Tough Break Losing Chairman of the Boards

Here's the thing about the Canadian men's ski team: They don't have a superstar right now on whom they can rely to be a surefire medal threat in every race.

They do it by committee.

That's why losing John Kucera to a broken left leg yesterday hurts the team so much. He may well have been the chairman of the boards for this group because of his even-keeled nature and steadfast determination.

Canada isn't so deep as an alpine nation that they can afford to lose someone of Kucera's ilk. This isn't Austria we're talking about or even the Swiss.

Canada needs all its best guys because you never know who's going to be holding the hot hand when the 2010 Winter Olympics opens in Whistler with the men's downhill.

At last year's world championships, Kucera was that guy. He didn't have a top-six finish in World Cup downhill all last season but when it mattered most he took advantage of difficult conditions to pull of a world championship win that eluded even the Crazy Canucks.

The one thing that mitigates Kucera's loss a little bit is that Robbie Dixon is emerging as a first seed skier this season. If he can maintain his strong start, then he could be a serious threat on his home hill. This cool customer has the right demeanour, too.

But there's a lot of downhill racing to come before then, a lot of it on very dangerous courses – this week in Beaver Creek, for starters, then Bormio and Kitzbuehel just to name a couple.

All of Kucera's teammates acknowledged that what happened to him was part of ski racing.

And they're right. That's probably the scariest part for a team thin in the ranks of Olympic podium potential.

Dutch Treat: You gotta love the Dutch. They know how to have a good time.

Dutch speed skater Erben Wennemars, in Calgary for this week's World Cup, decided to take in the Grey Cup game yesterday and got right into the spirit, buying himself a Roughriders' sweater and cheering on the Green and White. Here's a pic the former world sprint champion posted on Twitter.

Wennemars tweeted to his some 12,000 followers:

“I'm impressed with my rough rider shirt but my pink scarf attracts attention ..”

At least that was the Google translation.

Erik Guay Explains Downhill Skiing as Contact Sport

When Canadian downhill racer Erik Guay was in town recently with teammates John Kucera and Manuel Osborne-Paradis, I learned a little something that I wasn't aware of in 25-plus years of covering alpine skiing.

That it can sometimes be a contact sport.

The topic came up during one of those personality type Q & As when Guay was asked about his pet peeve.

“I hate it when people stand on the line in inspection,” said Guay.

Inspection comes before training runs or races when all the skiers are allowed on the course to examine it before they will be racing on it at full speed. They're looking for things that might have changed from the day before because of weather, they're looking at how the gates have been set by the course setter, but most of all they are looking for the fastest line down the course.

“You're supposed to go in and take a look at the line and then get off the line if you're coming down, especially if you're a coach,” said Guay. “And a lot of those other nations like Germany and Austria they send their coaches out there on purpose so it kind of messes up your view of the hill. So you've got to be a Canadian and go down there and make sure you check them hard.”

He means bodycheck them hard.

Do you do that? Guay was asked

“Oh yeah,” he said.

Throw a little of the body into him?

“Oh yeah.”

Guay continues.

“It's a little of a mind game during inspection there and they do it on purpose so you've just got to go down there and throw it around a little.”

Who knew? This might make Don Cherry a bigger alpine fan.

The men's speed races from Lake Louise and the women's giant slalom from Aspen will be carried on CBC This weekend.

Morison Ready to Roll: One young man to watch out for this season is snowboarder Matt Morison of Burketon, Ont., near Oshawa. He won a bronze medal in parallel giant slalom at the snowboard world championships. Sounds from this article on Durhamregion.com as if he's had the perfect summer of preparation.

Bulganada ... Cangaria ... Uniform Look Doesn't Quite Fit

Some of Canada's top cross country skiers are upset that the team uniform designed for them for this Olympic season by Finnish-based clothing company Halti looks very similar to those worn by Bulgaria.After all, in a year where you've got a home Olympics, it'd be nice to look a bit distinct.

“Wow, I feel like I am part of Bulgaria's ski team now. Same suit, same jacket, same parka. That's just great...” tweeted young Canadian star Alex Harvey.

 Added Canada's Devon Kershaw: “I skied towards a woman who I thought was Peri (teammate Perianne Jones) today to say "what up" - when she turned around it was a Bulgarian woman. Weirdness...”

Ivan Babikov, a native of Russia who became a Canadian citizen to compete under the Maple Leaf at the 2020 Games, didn't mince words, either: “Seriously, Bulgaria looks exactly like Canada now....this is sucks...”

Maybe it's all part of a nefarious plot by the nordic-mad Finns to destabilize the Canadian team.

Or maybe Stephen Colbert is behind it.

The Boss is an Assistant: Johann Olav Koss was known as “Koss the Boss” during his glory days for Norway as a triple Olympic gold medalist at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics.

The head of the Toronto-based humanitarian organization Right To Play has suddenly found himself back with his old team, though not as the boss. Koss was announced Wednesday as an assistant coach on a Norwegian national team in disarray after the firing of head coach Peter Mueller on Monday.

It was reported that Koss would be on leave from Right To Play, but that's not the case. He will still be in charge, but will be travelling even a bit more than his crazy schedule usually involves. It's clear he's doing it out of a sense of duty, but is also excited about the short-term position.

“I didn't have a choice,” said Koss in an interview from Oslo. “I was asked to help with the mental coaching.”

It should be a boon to the Norwegian team as Koss has tremendous leadership skills an aura about him in that country. But much more than that, he really understand the psychological part of the sport.

He did a lot of studying in that area en route to getting a medical degree and wrote a bestselling book in Norway on the topic called “Effect” with the two psychologists who helped him prepare for the '94 Olympics. They work with him to this day in building the teamwork at Right To Play.

Koss will wear the Right To Play symbol on his Norwegian team jacket as part of his deal, though it'll have to be removed for the Olympics as no logos are allowed on uniforms. Besides, the Vancouver Organizing Committee kicked Right To Play out of the athletes village because they had competing sponsors.

One for the Testers: The ruling to uphold the ban of German speed skating star Claudia Pechstein is being hailed as a victory for the drug testers because it was achieved without the presence of a positive drug test.

Pechstein, the most decorated Winter Olympic athlete in Germany history, was found to have blood doped based on tests taken around the time of last year's world all around championships in Hamar, Norway. The BBC reported the abnormalities occurred as a result of a blood transfusion.

There was a lot of talk at the end of last season about Pechstein because she looked to be on the downswing and then pulled off some amazing results towards the end of the World Cup season. Then, she pulled out of the world single distance championships in March at the Richmond Olympic Oval.

Canada's Clara Hughes beat Pechstein for the gold medal in the women's 5,000 metres at the 2006 Turin Olympics. The skater to beat in the event right now looks to be Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic.

Bulganada ... Cangaria ... What's in a

The Power of Sport

This is three-time Olympic rowing gold medalist Marnie McBean inspiring a gymnasium full of kids yesterday at Fallingbrook Middle School in Mississauga.

Here's what gym teacher Cory Gillman had to report afterwards:

 

"'The students and staff have had only great things to say and can't actually believe that they got to meet a Canadian Olympic Medalist or touch a gold Medal!  The comment that summed it all up for me was a girl who came up to me after lunch and said 'It's so cool that I got to touch a gold medal, but what's even cooler, is that now I know how to get my own.'"

 

Speaking of the power of sport, please do yourselves and your kids a favour and check out a new blog started by Olympic skeleton gold medalist Duff Gibson called Sport at its Best.  You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who embodied the best qualities that sport can instill in a person than Gibson, who could be the poster boy for sport at its best.

Gibson has enlisted the likes of Olympic champions Beckie Scott, Clara Hughes and Ben Rutledge among others  to contribute as well.  He's already getting some great feedback on the blog.

 Among the many insights: 

“…when you realize that the great joy of sport is in the challenge, then the better the competitors are, the greater the challenge, and the greater the reward if you are able to ultimately succeed.”

This is a great idea and there could not be a better guy doing it.

Rush Gets By With Help From Some Friends

Hope you get a chance to check out the feature on bobsledder Lyndon Rush from today’s Star.

He’s an authentic guy and worth getting to know on the road to the Vancouver Olympics. The back story on his quest to get top-notch equipment is also instructive in terms of how the future of sport in Canada is going to need to look.

Rush is competitive right now because he has two new sleds and also new runners because of a partnership between the private sector and the government.

The post-2010 Olympic world is going to look a lot different because of the anticipated drop in funding to athletes. The only way that shortfall is going to be made up to a significant degree is through engaging the business world and convincing them that Olympic athletes are a worthwhile investment.

The good news about this is that in Marcel Aubut as the incoming Canadian Olympic Committee president they have a very savvy and passionate businessman at the helm.

They also have a very successful model of how this could work in terms of B2ten, a group of Canadian business people who banded together under the leadership of Montreal businessman J.D. Miller, Olympic moguls champion Jenn Heil and her coach/boyfriend Dominick Gauthier.

Among those being helped by B2Ten are Heil, teammate Alex Bilodeau, figure skaters Patrick Chan and Joannie Rochette, speed skaters Christine Nesbitt and Denny Morrison, aerials skier Steve Omischl, and Team Canada goaltender Kim St. Pierre.

Some are high profile. Many are not. The donors don’t get any publicity out of it.

Rush credits B2ten for spearheading things for him when he was desperate towards the end of last season, knowing he had the skills to be successful but constantly finishing out of the mix because he was racing in ancient sleds. They got him $100,000 through a fundraiser.

Own The Podium, the program set up to help Canada aim to be the No. 1 medal winning nation in 2010, then stepped up with $50,000 for the native of Humboldt, Sask.

It didn’t end there, either. He got great support from his home province and the community of Sylvan Lake, Alta., where he lives with wife Krysta and their two daughters, and other businesses.

One was the bigtime law firm of Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG). They brought Rush and his brakeman Lascelles Brown in to add some Olympic flair to a reception they hosted for the American Bar Association earlier this year.

They took a liking to the guys, who just happened to be desperately seeking sponsorship. A one-year deal for $50,000 was struck, money that is going towards Rush and his whole team. Despite all the money raised, Rush, Brown and Chris Le Bihan are still in signifcant debt because they also had to front some of their own money for the four-man sled they rode to victory in Park City, Utah, two weeks ago.

What impressed Rush about the BLG deal was that usually to get such a deal you’ve got to have connections, but they knew absolutely no one.

Sure, BLG is getting their name on the sled and their racing suits, but as Rush points out there is no advertising allowed during the Olympics and when it comes to World Cup bobsleigh …

“They’re our title sponsor, but how much press does bobsleigh get, right,” said Rush.

Doug Copland, a partner in the Vancouver office of BLG who was primarily responsible for this initiative, said they would have sponsored them even if they didn’t get their logo on the sled.

“It’s nice to get the recognition that we are supporting Lyndon and his team, but that’s not the primary motivator,” said Copland. From what I’ve seen so far of Lyndon and the team and the way they’ve interacted with people here I think that’s where really going to find the value in the end, in the personal relationship and the impression they bring to people and how they conduct themselves.”

Rush and his crew mates from the four-man sled, Brown, Chris Le Bihan and Dan Humphries, made a visit earlier this month to BLG in Vancouver for a meet and greet , which also turned out to be bring your kid to work day for Grade 9 students.

“The guys really made an effort to engage with those kids,” said Copland. “Lyndon said a few words and spoke about what it meant to have support for them to achieve their goals. The way he spoke was just very honest and open.

“I’m sure you in the sports world are accustomed to the platitudes you often get out of athletes on the standard evening news interview. Lyndon just didn’t come across like that at all. A number of our staff commented on that, how refreshing they were and how honests and how you could really see their passion. It’s really been great.”

Sounds like a win-win for everyone involved.

There are a lot of these types of stories out there (and we'll try to feature them on occasion.)  But there needs to be a lot more.

"Maybe I'm just not that good of a skater anymore."

Athlete No. 1: “I think I still had a little bit of that fear that ‘Maybe, I’m just not that good of a skater anymore.’”

Athlete No. 2: “Do I still have it inside? You’re not always sure if it’s there.”

The speakers?

You’d be excused if you thought one of them could be Toronto figure skater Patrick Chan after the rough outing he had in his season debut at Skate Canada in Kitchener.

But the quotes came this past weekend from veteran speed skaters Clara Hughes and Kristina Groves, expressing self-doubts that they were experiencing heading into the World Cup this past weekend in Hamar, Norway.

These are incredibly accomplished athletes. Hughes is a world champion and the only Canadian – and just the fifth athlete in Olympic history – to win medals at the Summer and Winter Olympics, one gold, one silver and three bronze in total. Groves has won two Olympic silver medals and captured five medals at the 2008 world speed skating championships.

But we tend to forget these athletes are human, too, because they perform such extraordinary feats. And if a pair of experienced athlete in their 30s were struggling a bit with confidence early in this Olympic season, then how about an 18-year-old kid like Chan trying to come back from a torn calf muscle? He’s gotta be feeling the pressure, too.

Here’s what Groves said about it in a telephone conference call with reporters on Sunday: “You know sometimes if it doesn’t go the way you expect it to, you question it a little bit and you think ‘Why did that happen? What can I do to make it better. Do I still have it inside? You’re not always sure if it’s there.”

Hughes had similar fears, especially after struggling a lot last year. She needed to finish in the top six on Saturday in the women's 5,000 metres to cement her berth for the Vancouver Olympics.

Here’s what she was thinking: “Even for me, for my fifth Olympics, it’s a lot of pressure just to make the team. It was always in the back of my mind ‘What if it doesn’t go right? What if it doesn’t happen?’ … I think I still had a little bit of that fear that ‘Maybe, I’m just not that good of a skater anymore.’”

But Groves also made a really good point. She said:

“I think for me that’s actually good to have a little bit of doubt, because it makes me focus on the important things and it makes me work harder. I think it’s a really dangerous place to get complacent about your skating and think that it’s just going to be there.”

That doubt and fear are all part of the ride, part of what makes the Olympics so compelling. Overcoming it is what makes champions.

Clara Hughes Plays Tour Guide At The Wall

       

 
Speed skater Clara Hughes plays tour guide on her website this week. During a recent World Cup event in Berlin, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Wall coming down, Hughes took a trip to the East Side Gallery in Berlin.

The East Side Gallery has more than 100 paintings on the once impenetrable Wall, done by artists from all over the world to express -- as the gallery’s website says -- “that time of change and express the euphoria and great hopes for a better and different future that characterized the time of when the Wall came down.”

The postage stamps up above really don’t do justice to the two galleries of photos that Hughes and put together. Do yourself a favour and check it out here.

Cool Opportunity: Speeking of speed skating, one of the neat things about the Olympics is the way it can inspire kids to get active. Despite the over-commercialization and other ills of the Games, it still has that power.

Hughes got inspired by watching Gaetan Boucher at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. So did her teammate Kristina Groves.

This year’s Canadian speed skating team will undoubtedly inspire youngsters with their performances and because of the kind of people they are.

If you want to get a head start on seeing what the sport’s about and how you might get your kids involved, the Markham Speed Skating Club is hosting an Olympic Celebration Race Meet on Dec. 5  and inviting speed skaters from across Ontario to come for a fun day of racing.

The meet is just two weeks before the Olympic torch comes to Markham and the event is an Olympic celebration designed to encourage future Olympians.

Sounds like a great idea. You can find out more at about the club and the event at http://www.markhamspeedskating.org/index.html

Torch Issue Still Burning: Former Globe and Mail columnist William Houston offers an interesting update on the controversial decision of his one-time bosses and colleagues to become full participants in the Olympic torch relay at his website http://www.truthandrumours.net/

Snow Dreams: Are We Ready For This?

Canadian cross country ski ace  Alex Harvey training in Sweden (above) with teammate and buddy Graham "the Nish" Nishikawa. Below, they take a breather at what another teammate Devon Kershaw reports is Harvey's living quarters high in the mountains.  He's gotta be pulling our chain, something these guys like to do a lot with each other on Twitter.

Shortly after doing an interview yesterday on Skype on his computer in a coffee shop -- where Kershaw said you leave your boots at the door and the floors are heated (Sweet!) -- Harvey delivered the following tweet: "Spying on Kershaw while he's giving an interview. I heard my name way too many times...we need to have a talk later."

 

Kicking back with Mellisa Hollingsworth

When she’s not skeleton racing, Canada’s Mellisa Hollingsworth gets her competitive kicks from barrel racing on her prized horse Rascal.

She says there are comparisons between the two.

“It is competitive,” said Hollingsworth. “You have the same adrenaline and the same nerves and there’s also speed involved and the tactics of making sure that you are setting your horse up with the right pocket, meaning far away enough from the barrel that you’re not going to knock it over but tight enough so that you’re gaining speed and accelarating off. I think there’s a lot of parallels to skeleton.”

But there’s one very different aspect when it comes to barrel racing.

“You’re working with a horse. It has a mind of its own,” she said. “Sometimes, we say our sled have a mind of their own but it’s not quite the same.”

No Offence Intended -- But Some Taken: It seems I have offended the good people of Eckville, Alt., Hollingsworth’s beloved hometown.

This email came in from a reader first thing this morning:

Good article.

Yes,we are all proud of her.

HOWEVER,To say Eckville is a "remote village", is a bit of an insult.

It is 40 kms. west of Red Deer (Jamie Sale) and just down the road from where Brent and Brian Sutter live (Sylvan Lake).

Hardly as remote as Sudbury,Ontario ... for example.

To say that a place just 200 Kms. from the premier city in Canada (CALGARY) is remote, is a perfect example of the pompous, arrogant and insufferable attitude of most who live in and around Canada's best example of sport's futility........Toronto.The land of the Laffs.

Did you actually visit her home town or did you write your article from the comfort of your Toronto office??

Really, no offence intended.