‘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-rangin...
Apr 26, 2022•38 min•Season 4Ep. 48
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...
Apr 19, 2022•26 min•Season 4Ep. 47
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 p...
Mar 24, 2022•27 min•Season 4Ep. 46
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...
Mar 17, 2022•36 min•Season 4Ep. 45
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 abo...
Mar 07, 2022•27 min•Season 4Ep. 44
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 Ch...
Feb 20, 2022•11 min•Season 4Ep. 43
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 ...
Feb 17, 2022•11 min•Season 4Ep. 42
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 experie...
Feb 16, 2022•31 min•Season 4Ep. 41
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 clas...
Feb 13, 2022•26 min•Season 4Ep. 40
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 th...
Feb 12, 2022•14 min•Season 4Ep. 39
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 c...
Feb 10, 2022•21 min•Season 4Ep. 38
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 clarif...
Feb 08, 2022•12 min•Season 4Ep. 37
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 th...
Feb 07, 2022•14 min•Season 4Ep. 36
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...
Feb 06, 2022•25 min•Season 4Ep. 35
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 eq...
Feb 01, 2022•33 min•Season 4Ep. 34
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 ...
Jan 25, 2022•28 min•Season 4Ep. 33
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 ...
Jan 18, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 32
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,...
Jan 11, 2022•26 min•Season 4Ep. 31
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...
Dec 21, 2021•28 min•Season 4Ep. 30
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 any...
Dec 14, 2021•34 min•Season 4Ep. 30
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...
Nov 30, 2021•25 min•Season 4Ep. 28
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...
Nov 23, 2021•28 min•Season 4Ep. 27
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 champio...
Nov 16, 2021•32 min•Season 4Ep. 26
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 ...
Nov 09, 2021•29 min•Season 4Ep. 25
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. ...
Nov 02, 2021•30 min•Season 4Ep. 24
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 hone...
Oct 19, 2021•38 min•Season 4Ep. 23
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 w...
Oct 12, 2021•31 min•Season 4Ep. 21
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 thous...
Oct 05, 2021•29 min•Season 4Ep. 20
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 memori...
Sep 28, 2021•28 min•Season 4Ep. 19
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 wint...
Aug 08, 2021•29 min•Season 4Ep. 18
