about how her intense focus on nutrition has given her cause for optimism.

At barely 5'10" Michael Linklater did not have an obvious path to basketball stardom. The constant grind of racism did not help the Saskatoon, Thunderbay, and Thunderchild First Nation phenom either. But he turned every slur and slight into fuel for his personal fire of ambition. Linklater played on the Canadian national team, was ranked among the very top tier of 3x3 players worldwide, and retired with the 2019 CEBL championship to his credit. (Go Saskatchewan Rattlers!) Now he's pouring his energy back into helping indigenous youth. He’s the founder of ‘Boys with Braids’, a senior coach for NAIG, and the director of Prime Basketball Development, which gives first nations kids everywhere the coaching and mentorship that can make all the difference

Here's the goal: a professional soccer league for Canadian women. We love watching FIFA and Olympic play. We’ve already got stars. It’s the world’s game, and Canada embraces immigration. Should be an open net, right? Carmelina Moscato is working on it, starting with League One in Ontario. The former National Team star, and internationally accredited coach is a first-principles kind of thinker. You want success in ten years? You need to start now with keeping young girls in the game. While you’re at it- you better give high performing young players careers to shoot for if they are going to practise and commit. And why should our budding stars always have to head to the USA for scholarships? And what about a tier of women’s soccer leagues for lifetime participation and general health? And then there’s the jobs a soccer nation needs. Coaching, managing, training, physio... Oh. and you also have to rework the mindset that Mens’ professional sports are an investment, while Women’s pro sports are a tax write off...Lots of moving parts, bur Moscato is on the case. Stay tuned!

When Canada’s most decorated female skater, Kaetlyn Osmond, retired at the ripe old age of 23, she was startled to learn that stepping away from the on-ice judges, did nothing to alleviate the sense of being judged. Body Image issues- which had stayed somewhat in check during the years of intense training and competition- flared in her new ‘more relaxed’ schedule. And a lifetime of bouncing between the extremes of perfomance, crowd adulation, and a natural tendency toward introversion left her emotionally knotted. But Osmond has not lost the athlete’s discipline, and she’s turned it to work on her emotional and psychological discomfort with determination. She says she lost her identity altogether when she stepped off the ice for the last time, but she has been methodically building it back up ever since.

John Smythe, Canadian National field hockey player, was developing as a young contender when he was hit with a series of mysterious and painful symptoms - as he says- from gums to bum. Crohn’s disease is not a straightforward diagnosis to make and it is not an easy disease to live with. For a high performance athlete, it’s even more of a challenge. The physical stress of an intense workout all by itself can be enough to trigger flare-ups. But after multiple surgeries and ultimately four years away from the sport, his recuperation is lasting, and so is his ability to quickly recognize symptoms and triggers. Smythe shares the remarkable story of how he has learned to live with Crohn’s to the extent that he’s now full speed ahead for the Tokyo Olympics

Jayna Hefford is the rare athlete whose work post-competition threatens to overshadow a brilliant career. There’s a reason why the best player in the league wins the Jayna Hefford trophy each year. But Hefford’s work now goes to the core of almost every issue facing professional women in sport in Canada. As the head of the PHWPA, Hefford leads a group of the 200 best players in the game. They are demanding a living wage, decent support staff and facilities, more coverage and more attendance. Everybody has an opinion about what needs to happen to build a league that reflects the quality of the women's game. The hockey legend takes us through the latest in the struggle.

Jennifer Jones, The Manitoba Skip, was recently named the greatest female curler of all time.This year she negotiated the biggest trade in Curling, bringing Lisa Weagle onto team Jones as a Fifth. Fans of the sport will be quick to ask: How much fire power can a team possibly have if Lisa Weagle is fifth curler? J-Jones answers that neatly. The true value of the fifth is best revealed at the Olympics...so why wait til the last second to build the team that is going for gold on the biggest stage? Jones also addresses her famous intensity, and helps us understand how being competitive can be compartmentalized. She insists that her focus on winning melts away when she’s off the ice. Fierce and friendly seems like an oxymoron, but she’s living proof it can happen.

She is the all-time leading scorer in International Soccer. She is also a proudly private person. We learn some home truths about Christine Sinclair today. For one thing, shy does not mean unfriendly. Sinclair tells Anastasia Bucsis that she allows the public to glimpse 10% of her life. Sinclair reveals surprising backstories behind the unwanted fame that followed on her playing with a badly broken nose during World Cup 2011. And the reasons behind Janine Beckie taking that penalty shot vs Sweden in last year's world cup...and she goes deep on the relentless attention that came as she neared the goal scoring record. Did she celebrate that moment?...Umm. not really. She was busy. And exactly how does an introvert wear a C? With pride of course!

Player's Own Voice podcast records a carefully- distanced check in with Canadian soccer star Diana Matheson, who is thinking about the big picture role of sports during the COVID-19 upheaval.

When the COC came knocking- asking Anastasia Bucsis about running a live podcast for an audience of Canadian Olympians heading to Tokyo, the first question was: what is it we want to help athletes understand? The answer was 'Flow'. That quicksilver, dialed-in state where an athlete enters a focused zone of excellence. Flow is relaxed and alert, fast and unhurried. Steady amid the chaos. Very zen. For Anastasia, it was obvious who to call to work through the idea. Kristina Groves has four Olympic medals and a million world championship titles tucked somewhere under her spandex speed suits. She is one of the most consistent athletes Canada has even known. If anyone, by virtue of practice and habit, can summon that flow state of mind, Long Track Speed Skating phenom Kristina Groves' the one to do it. This edition of the Player's Own Voice podcast was a bit of an experiment. We liked the live feedback. We may try it again if we come across another captive audience. Meanwhile, we are still recharging the batteries and lining up our ducks for season three. We'll be back in full swing in a couple of months.

As the NHL undergoes the long process of helping coaches and players figure out how to communicate without intimidation or prejudice, the league could do a lot worse than to listen and learn from Canada's reigning world champion beach volleyball duo of Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes. The two-woman team and their coaches have managed to dominate the world's best in large part by working long and purposefully at learning how to respect one another, how to communicate properly in the heat of competition, how to allow junior voices to be heard without fear of senior reprisal, and most of all, how to generate a team environment in which the will to win eclipses the fear of making mistakes. The Canadians share the secrets of their quiet confidence with host Anastasia Bucsis, who concludes season two of the Podcast series with this story of a team which has every prospect and possibility of reaching the top of the podium in Tokyo.

Stu Grimson's new autobiography is aptly called The Grim Reaper, but the book's subtitle – The life and career of a reluctant warrior – rounds out the picture of the infamous NHL enforcer. Grimson was a serious handful, a heavyweight who knew exactly how to flatten a foe in as few punches as necessary. But he is conflicted about that role - and much more proud of his leadership in the locker room and on the bench. The fact that Grimson liked using his noggin more than his knuckles became obvious once he got his law degree and started negotiating in NHL labour disputes. Host Anastasia Bucsis gets the NHL veteran talking about the main preoccupations of a heavyweight during the height of the enforcer years.

Manny Osborne-Paradis has been a mainstay of Canada's Downhill and Super G teams since way back in 2005. For an Alpine skier, that's an eternity. So it's kind of amazing to see how hungry Manny still is, 14 years later. Having a no-compromise drive to win at 35 years old is even more rare when we also consider that Manny is also a full year into recovery from an injury that almost cost him his left leg. A blunt assessment would be: he's old and he's banged up. But you still won't find anyone betting against a podium for the irrepressible Osborne-Paradis on any given day. There's a silver lining in all that rehab too, which is that instead of a year in competition, with all the nagging bumps, scrapes, tweaks and wear & tear on a skier's body, Osborne-Paradis has actually had twelve long months of rest and recovery. Athletes hate to admit it, but there's nothing quite like rest on the road to hitting new performance highs.