Voiceover:
Are you ready? Let's go, let's go. From AMI Central, now start playing in the neutral zone. Here's a pitch on the way, 36 yards for the win. Here comes the big chance. The shot is, is this the tiger? The neutral zone? This is as good as it gets. Now here's your host, two-time Paralympian Brock Richardson.

Brock Richardson:
Hello and welcome to another edition of The Neutral Zone. I am indeed your host, Brock Richardson. And this week I'm alongside Josh Watson and Claire Buchanan. Let's jump right into it and get into our headlines for this week.

voiceover:
Neutral Zone. Headline. Headline.

Josh Watson:
Big news coming out of wheelchair curling this week. The Wheelchair Curling Championships are taking place in Richmond, B.C., from March 4th to 12th, along with Canada. The other participating nations will be China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, and the United States. The World Curling Federation will provide coverage of select games during the championships. For more information, please go to world curling.org/2023/02/world-wheelchair-broadcast-schedule. We'll have that link in the show notes. If you didn't catch it here.

Brock Richardson:
Our congratulations goes out to one of our very own panellists and that is Claire Buchanan as she makes the 2023 Canadian women's national team for para ice hockey. She has done that nine consecutive seasons and I got to be honest with you and say that making a national team once is difficult. Making it twice is even more difficult. Making it nine times is really, really challenging. So congratulations, Claire, and to the rest of the team for making it. And I know you guys will represent Canada very, very well.

Claire Buchanan:
Thank you very much. Brock. Former curling champion, Lisa Weagle who had gone on to win multiple Scotties has been nominated Chef de Mission for the 2024 Youth Olympic Games, which will be held in South Korea.

Brock Richardson:
And those are your headlines for this week. Let's check in on our Twitter poll question from last week. We asked you how do you think the Toronto Blue Jays will fair this season. 0% of you said be mediocre. Thank goodness. 80% of you said make the playoffs and 20% of you were rather positive and said win it all. We're not going to give you a Twitter poll question for this week as we're going to try something a little bit different moving forward. And where I want to go with this for the next couple of minutes is going back to Claire making the national team for nine consecutive seasons. Can you chat just briefly about what it's been like to make this team, not once but nine times?

Claire Buchanan:
It's incredible what has happened over nine years. I came into the program and it already being a few years old already. I do feel like a veteran, absolutely after being there for nine seasons. But also still feel very new to the game and very new to the evolution of women's para hockey because there's a handful of people that have been there literally since day one and still there and pushing through and it's really incredible to see the growth of the game.
And this program individually, we had the most women at tryouts in program history. And now we get to fight for spots going into the world challenge and pushing each other and it's actually been really cool to see the next generation come into the mix as well. I think now we have four or five girls anywhere between the ages of 14 and 16. So we got a young bunch coming in, fired up, ready to push us veterans. And us veterans trying to just be just that strong support both on and off the ice as well to inspire that next generation. So it's going to be a really, really fun season and I'm excited to see what can come out of it.

Brock Richardson:
One way to keep your youth alive is to play with a bunch of youth and as Jennifer Jones in the curling world, how she joined the Mackenzie Zacharias group and said, "Listen, you're going to play my way and that's how you're going to be." And all through that broadcast, Josh, they kept saying, man, you can see her reliving her youth and being a part of that. And I said it sort of tongue in cheek, but it is true. When you hang around a bunch of young people with a ton of energy, you can't help but delve into or tap into what their energy is feeding off you.

Josh Watson:
Oh, absolutely. I just had a birthday over the weekend, turned 45 and I play with a bunch of college and slightly older guys and I don't really feel a day over 30. But Father time does occasionally tell me otherwise. But yeah, I'm waiting for the day when Claire tells us that somebody goes up to her and says, "I've been watching you play hockey since I was five years old."

Claire Buchanan:
It's actually really funny that you said that. One of the girls that are in the top 20 right now, actually we've been waiting for her to turn 14. That's how young she was when she started out. And I remember we had been in Newmarket... There was a women's, one of the few Canadian Women's National Championship weekends and-

Josh Watson:
I think I was there.

Claire Buchanan:
-And I gave her one of my pairs of sticks just to be like, hey, get rid of those wooden things. Here's some actually nice sticks. And ended up scoring two goals and assists that game. So to now not only play with her side by side on my rec team, but now with the national team is pretty cool. It's funny you said that because that picture pops up every year and I'm like, she finally turned 14 and here she is. So...

Josh Watson:
Good.

Brock Richardson:
It's interesting how those things can happen. If you want to get ahold of us on Twitter, here's how you can go ahead and do that.

voiceover 2:
And welcome back to the Neutral Zone AMI broadcast booth. Play Ball. And we are set to get this ballgame underway, the first pitch brought to you by Brock Richardson's Twitter account at Neutral Zone BR. First pitch strike and hey gang, why not strike up a Twitter chat with Claire Buchanan for the Neutral Zone. Find her at Neutral Zone CB and there's a swing and a chopper out to second base right at Claire. She picks up the ball, throws it over to first base for a routine out. And fans, there is nothing routine about connecting with Cam and Josh from the Neutral Zone. At Neutral Zone, Cam J and at J Watson 200. Now that's a winning combination. And this Oregon interlude is brought to you by AMI Audio on Twitter, get in touch with the Neutral Zone type in at AMI Audio.

Brock Richardson:
Joining us now is the host of the Whiskey & Cream podcast. He is also a journalist and producer and publisher. Of course, I'm talking about Ari Shapiro and he joins us from Toronto. And I got to be honest, Ari, when we have you on that means we're closer and closer to Blue Jay's baseball or talking about how they've been eliminated from the playoffs. Let me be fair, I prefer this conversation to begin with.

Ari Shapiro:
Me too, Brock, me too. It's good to know that I'm usually either the bearer of hopeful news or the angel of baseball death telling you how it all went down. So it's great to be on your show. Thanks for having me.

Claire Buchanan:
Well, hopefully, you have better news than bad. Spring training is currently happening, so the season is almost upon us and sometimes the spring training season is viewed as less important but what do you look for in teams to gauge if they're ready to go for when the regular season drops?

Ari Shapiro:
Claire, that's a great question. That's an important question because spring training for all intents and purposes is basically a month to prepare for what will be a gruelling 162-game season. Which in itself is just in this day and age, it seems so ridiculous, doesn't it? I mean 162 games to decide who plays in the postseason over the course of a long, long haul that encapsulates roughly almost three seasons.
So spring training is designed to tell you what you've got and what the Blue Jays have is... I don't know if I'll call it a novelty, but I don't remember the last time I felt this good about the baseball franchise heading into spring training. I mean we're talking about even the 2015 year where they got all competitive in a month and a half. In 2016 when they also made the playoffs. But even then there were still some questions in spring training and expectations that were more based on player names rather than what they actually had, if that makes any sense.
And this group's very different to me. There is something going on in spring training in the first nine or 10 games that they've played, which shows me that they're addressing important aspects of the team that were previously, I think ignored for the most part. And what I'm talking about is veteran leadership influencing young guys, young kids who are ready to show what they've got at the major league level. And what spring training is supposed to do is show you who's serious about showing up for the season versus who needs more work. Or in some cases, who just has jumped the shark and you've got to let them go. And the Blue Jays have this fascinating mix of redundancy with so many different positions where there are legitimate competitions between who the starters will be as well as position players that are coming in with high expectation.
I think there's an electricity there. There's this great energy, this thinking that this team already acknowledged by American media as being the sixth or seventh best team in Major League baseball is coming in effectively as a legitimate World series contender. And I think telling somebody that would not make them smirk or laugh if they knew the details of what's going on in spring training, it's quite exciting.

Josh Watson:
Now, the Blue Jays did start their off-season by trading their star outfielder Teoscar Hernandez to the Mariners for Eric Swanson and pitching prospect, Adam Macko. A lot of the fans that I saw were not very happy with that trade. Given how likable Teoscar was. I'm wondering what you think of the move.

Ari Shapiro:
Josh. I think you've accurately explained or identified something that many Blue Jays fans, including myself, felt when they heard the news about the Teoscar Hernandez trade. It's funny, isn't it? Hernandez effectively reached a point where he could finally be seen as a true reputable through and through major league baseball player. And I've got maybe 20 or 30 pretty nice semi-viral tweets to prove my disdain and scorn for the fact that for the longest time I felt he was not Major League material.
Fans will remember he came up and there was a long learning curve for this fellow, but then a lot of players in the past have had long learning curves. Carlos Delgado wasn't an overnight sensation. Roy Halliday wasn't an overnight sensation. Sometimes you have to wait for the best talent that you're trying to cultivate. And with Hernandez, it looked like we'd finally reached that point as the fans and followers of the team to identify a player that looked like he was about to have a classic George Bell in his prime 30 to 40 home run season with 120 RBIs.
But what management felt was that this was not the kind of player that they wanted on the roster capable of giving you more than just flashy stats. And as anyone who followed Hernandez in the last couple of year knows... Especially you're not talking about a very good defensive player. In fact, I would argue that Teoscar as great as an offensive player as he is and all talented with his bat, in terms of his baseball fundamentals, there was a real problem there.
So I think initially fans were angry that this fellow who'd matured and grown to be a regular starter on the team had now been shipped out. But what they need to remember is culturally the organization had grown tired of the proverbial home run jackets. And nobody epitomized the home run jacket celebration more than a Teoscar Hernandez or a Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
So even though initially fans I think were shocked because it didn't seem like that was the kind of player you needed to trade, in many respects that was precisely the kind of player that you had to let go. One that you knew whose contract was going to be up very soon and now is probably the best time you'd get value for somebody who's known for a flashy bat and pretty much weak leather.

Claire Buchanan:
So this trade happens and then from there the Blue Jays went on to add outfielder, Kevin Kiermaier, to the mix. What do you make of that addition to the team?

Ari Shapiro:
Adding Kiermaier I think was part of a goal that the organization had at the end of last year. Which was to find better defensive players, preferably who could hit left-handed and whose ethic work ethic and baseball fundamentals were something that quite frankly hasn't been seen around these parts in a very long time. Maybe not since Scott Roland, ironically enough, who just recently got into the Baseball Hall of fame.
Defensively with Kiermaier, that's exactly what you get. You get a Scott Roland calibre centerfielder positioned player who is notorious and synonymous for his gold gloves and notwithstanding the Kevin Pillar era, which started well but ended up being rather one-dimensional because like Kiermaier, he didn't have much of a bat. What Kevin Kiermaier has that a Kevin Pillar never had was a sensibility and a fundamental behind how he plays the game that I think fans are going to be absolutely tickled pink when they see every single night. Whenever the blue Jays would go into Tampa Bay or had to face the Rays, they would invariably get burned by a Kiermaier in one fast or another.
And while I didn't mind the stolen base or the scrappy hitting for a guy whose career average isn't that high, what really got me frustrated with seeing these gold calibre, all-star plays that the Blue Jays from an outfield perspective were sorely lacking. And by signing a Kiermaier and then later acquiring Daulton Varsho along with George Springer, now you've got a rock solid gold glove calibre outfielder. And I need you three to appreciate at this round table that we have here that that's such a rarity around these parts. To have not one, but two and then three positions in the outfield that you can look at as a fan and feel confident that in a close game, regardless of who's on the mound, you've got the best players you need playing defence.

Brock Richardson:
And I think... Let's be fair is that you have to have resources that will be able to handle injuries because I think it's unfair to say, well, we're going to go through 162 games without an injury. That's just simply not the case. And it feels to me this time around we have that depth in places we didn't have it before, Ari. Which is something that I really appreciate with the organization and it's something that we haven't seen in a long, long time.

Ari Shapiro:
That's how you win penance, Brock. And that's how you win the World Series ultimately and find success in the playoffs is by having key redundancy in key positions. And whether you're looking at the catching position or whether you're looking at second base or whether you're looking at who you can use as your designated hitter in strategic situations, the Blue Jays have a tremendous contingency for just about every case this year.
Obviously, fans would like to maybe see a little bit more shoring up of the outfield, but there are so many different players who are vying for a spot on this team. Don't be surprised if you see a couple of guys make the team who will be constantly pushing the triumvirate of Kiermaier of our show in Springer as far as they can go. And that's a great problem to have if you're a baseball fan.

Brock Richardson:
Absolutely. We're joined by the host of the Whiskey and Cream podcast. He is also a journalist and publisher and producer. I'm talking about Ari Shapiro and I'm alongside Claire Buchanan and Josh Watson. And of course, you're listening to The Neutral Zone and watching as well.

Josh Watson:
Now the Blue Jays after acquiring Kiermaier then traded away catcher Gabrielle Moreno and outfielder, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in exchange for what we understood was catcher, Daulton Varsho. You touched on Varsho a little bit, but I know a lot of people were puzzled because we didn't know exactly who we were getting when Varsho arrived. I'm wondering, can you shed a little bit of light on him for us?

Ari Shapiro:
It's fascinating, Josh, to think that much like the Hernandez trade, my initial reaction to seeing Gabriel Moreno packaged away in that deal to acquire Varsho was... Honestly, I wasn't impressed. I was worried that once again, the organization may have given simply... They may have given away too much by not giving a prospect to mature the way a prospect should. And if there's anything that most baseball pundits will tell you that Gabriel Moreno is the real deal.
However, as we know with prospect development, timing is everything. And with Danny Janssen and Alejandro Kirk, this was an opportunity for them to use a prospect who has yet to really establish himself, albeit showed a great deal of gumption last year and impressed a lot of people. This was a chance to acquire a player who's simply known as a gamer. The numbers may not seem like it right away.
I know a lot of people were criticizing that he doesn't hit for a high average, but you're talking about a player who can play any outfield position, catch for you with gold glove-caliber defence and will most likely hit 30 home runs in the Skydome. So there was this opportunity, I think, for the organization to get a player that is controllable that they can use to fully develop in an American League home run friendly park in exchange for a prospect who would've been third in the pecking order on what has been a tremendous resurgence by Danny Janssen as well as Alejandro Kirk.
So if it came down to taking anyone away from that equation, I think Moreno made a lot of sense because it gave the Blue Jays a player that fans will absolutely love for his approach towards the game. He plays hard, he hits from the left side, he knows how to hook the ball, he knows how to dive for hooked balls, he knows how to position himself to steal a key bass and he's, like I said, a gamer. He's somebody who understands the fundamentals of baseball from a very young age and it shows in the way he plays the game.
And that I think is ultimately why we heard so many plaudits from the American side. South of the border, everyone was saying the Blue Jays are literally turning themselves into World Series contenders by going after players who will do anything to win a baseball game. And part of that doesn't include celebrating a home run in the sixth inning when you're down by four with a jacket or throwing sunflower seeds or worrying whether or not you've somehow affected your haircut. Like culturally, I don't want to be too critical of that because I think it's important to have fun in baseball, but the organization is done having fun now they want to do both. They want to have fun, but fun from playing competitive baseball and what Daulton Varsho does is he instantly makes your team more competitive by providing defensively a measure of runs saved that will more than make up for a low average.
And let's be honest, Josh, we're talking about the average player hitting in baseball, what, 230, 240. So if you've got a player who can start at that baseline, today's game and work with our leaders and coaches as the Blue Jays have brought in, because let's face it, you've got Don Mattingly, you got Edwin Encarnacion and you've got Victor Martinez. You've got hitting coaches who will I think work with Daulton so that he turns into a better hitter. But every other facet of his game is on a level that the Blue Jays never had a chance to see with either Gurriel, Jr, nor Teoscar Hernandez. And in that regard, I think they made a great move. Even if it may have involved giving up quite a bit with a prospect who could easily play 15 years in this league is a high-quality catcher.

Claire Buchanan:
Now with all the moves both in this off-season and last, what would be your synopsis on the performance of the Blue Jay's management with regards to both the off-season and going into spring training?

Ari Shapiro:
It's almost a loaded question, Claire. I think you're trying to trick me a little bit here. You want me to say that I'm absolutely thrilled, but what is it about the team that maybe still needs to be addressed? Look, overall, I would give them a B plus. I think they did just about everything they needed to do to become a better baseball club. Naturally, I'm concerned about injuries, as Brock said when he led off with the show. Well look, injuries are just a fact of baseball life. You get three or four key injuries on this team, you're not going to win 85 games.
On the other hand, you could potentially win a hundred if most of your players stay healthy. And I think for the Blue Jays, the key is with their pitching. If they've got a resurgent cocci and they have a resurgent burials and they have these players showing up that struggled last year and can give them quality starts, they will have a chance to win literally every game they're in. They brought a nucleus with them that still consists of what the Gurriel, Jr., Bichette era is supposed to represent.
But now they've surrounded them with the types of professional players like a Bassett or a Kiermaier or a Varsho. And by doing so they've transformed them into a more intense and focused baseball club. And suddenly you've got this redundancy between a Whit Maryfield and an Espanol or a Kirk and a Danny Janssen. And you realize that this tandem will be very functional and continue to push this team. And management did what management was supposed to do, give them the right team composition where everybody can push each other lead by example and no-nonsense in a year where they know they have a phenomenal window to lead the American League east if they all put their minds to it.
So in the end, I give them top marks. Maybe not an age is simply because I am concerned about some of the age involved with some of the players. These aren't spring chickens, I mean Varsho is in his mid-twenties. But the fact is a Bassett, a Kiermaier are not exactly what you call on the right side of 30. Nevertheless, I think it's their veteran experience and their ability to compete that will shine through and lead a lot of the Blue Jay's younger players.
So overall, I think we're in for a truly exciting year and I commend management... I can't believe I'm saying this for the first time in what seems like ages for really going above and beyond and trying to make baseball a great form of escapism for those of us who struggled through the pandemic and through the general day and the day out of living a challenging life in this world.

Josh Watson:
Now, it came out recently that the team has decided to retire their home run jacket. And I've heard you allude to it a little bit, but I assume you were not a fan of that whole celebratory mindset.

Ari Shapiro:
If by now Josh, they had captured say a couple of rounds in the playoffs or maybe put themselves in the World Series, I wouldn't care less. I would say to myself, whatever they're doing is working, but it wasn't working. They were losing games they should have won last year defensively. And then when they were winning those games, they were too busy celebrating with those... Look, it was just ridiculous to start with. I'm not a big fan of grandstanding during a game. I think baseball can change really quickly if you're up in the seventh, you could easily be, as we know from the last game of last year, down and out by the ninth. And that's why I think it's important to have humility. I think that's what Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins were really concerned about, that their incredibly talented juggernaut lineup was going around baseball, beating up on opponents.
But when push came to shove, they were screwing the pooch and all they had to show for it were home run celebrations involving some kind of weird Dollarama jacket and what looked to be coated in sunflower seeds and bobby pins. And look, I'm sure it has some kind of existential meaning to a lot of the players, especially those who culturally looked at it as a chance to loosen up and have fun. But again, it's a professional sport and if you're making 13, 15, 20 million dollars a year, in my opinion, the last thing you should be doing is dancing around in a moth-eating blazer trying to show people how happy you are to still be a kid. We get it. We get it.
And I think the decision ultimately to retire it was done interestingly, wasn't it didn't start right away. They let the spring training begin, they let the veterans sit down with their younger players like a vlat or a bow, and I'm sure they went and asked them, what do you think? Should we do away with this? Can we get on without this? And they probably unanimously said, yeah, let's just hit a lot of home runs. Let's celebrate them in the playoffs when it matters because these fans haven't tasted what it means to be competitive in the playoffs for quite some time. And they deserve, I think, the best effort that isn't clouded with these types of things I would've reserved for when I was in grade 10 in high school or something like that.

Claire Buchanan:
Well, speaking of things that might work or might not work, what are your thoughts on the pitch clock coming into the game?

Ari Shapiro:
With every passing day... And this is a really good question because if you would've asked me say about a month ago, conceptually I would've told you that it's not a great idea that baseball is meant to be an organic game. And even if there are moments where there are time shifts or certain types of pitchers who are taking extra time or a hitter like Nomar Garciaparra who used to have a 48-second dance in between pitches or something like that. You didn't mind that if the action was of high quality. And baseball of course recognized that the games were getting too long, people's attention spans were getting infinitely shorter and the best way to address it was to use what now I'm seeing is actually being very beneficial, especially to Blue Jay's pitchers. All you have to do is look at... You say is KiKuchi's first two starts in spring training and realize that the discipline of a 15 or 22nd clock is going to make a huge difference in all those moments where he thinks too much or finds himself grasping at straws to figure out what it is.
I'm starting to like the fact that with PitchCom and the ability for patch pitchers and catchers to communicate directly and no longer have to waste time with signs, I think you're going to see that a lot of pitchers like a Chris Bassett or a Kevin Gausman will really benefit from the kind of steady pace of the pitch clock. There will be frustrating moments. There will be old habits that die hard if you're pitchers say over the age of like 27, 28.
But for young guys coming into the league, the focus is get in there and get ready to go to work. No histrionics, no adventures, no scratching your jock strap for 15 seconds or reaching behind your ear for that extra rosin that you hit in there or whatever the hell some of these pitchers do in order to get an edge. Now you've got to come out there and recognize that this is a game that needs to be played. Bring your best stuff, face the hitter and have your battle within the battles that take place in baseball.
And I think having a pitch clock will definitely improve that because there will be intense situations where the game has to keep moving and pitchers won't be able to take a breath. They're going to have to get ready and know what they're going to do next. And I think for a pitcher, especially like Jose Berrios... I mean we will watch him in the WBC with Puerto Rico, but I think you're going to see a pretty impressive dude who's just going to come show up and be ready to dish, be ready to throw as hard as he can.
And I think that in that respect, the pitch clock will end up being a good thing, even though I still think that baseball should slow down with all these rule changes. But then again, I'm getting up in years and it's easier for me to complain and criticize what is supposed to be good for the game. Let's see what happens. If it means the Blue Jays finish with 99 wins, I'm all in for the pitch clock.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, I'm with you on that one. And you know what? There's something about representing your country as I've gotten to do, and it changes you as a person. And I hope that representing the country really helps someone like Jose Berrios and let's him figure it out and the pitch clock and all of that. Because there's been some criticism of the dollars that the blue Jays gave him and we didn't see what we expected to see out of him. And I think this is the year where he's got to pardon the expression, but put up or shut up. And I think anything that will help him do this is going to be worth it because the Blue Jays banked on him and now it's time to cash in on what they put out. And I think and hope we're going to see that.

Ari Shapiro:
Well said Brock, that's really well said, by the way. And I just want to punctuate it that out of all the players who chose to stay and play in the WBC, because as you know, Vlad didn't, right and neither did Kirk, which was a good decision for a catcher. I think it's brilliant, like you said, to let a pitcher have some international experience, especially a guy who was statistically the worst starter in the American League last year. So there's only one way to go and that's up and hopefully he'll do much better.

Brock Richardson:
I absolutely agree. All right, thank you so much for joining us. We greatly appreciate it. And if you want get ahold of us regarding this interview or anything else we do on the program, here's how you can do it by voicemail.

voiceover:
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Brock Richardson:
We are joined now by Peter Parsons, who is the chair of Blind Sports Nova Scotia. He is here today to chat about events and happenings within Nova Scotia. Peter, welcome to the program and thanks so much for joining us today.

Peter Parsons:
Thanks Brock. It's great to be with you guys.

Josh Watson:
Can we start by chatting a little bit about the history of Blind Sports Nova Scotia and what you folks have to offer?

Peter Parsons:
Yeah, so Blind Sports Nova Scotia have been around for many years before I've been involved with the organization, since the seventies actually. And the main sport that we oversee is goalball is a Paralympic sport. And unlike other blind sports like say swimming or track and field, other sports that have like its sided counterpart, goalball is its own sport that was created back post World War II for blinded war veterans. It's been a paralympic sport since 1976.
And so blind sports Nova Scotia, we're a hundred percent volunteer run. We have no paid staff. Our board consists of goalball players like myself and goalball parents. And so we have some great programs going within the country. We're one of the best goalball provinces I could say with a men's program, a recreation program, junior program. And we just started back actually on Sunday night, we started our women's program back up. So we have lots of goalball going on here in Nova Scotia. We also have tandem biking. We have a tandem bike club that's more recreational and so it's a great recreational activity for many of our members in the warmer months, of course.

Claire Buchanan:
Let's travel back in time a little bit and can you tell us a little bit about the Nova Scotia Open?

Peter Parsons:
Yeah sure. So the Nova Scotia Open as an annual goalball tournament that we run and we started back in 2015. I always thought that it would be great to have a goalball tournament before the new year. So we have it in November in the late fall because the first goalball tournament traditionally would be the Montreal Open. It's been around for many years and that's the last weekend in January.
So I remember thinking if we had a tournament before the holidays, I think that we could get some interest. So started back in 2015. It's been an annual tournament. We always have Ontario and Quebec come. We've had teams from the States come this year in November, I should say last year in November, we had all the Canadian teams here, plus an American team. So we had a nice competitive... And it's a men's tournament that we do and we sometimes will do exhibition games with our youth or junior players or women's players. So yeah, it's a men's tournament that we do annually and we have lots of great sponsors and volunteers that help make it happen. And of course, a great organizing committee that put a lot of volunteer time into organizing the tournament.

Josh Watson:
Now you folks recently had a fun tournament called the Gold Bowl tournament in Halifax. I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about that. And I understand there's a story behind the name of the tournament.

Peter Parsons:
Yeah, it's kind of a funny story. But the Gold Bowl is fun tournament that we do. We actually have it most months, usually at the end of each month. Since last year we just had our... We call it, we called it Gold Bowl 10. So we put a number at the end of each one and it's a fun tournament, mainly recreational players and junior players will play. And it's good because our players get an opportunity with our certified refs that we have here in Nova Scotia, which is actually good for them as well to ref some official games.
And for our players, it's an opportunity to play in a real tournament-like situation, not just scrimmaging at practice, but we break it down into teams. So I usually get our members to let me know... They reply to my email saying if they're available to play that week or not that weekend coming and split the teams up as equally as I can along with our coach Linda. And we'll split up the teams equally and have a fun little round-robin tournament.
Yeah, so it's been a great experience. I think it's really actually helped our players have more game opportunity because goalball's is not a sport like other sports, some other mainstream sports where, you know, play in a league for example. Usually, practice weekly and then go away for some tournaments. But so this gives more competitive opportunity. And the name of it... I remember when we were coming up with the idea, one of our members were texting about it and she, with her dictating into her phone said goalball, which usually doesn't come out so well on a phone, the word goalball. And it said Gold Bowl. And I remember replying, that's what we should name our fun tournament. You have the Super Bowl. So it was the Gold Bowl. And then another one of our members had made a little trophy as like a bowl that's gold and had Braille with the name of it.
And so then whoever wins, it's just for fun. Of course, we'll take pictures at the end of, as the winning team will get to keep it till the next month they bring it back to the gym, this Gold Bowl trophy. So it's been a lot of fun. And at the same time it's been really good experience for all involved, including some volunteers because we'll train them on doing the score clock for example, or doing some of the different volunteer roles, scorekeeper goal judges. So that way when we have our Nova Scotia Open, we have our volunteers who have had an opportunity to volunteer at the Gold Bowl tournaments to get some extra training in to be trained volunteers for more official tournament like the Nova Scotia Open, or if we're hosting junior nationals or senior nationals for example.

Claire Buchanan:
That sounds like a really cool-looking trophy. This weekend coming up, there's a Grand Slam tournament happening. Can you tell us a little bit about that tournament and who's involved?

Peter Parsons:
Yeah, so it's the Surrey Grand Slam. So we're flying it to Vancouver and the Vancouver Goalball Club is putting on the tournament and they do a great job every year with it. And this is actually the first year back since the pandemic, as was our Nova Scotia Open actually back in November after having a couple years off. So it's been great getting back into the tournament in full swing.
But the Grand Slam is probably the strongest tournament that we'll have here in Canada and maybe I would actually say in North America because we have a team coming from Brazil and we have three American teams along with four Canadian teams. And so some really strong competition... Brazil are the best in the world at Goalball. They're defending Paralympic champs defending world champs, and so it's a club team from Brazil, not their national team, but they're going to be very strong I expect, as well as a couple of strong American teams and our top Canadian teams.
So there's eight men's teams, two pools of four, and yeah, it will be this weekend in Surrey, BC and they're going to have a live stream if anybody wanted to look up Vancouver goalball club ball. Their social media, they'll have links to that live stream of that tournament. So really looking forward to that one for our Nova Scotia men's team as well as all of the Canadian teams. It's going to be a great, I think, experience and a nice, really good competitive, well-organized tournament.

Josh Watson:
That really sounds like an amazing time for those that want to get involved with Blind Sports Nova Scotia, either on the side of playing a sport like goalball or volunteering with the organization, how can they go about that?

Peter Parsons:
Yeah, for sure. Well, our website, blindsportsnovascotia.ca, they can go to, we also connect with us on Facebook or Twitter at Blind Sports NS. They can, and anybody in the Halifax area can come to one of our practices to check it out. We practice on Saturdays from two o'clock to five o'clock at the George Dixon Center, 2502 Brunswick Street in Halifax. Anybody could just pop by if they would like. And we also have our men's and now women's practices, what we just started up, as I mentioned earlier on Sundays.
So we're always looking for volunteers, always looking for new players, especially since it was... It's been probably like seven or eight years since we've had our recreation program going as well. So it's a great practice to rec practice for people that just want to try it out, play recreationally. Sometimes we've had people that will start at the rec practice and get more competitive as well. So we have lots of opportunities.
And it's lots of competitive opportunities, but also a lot of social opportunities for someone who's blind or visually impaired as well, looking to connect with other blind and visually impaired people. Like I said earlier, our tandem bike club has been quite popular getting together. We do some group rides. So yeah, lots of ways to connect, but you can find us, like I said, on the web at Blind Sports NS is as our social media handle.

Brock Richardson:
Peter, I think something that caught my attention during the interview as I listened was you were talking about the officiating of goalball and sometimes in parasports you can go along, your brother sport or your sister sport, however you want to look at it. And sort of mimic officiating in that regard. Goalball is one of those parasport that stands alone. There's no necessarily able-bodied affiliate sport. Can you talk just briefly a little bit about the officiating and how you teach new officials how to effectively officiate the sport of goalball?

Peter Parsons:
Yeah, definitely. We, at our Nova Scotia Open in the past, we've had some referee clinics at a... I think two out of our six tournaments that we've had in the past. And so people can sign up for one of these referee clinics and it takes the whole weekend that we have a goalball tournament and you in a way, you get thrown right into the fire to officiate the tournament along with more experienced officials as well. And so we have the CBSA, the Canadian Blind Sports Association. We have level-one CBSA officials, and then we have international Blind Supports association IBSA officials as well. And officials have the opportunity to work their way right on up to officiating at international level events, world championships, Paralympics and so on. We have some of the best officials in the world actually in Canada.
And so we've had a few locally here in the Halifax area that have gotten involved in the last so many years. And a lot of times they might start as a volunteer at our practices and after volunteering and getting more interested. And sometimes we'll say, well, there's an opportunity you could become a goalball referee. And we have a referee clinic coming up at our tournament. We've had one person that went to Montreal, the Montreal Open, to get his level one IBSA certification. And so yeah, it's just a matter...
And then we have some of our officials that will come to practice to fine-tune their skills or keep them sharp or wrap out our goal bowls that we're talking about. And that's always a good opportunity to keep those skills sharp as well. And then also travel to... When we were in Montreal back at the end of January, we had one of our Nova Scotia officials there and we were at the Ontario Parasport games at the beginning of February. We had another one of our officials that was roughing there. So yeah, it's a lot of goalball rules and there's a lot to it, but it's, I think, quite rewarding for some of those that have gotten involved with officiating goalball.

Brock Richardson:
I genuinely believe that once you get hooked into parasport, in general, it's pretty hard to get unhooked. The community has a way of holding their people and holding them well and teaching them and grooming them in a good way. And I just think that that's really great and really also important. Peter, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. We greatly appreciate it and we hope to have you back on or some of your athletes.

Peter Parsons:
Great. Thank you very much. Yeah, we have a lot of great athletes and a lot of up-and-coming young athletes as well. I'm sure they would be happy to join this program sometime in the future.

Brock Richardson:
We would love to have them. That was Peter Parsons, who is the chair of Blind Sports Nova Scotia. And again, he was here talking about events and happenings within the organization. And like I said, we are going to have him back on and some of the athletes down the line.
As we often do sometimes when we have two wonderful interviews, we have a titch of time left over. And with this titch of time, where did I get the word titch from you ask? That would be curling because they use the word titch every once in a while as they talk about the dial going over. So if you can visualize a dial, they'll say, one plus a titch, which has now become the technical term of curling using the measurement. So I decided I'd stroll the word titch. 10 minutes is a little more than a titch, but if I keep talking about a titch, then we're going to run out of time. So let's move on from this.

Claire Buchanan:
You learn something new everyday, man. Wow.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, totally. I want to go back to the Irish Shapiro conversation and really, really honing on a couple of pieces with this conversation. For one, I think that fans of their sports teams, and I'm talking about it from a broad perspective, I'm not honing in on baseball specifically. I'm talking about this from a broad perspective. And the broad perspective is that fans fall in love with their team. And I'm totally, totally fine with it, but then when it comes to letting go of players, that's when we have the problem. We see the uproar on social media, oh, this is so-and-so, and this was a terrible move. And the list goes on and on with the conversation.
For me, Daulton Varsho was that person. I kind of was like, who the heck is Daulton Varsho and why do we need this guy? And then the thing that tipped the skills for me, Josh, was when I heard that he plays multiple positions and I was like, oh, this is good. This is what we need. We need run prevention. This is good. So I bought into it, but I think fans sometimes take a little bit longer to do so, Josh.

Josh Watson:
I agree, and I think a lot of the time it's because the people that get sent out from an organization are the ones that we often fall in love with. We loved Teoscar's big, bright smile and his laugh and just the way that he brought levity to the team. But we also had to recognize that he's probably at the peak of his career at the moment. And so he made for a very attractive trade chip for those two pitchers.
It's tough as a fan. I do the same thing where I'll sit there and I'll say, they can't trade him. We need him, and then they do the trade. They get back some good pieces that I haven't necessarily heard of before, and you see them on the field and then you fall in love with those guys. I, for one, am ecstatic to have Kevin Kier Myer on our team so that we don't have to worry about dropping any cards out of people's pockets and having him pick them up. At least he's on our side this time. But that's a conversation we don't have time for.
But yeah, it's really interesting as a fan to kind of just reflect on, oh yeah, they traded this guy for that guy and we didn't think that he was going to be... We didn't think we could ever trade him, and we did, and we're fine. We're actually better than we were before.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, Claire, I want to sort of take this for you in this direction. I think sometimes we think of players and we go, oh, who's this guy? And he could be no good because we don't know him by name. The people want the name and they want the flashy marquis that says, we've got this guy aka George Springer, and everyone knows exactly who George Springer is. The first question they asked that guy was, were you part of the cheating scandal? And what did you have to do?
But again, we don't have enough time for this. I just think it's a question of people want that name person. They want that person that they can say, I know this guy. And when you hear Daulton Varsho and everybody goes, huh? And we get so stuck on the name and as opposed to what they might bring, because everyone gets so hung up on, we don't know him, so he must not be any good.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, I mean that comes with, are you a sports fan or are you a Blue Jays fan? Are you looking to win championships or are you just looking for a fun, flashy game to be watched? And he alluded to up to this point, yeah, we've been having a lot of fun over the last few years and having a lot of flashy names come in and out. But like other organizations in this city, it's time to bring in players that make an impact and all that. It's one of the oldest sayings in the books, defense wins championships. You're not going to win championships being flashy and not being focused. And I think that he said it very clearly, and I totally agree with getting rid of the likes of the home run jacket, is... Yes, I think like any team, you have to try things to see if they do work and see how they motivate your team or if they don't work.
And this is just something that kind of stayed surface level and really didn't translate throughout the entire look of the team. So we're on to trying new things and bringing different people in, and it's going to be an exciting season, I believe, because I totally agree that defence wins championships and you like to see those teams that in the past have kind of alluded us and be able to go in there confident that you can put a stop to them because we can hit as many home runs as we want. But if we can't stop the other team from doing the same thing, then what's the point? What are we doing?

Brock Richardson:
Okay, here is my concern about getting rid of the home run jacket. Do I think it was a good thing? Yes. Do I think adding Don Mattingly was a good thing? Yes. Here's my concern though. My concern is that we have become too serious, which when we're winning, this is a good thing. When we get into a losing skid and there's just no fun, and the fun has been sucked out of this team because we want to win championships, is it not going to be hard to get yourself up to play 162? It's all going to be good if they win and they do what they're supposed to. But is it going to be difficult? Josh, I'll let you weigh in first. I see Claire shaking her head at me. So I know where she goes on this, but Josh, I'll let you weigh in first.

Josh Watson:
Yeah, for me, I thought the home run jacket was cute. It was fun for a while. But after a while it's just kind of like, yeah, okay. Congratulations. You hit a home run in a 12-to-one game. Are we major League baseball players here? Are we contending for a World Series or are we just happy with the small victories, so to speak? And I'm all for having something and keeping some of the fun, but I even think in some of the moves you saw them make. I think maybe they're trying to get some more seriousness on the team or some more veteran attitude maybe in the team. I'm all for having fun, but when you're committing errors in the field and when you're not changing your approach at the plate, something has to be done.

Claire Buchanan:
I honestly... I think we still have some really fun guys in the team. Bo, you like...

Josh Watson:
Oh, for sure.

Claire Buchanan:
We still have the core that we're wanting to stick with, and that core is very young, has a lot to learn, but brings that fun to the team. And I'm hoping that it brings out a good balance of both and yeah, like you said, Josh, they can still celebrate those in those ways, but maybe it doesn't happen during the game. Maybe that happens when they're back in the locker room and then you get to point out individual successes throughout the team and have it as a more professional way without always trying to be flashy and just be a little more focused when it's game time.

Brock Richardson:
Couldn't agree with you both more. We've had a great show and that puts a wrap on today's show. I'd like to thank Josh Watson, Claire Buchanan. I'd also like to thank Jordan Steves, who has been our technical producer. For today, our regular technical producer is Mark Aflalo. Tune in next week because you just never know what happens when you enter the Neutral Zone. Be safe, be well, and we'll talk to you next week.