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The Neutral Zone

Brock Richardson and his panel of sports experts engage in a lively roundtable discussion about Parasports and professional sports news and newsmakers.

The Neutral Zone

Brock Richardson and his panel of sports experts engage in a lively roundtable discussion about Parasports and professional sports news and newsmakers.

Sports is Truly Family - April 4, 2023

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Are you ready?

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Let's go. From AMI Central.

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Now start playing in The Neutral Zone.

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Here's a pitch on the way. 36 yards for the win.

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This ...

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Here comes a big chance. The shot ...

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Is ...

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Is this the tiger?

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The Neutral Zone.

Speaker 7:
Oh. Oh, my God.

Speaker 8:
This is as good as it gets.

Speaker 2:
Now, here's your host, two-time Paralympian Brock Richardson.

Brock Richardson:
I strongly think that [inaudible 00:00:30] should start the podcast when he tells us we have five seconds to say our piece and get started because I was flipping through my screens and I watched everybody like finally adjust themselves, including myself. It was like, okay, we're doing this now, but it'd be kind of amusing to watch us all kind of finally adjust as we appear to do this program and as we appear to you in live and in person.
Joining me today is Claire Buchanan and Cam Jenkins. I want to tell you that coming up on today's show, we're going to be releasing our first interview that we did or I did at the Canadian Paralympic Committee Summit. That is Zak Madell, who is a Wheelchair Rugby player, so you're going to get that on today's show. Plus, we're going to be talking about a recent deal that the CBC and the CPC, Canadian Paralympic Committee, reached for the next two Paralympic games. We're going to dissect the pros and the cons and everything in between. With that, let's get into our headlines for this week.

Speaker 10:
Neutral Zone headlines, headlines, headlines.

Claire Buchanan:
So Zak Madell actually just won MVP at the recent Vancouver Invitational, and now following that tournament, Wheelchair Rugby will hold their selection camp and will have an opportunity to have an open practice both on the 5th and 6th of April, and it will be held at the Richmond Olympic Oval in Richmond BC and the open practices will be held from 2:00 till 4:00 PM Pacific Time. So you can go out and check out and see how Team Canada is forming and practicing this year, and get some public eyes out onto the national team this year.

Brock Richardson:
Canadian Tennis star Bianca Andreescu will be out for an indefinite amount of time with two torn ligaments in her left ankle. She took to her social media saying that she would like to return back, but she is taking it day to day and she will be back on the court when all goes well, and she hopes it is sooner rather than later.
When you see an injury such as this one, it can be jarring. She had said in a previous game that she had won in the Miami Open that she was feeling better than ever and in good spirits, and then unfortunately this happened. We wish Bianca nothing but the best and we can't wait to see her on the courts sometime in the near future.

Cam Jenkins:
Canadian men's soccer team recently defeated Honduras in a four-nothing final, which means they qualify for the CONCACAF semi-final, which will take place later in June.

Brock Richardson:
A big congratulations goes out to our very own Claire Buchanan and Josh Watson as they both competed in Champions Day for Para Ice Hockey. Claire won the gold medal with her team, the Durham Steelhawks, and she scored the winning goal, while Josh Watson participated with his [inaudible 00:03:42] and he was the goaltender of that team. Congratulations to you both and such a proud, proud thing to be a part of your journey in Para Ice Hockey.
Those are your headlines for this week. I thought for today I would choose the chat topic as something that I've noticed with the MLB and one of the more underrated rules is the fact that the managers only get 15 seconds between when the play is over till they get to decide when or if they want to challenge any given play. I believe that this gets rid of the ticky-tac calls where it's like, "Oh, did his finger release off the bag by a centimetre and therefore he is out?" I do not think that this is why the review was created. I think it was for those more obvious and egregious calls. What says both of you regarding this? Cameron, start with you.

Cam Jenkins:
It's nice they only have a certain amount of time to look at the play because otherwise, you could be spending five minutes on looking at a play on whether or not the person was out or not. So, I'm glad that there is a time limit on it. However, you want to get the play right, at the end of the day, so as long as you get the play right and then if the person's out, even if it is, as you called it, a ticky-tac play, I think people just really want to get the call right.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, I think that is across all sports. I mean, you see it in baseball right now in multiple ways that they're trying to cut down time on how long these baseball games are going, and you can see in other sports, for example, the NHL, if you're going to challenge a call or want to look at a play that just happened, you're not going to get that much time to make a decision, and it's nice that, with a game like baseball, that right now is stretching anywhere around three hours, is they're making sure that they're taking the time to put into detail of, again, making the right play. You have to make sure the right play is being called, at the end of the day. But yeah, I'm glad they're speeding things up a bit and kind of speeding the game up.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, I noticed that too. I think I saw it today on social media that the average game, I think last year, was around three hours and some odd minutes, and right now it's two hours and 30-some odd minutes, so it seems to be working, especially with the pitch clock, to make the game not as long.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah. So both of you must have been looking at my computer screen because I posted this a few minutes ago, and through the first four games, the average game in 2022 was three hours, nine minutes, and through the first four games in 2023 it is two hours and 38 minutes. So, that definitely takes some time off the clock.
The Blue Jays didn't want to play nice in their first game. It was still over a four-hour game with the pitch clock. I was going on my morning hits and saying, "Thanks, pitch clock, because you really negated the time there." I still spent four hours watching it, but every other game since has been in that realm.
But I do think overall the intent of the rule was not to get rid of those ticky-tac calls. I do think it was more for the egregious, but I agree with both of you. It is important to get the call right, and so at some point I do think we're going to see an adjustment made throughout the time, and I think it's something new that's going on, and they'll tweak it over time and get it right because, at the end of it all, we just want the right calls to be made on the field. What we want you to do now is get ahold of us on social media. Here's how you can do it.

Speaker 13:
And welcome back to The Neutral Zone AMI Broadcast Booth.

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Play ball.

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And we are set to get this ballgame underway, the first pitch brought to you by Brock Richardson's Twitter account, @neutralzonebr.

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Strike.

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First pitch, strike, and hey, gang, why not strike up a Twitter chat with Claire Buchanan for The Neutral Zone? Find her @NeutralZoneCB, 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.

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Out.

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For a routine out. And fans, there is nothing routine about connecting with Cam and Josh from The Neutral Zone, @NeutralZoneCamJ and @JWatson200. Now, that's a winning combination. And this organ interlude is brought to you by AMI Audio on Twitter, get in touch with The Neutral Zone. Type in @AMIaudio.

Brock Richardson:
Recently I sat down with Zak Madell who is a Wheelchair Rugby player for Canada and he's from Okotoks, Alberta, and the first question I asked him when we sat down for this conversation was, I understand you were an Uber driver, can you tell us a little bit about that? Please enjoy the interview.
Zak, my understanding is that you were at one point an Uber driver, if not still are, but can you tell us about that?

Zak Madell:
I'm not still currently an Uber driver. However, after I took some time out from rugby in 2016 and I was waiting for my school to start in 2017, I had a lot of free time to kill, still had some bills to pay, and so I thought, "Why not try driving Uber?" I love driving around. The flexible schedule was great, and just chit-chatting with new people, meeting new people, talking to them was a great time. So, I quite enjoyed it, and I got a new vehicle now, so I might get back into it here if I've got a little free time in the near future.

Brock Richardson:
Coolest person you've driven, most memorable, hit me with.

Zak Madell:
Ooh, there was a few interesting stories. I had a couple of CFL players I would be driving around. Those would be the most notable. Everybody would ... I mean, I had a few times where you don't even know the person and you're almost like an unofficial psychologist where sometimes they'd come in and just vent, and I would hear some crazy stories about their day or what they did over the weekend because there's somebody that doesn't know them, you'll never see them again, and sometimes you just have to offload. So I heard some wild stories over the years, but it was always interesting.

Brock Richardson:
Was there ever, and obviously you don't need to go into great detail here, but was there ever a moment where you're just like, "Wow, way too much information on that, and I didn't need to know that"?

Zak Madell:
There's a few times people overshared, but I didn't mind because it was entertaining for me, and if they needed somebody to talk to and I was that ear for them to talk into, I was happy to do it. And for me, it was kind of like watching a sitcom oftentimes or a soap opera or something where just being a part of the drama was entertaining, if nothing else.

Brock Richardson:
And then when you get to the credits point of it's like, "Ah, it's over."

Zak Madell:
Exactly. There was times where they'd be in the middle of a story and we'd get to the destination, and I wanted to hear the rest of it, but obviously couldn't keep the meter running or they had places to be, so.

Brock Richardson:
Let's talk about your Wheelchair Rugby career. How did it get started for you?

Zak Madell:
So, initially, going way back, I had my amputations in 2004 due to a staph infection to my fingers and both legs below the knee, and so as soon as possible, sport was a big part of my life before the amputations and so it only made sense to have sport in my life afterwards. So I started off in sledge hockey as soon as possible. Unfortunately, holding onto a hockey stick without fingers, not the easiest, holding onto two hockey sticks playing sledge hockey, even more of a challenge, so a lot of duct tape involved there.
And so that's when I went on to Wheelchair Basketball, played that for a few years, competed with Team Alberta at two Canada Games in Halifax and Prince George in 2015, but I found Wheelchair Rugby in February of 2011. I'd been recruited. Some athletes that were competing in both basketball and rugby had reached out to me and thought that I might be a good fit, and so went and tried it for the first time February of 2011. Fell in love with the sport immediately, the fast-paced, the hard-hitting intensity, just everything about it immediately drew me in and here we are 12 years later.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, it's funny how time flies and you just look back and you're, "Wow, I've been doing this ..." Wheelchair basketball, it's kind of similar. There are probably some transferrable skills. Have you taken basketball skills into rugby in some form, and if so, what are they and how would you say they've moulded together?

Zak Madell:
That definitely expedited the learning process. I mean, the chair skills are very similar. The fact that it's a team sport on a basketball court, your spacing, a lot of that carries over, so there's a lot of skills that cross over that way, and so I think that helped with my transition into rugby where I came in with some of the skillset required to be an athlete in our sport. And so we didn't have to start quite at the basics, so it definitely shortened the learning curve.

Brock Richardson:
At the last Paralympic games you had an average of 27 tries per game. Tell me about that, and is that when you know that things are going well? Is there a certain number you go, "If I hit this today then I know I'm on the right path"?

Zak Madell:
I don't know that I'm too worried about individual stats. I mean, some games you might have to pass more because you're being double or triple covered and somebody else is open. Other games, people might not be covering you as tightly, so you're the one scoring the tries, but I mean, it doesn't matter to me if I have one try or I have every try, as long as our team's ahead of them on the score sheet at the end of the day and everyone's doing their job, that's all that really matters.

Brock Richardson:
I tried this with one of your teammates in a previous interview and I'm going to try it again with you. Burning rubber. Whenever I go into a rugby game, I smell the burning rubber. If I walk into a venue and I smell burning rubber, does it mean something? Are you guys on the right path If we're smelling burning rubber?

Zak Madell:
I think that's the sign of a pretty heated game out there. People are going to be ... Yeah, it's going to be high intensity, probably hard-hitting because sometimes it's not because your wheels are spinning, it's because you're getting hit and you're sliding sideways and you're skidding along the floor to release those odours from the tires.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, I just think it's kind of like sweat equity. If you smell, then you've obviously worked hard enough to accomplish what you want to and I think that-

Zak Madell:
Yeah, nobody wants to be in a good-smelling locker room after a game.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah.

Zak Madell:
That's part of-

Brock Richardson:
No, thank you. Listen, I know that the Parapan Am Games is of importance to you guys, and this is the next step in the qualification process, and as the quadrennial kind of nears its point where either you qualify or you don't, how do you not view that as pressure versus motivation?

Zak Madell:
There's definitely some pressure there. I'd like to not think about that or let it get to me too much, but knowing that there's that one spot available to secure a position in the Paris Paralympics, I think some of the guys might feel that, but at the same time, if we don't perform there, there will be a secondary qualifying opportunity.
Ideally, we'd like to just get it done right the first time, win that tournament, and then we've got so much more clarity in what our schedule looks like moving forwards to Paris, whereas if we don't win there, then sometimes it's a last minute where they decide on where the games are going to be held for that last minute qualifier or when they're going to be, and so in that season you're trying to peak a lot close ... You're going to have two major tournaments next year that we'd be peaking for, so we just want to go down to Chile, hopefully, punch that ticket to Paris, and then we can sit back and focus on the big tournament.

Brock Richardson:
In your mind, you've been on the team for 12 years, as you mentioned. What's happening with Wheelchair Rugby where things are a little unsettling right now? Where do you see the room for growth in what's happening within the walls of the team?

Zak Madell:
I think something that we're realizing and starting to prioritize is recruitment and development, because we certainly aren't the youngest team these days on the international stage. In Canada, we don't have the largest player pool, athlete pool, to draw from and so we're now trying to figure out where we can find new athletes to get involved, how we can find younger athletes so we can start developing them at a younger age, and get some more sustainable or longer careers out of them.

Brock Richardson:
Does that concern you, as a guy who's been on the team for 12 years and you see this, we're moving towards the younger generation, or does that just give you more motivation to say, "No, I want to compete with these young guns and it's going to keep my youth alive for a longer period of time"?

Zak Madell:
I don't know that it concerns me, but I definitely agree that if we had some fresh blood or younger guys up and coming that it might motivate the older veterans on the team, as well knowing that their spot might not be as secure. Not that we're not training hard already. I mean, we're training for each other as is and keeping each other accountable, but I think it would make everybody step their game up to the next level if we just had a larger pool of athletes fighting for those limited roster spots.

Brock Richardson:
I think the easy answer in sport, whether ParaSport or mainstream, when things aren't going well is coaching staff. Does there need to be a change there? Can you tell me in your own words why or why not you think that's necessary at the moment?

Zak Madell:
That is a bit of a touchy topic. We actually just recently made a slight shift to our coaching staff after our world championships, so we haven't really had have any ... We don't have any data to collect so far on how that's going to look moving forward. We haven't had any tournaments or anything. So I guess only time will tell there, but I think we're heading in the right direction and we're only heading for bigger and better things.

Brock Richardson:
One thing that I want to get in here is, he's been a teammate of yours for probably a little while, and some news came out a little while ago that Shayne Smith is going through some health stuff. What has Shane meant to you personally and to the organization of Canada Rugby and Wheelchair Rugby?

Zak Madell:
Oh, I think everybody just wants the best for Shayne. I mean, personally I've known him since long before either one of us have played rugby. We grew up together in The War Amps CHAMPs program, and so we go way back. We played basketball against each other before we both played rugby.
But at this point, all rugby aside, everybody on the team just wants him to get us, get healthy as soon as possible. We're all thinking of him, thoughts and prayers out to him and the family, and he's still been in touch with the team. He knows that Wheelchair Rugby Canada is a family and if he ever needs somebody to talk to, he can reach out to any one of us and we'll be there to support him however we can.

Brock Richardson:
Do you feel any extra, I can't think of a different word, but do you feel any extra pressure because you've known Shayne for a long time and you've been with him on two sport, do you feel any extra pressure to leave the door even more open because of your relationship?

Zak Madell:
I don't think there's any pressure there. I think he knows that I'm there for him whenever he needs, and like I said, he hasn't been shy to reach out and make a phone call. If he's having a tough day, which is going to happen, he can sit there, and if he just wants someone to vent too, we'll be there. If you want somebody to distract you and just chit-chat and talk about something different to get your mind off things too, I mean, I think we'd all be happy to do that for him.

Brock Richardson:
What does he bring to the team that you're going to miss while he goes through this recovery?

Zak Madell:
Oh, Shayne is an energy guy. Things are going to be a little quieter without him around. He's always the loudest one on the bench cheering for us, or when he is on the court, he is the first one to get fired up when we get a turnover or score a big goal at the end of the quarter. So we're all going to have to, I think, take that on ourselves to up our energy to make up for his absence.

Brock Richardson:
Wheelchair rugby games have shorter quarters, which means you're putting it all out on the line quicker. What value does the shorter quarters give you that you wouldn't have if it was longer, and subsequently, do you wish it was longer?

Zak Madell:
I do not wish it was longer. I think an eight-minute rugby quarter is misleading because the clock does stop every time there is a goal or it goes out of bounds or whatever it is, so it usually ends up taking about 15 minutes probably for a quarter, and by that point, if you've been playing that whole quarter, everybody's a little tuckered out and out of breath, so it's nice having those couple minutes to come off and get some water and recover as quickly as you can and then get back out there for the next eight minutes.

Brock Richardson:
Finish my sentence. If I could accomplish blank in my career, I'd be happy.

Zak Madell:
If I win a Paralympic gold medal in my career, I would be very happy.

Brock Richardson:
Have you accomplished your personal goal with today's summit, and if so, what was that goal?

Zak Madell:
I hope so. I think my goal is always just to spread awareness for ParaSport. If there's anybody out there that's thinking about trying it, I just urge you to not hesitate. If there's a sport nearby, I'm sure you can find a program that would be happy to have you come out and play. That's all it really is, is the more people we can get out and active that are at home with disabilities, I think the better. Whether you want to be a recreational player and just come out and have fun or be the next Canadian Paralympian, I just urge you that if you want to try it, don't be shy. We'd be happy to have you.

Brock Richardson:
Is the nickname of Wheelchair Rugby murder ball, misleading?

Zak Madell:
I think it can be an accurate depiction of our sport. I think that name can be a little bit intimidating for some, so we've kind of not steered away from it. It's still used, especially within the Wheelchair Rugby community, I think. But just as far as growing our sport, we decided to go with Wheelchair Rugby, and although it's unlike any other kind of rugby, the community, it still has that same feel I think.

Brock Richardson:
That was Zak Madell, who is a Wheelchair Rugby athlete from Okotoks, Alberta, and we sat down at the 2023 Canadian Paralympic Committee Summit. If you like what you heard, please get ahold of us by voicemail. Here's how you can do it.

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Hey, if you want to leave a message for The Neutral Zone, call now, 1-866-509-4545, and don't forget to give us permission to use your message on the air. Let's get ready to leave a voicemail.

Brock Richardson:
From time to time, rather, more often than not, we run out of time on the program, and last week that was the case. And one of the topics I wanted to bring up was about our headline and the fact that the Canadian Paralympic Committee and the CBC have come to an agreement for the next two Paralympic games, and they would be the rights holders. I'm talking about Paris 2024 and Italy 2026. Let's talk a little bit more in-depth about this. First, let's start with what we like about this deal. Claire, start with you.

Claire Buchanan:
I mean, plain and simple that it exists and that it's happening. Yes, we don't want to ask for the bare minimum, but to have a broadcasting company like that wanting to share and broadcast the Paralympic games for the next two cycles at least is amazing, and it's good to see the progress from previous Paralympic games and the growth and the exposure of the games and the athletes because, I mean, we all know that Para-athletes trained just as hard and just as committed as the Olympic athletes and we deserve the same coverage.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah. It's great that we're going to have coverage. I'm glad it's going to be on CBC. With where it's going to be, depending on the hours that they have the Paralympic coverage on, because when they go over to Paris, there's a time difference, things like that I'm curious about to see how that's going to go. But it is great that it's on CBC. CBC has been a loyal partner of the Canadian Paralympic Committee now I would say for at least a few Paralympic cycles, and it seems to be getting more and more coverage, and now online as well. A lot of it you can see on the CBC Sports online, so it's kind of nice that you can watch it in live time now, because before it used to be just a highlight show and that's it.
So, they are moving forward and that's a good thing, and let's hope they keep moving forward and keep getting a lot more coverage and maybe in primetime. So those are the positives of the deal, having more coverage on TV than ever before and online than ever before as well. So to me, those are the main advantages.

Brock Richardson:
When I first started my Paralympic journey, it was in 2008, and there was a 12-hour time difference between Canada and Beijing, and CBC was the right holders then, along with the Canadian Paralympic Committee, and there was limited coverage and everybody used the reason of, "Well, it's a time difference. Well, it's a time difference," you know? And so everyone accepted that, even though I don't think we should have, and they said, "We promise to be better in the future."
Then when I moved along to 2012 when we were in London, that was the best coverage that I had seen, had heard of, because not only was it on televisions, it was on the BBC, and they also had their own disability channel, which covered a lot of the games itself, but it was also on in the village where you could literally pick a channel from each sport and you could watch whatever the live stream was for each sport.
That was the beginning of what I believe CBC saw there in the village, which didn't necessarily translate into live coverage, but that was the beginning where the CBC thought to themselves, "Wow, we can actually do this. There are athletes who are watching other sports that they don't really participate in," and all was well.
Then when we went into Rio in 2016, that was when we didn't ... We removed the midnight coverage, only the midnight coverage when most of the people in the Eastern Time Zone are sleeping, and it really didn't matter. That's when we started to see the changeover to the online realm of things, and I think CBC really started to learn a little bit of their lessons, and we've gone better and better, but there is still room for improvement. And I know we all have a lot to say on the room to improvement piece. Let's start with Cameron on the room to improve. What would you say?

Cam Jenkins:
Well, life is all about the almighty dollar, and at the end of the day, the CPC ... CPC, sorry, CBC and CPC sounds a lot similar, but CPC, they end up have to get more marketing dollars and get more businesses involved, so therefore they can put on a bigger on TV and have it more hours throughout the day. And without that corporate sponsorship to be able to do that, it's going to be online, and it's going to be probably just an hour highlight show on CBC until they can get more sponsorship money, because money talks. If CBC is going to put it on the TV, they're going to need ad sponsors to be able to do it, and right now there just isn't enough. So somehow, they have to get corporate businesses to believe and to really enjoy the Paralympic experience, and it's just not there yet.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, you touched on it really well, Brock. London was like a turning point in terms of the exposure and how the games were covered. The UK has come a long way and I think is further than us right now in terms of how they promote and put the exposure towards their athletes is they invest in them. It's on the BBC, and it's in primetime, and they're putting the money into advertisements and the lead up to and getting that excitement going for Paralympic athletes and the Paralympic games, and yeah, Canada just hasn't scratched that surface yet of true advertising for Paralympic athletes specifically.
Yes, there are ... You see Gatorade commercials with a small glimpse of a Para Hockey athlete here and there, but there's no true advertising that is just focused on Para-athletes, and right there is, that's a big gap to get people excited about the Paralympic games.
I know when I have conversations with people in the able-body world that, yes, they kind of know that ParaSport exist and stuff, but they haven't truly seen high performance Para-athletes compete, and that's just because we haven't invested the right amount of money and time and resources into getting Para-athletes into the media. We do it right here on a weekly basis trying to get it out there as much as we can, and that's what we try to do here with our show, and it's something that we need to see more of is more people having more conversations about Paralympic athletes and how exciting the games are. Yeah, I think, I mean, London was a true testament of like ... It set the bar, and I think we haven't reached that bar yet here in Canada.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, I think we need to get somebody from the BBC, or I know, I think her name is Stephanie Reed, I believe she ended up doing some media for the BBC to find out what it is about the UK that it's such a big thing and they're able to put it on primetime and have all of this advertising behind it because some of the advertisements that they've come out with has been phenomenal, and I'm trying to remember one of the commercials, but I can't remember it right now off the top of my head obviously, but they've been phenomenal. And in Germany, they have a packed arena or a packed gym watching Wheelchair Basketball, so what is it about those areas that they're able to do it, but here in Canada we're not?

Claire Buchanan:
Well, that's the thing, like you said, cam, it's money. Not only sports, but in the UK, people with disabilities are just, they have more resources in the UK. Hand controls and catheters and financial support that's ... Through having conversations with people that live in the UK, you really get a sense of they're just, they're putting more support into the disabled community as a whole.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah. And the corporate sponsors are too, and that's the big thing because corporate sponsors have to do that in order for it to thrive.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, absolutely.

Brock Richardson:
And I actually also think, and I'm sorry if anyone's listening from Canada and views this as a direct shot, but I also think there's a different level of belief in the athletes from different parts of the world. We're using UK as the example because we all believe that UK is the leader in this, but I do believe that there is a stronger belief system in what those athletes can do, and those athletes can do the same thing that Canadian athletes can do.
They can do it well, but the thing is, when you're on the ground, as I was back in 2012, I realized then in London that those athletes were treated like celebrities. Those athletes were desired to be spoken to. Yes, the CBC was there. Yes, they were, but they picked and chose what they wanted to cover and how they wanted to cover it, because of the dollars we all speak of, whereas it felt like to me that the BBC and all of that, they desired those athletes to be front and center, and I remember looking at it then and thinking, "Wow, if we could only get a half of what these guys are getting, we would be somewhere."
My other sort of thought for critiques is the Canadian Paralympic Committee and the CBC need to broaden their sports that they do. We know that they cover Wheelchair Basketball, we know that they cover Goalball from time to time. They need to cover the broad scale of sports, because people are going to be drawn to the ones that they know, which is part of the marketing strategy as to why they do what they do. Yes, that's not untrue, but I believe if you gave the broader scale of the events, this would be better served for you.
And again, do I recognize, Claire, that this is the bottom dollar talking? Yes, because they have to put their money where they believe they're going to get the most bang for their buck, but if they broadened out their showing and the showcase of all the sports rather than pigeonholing one, two, three, four sports that people can connect to, that would be a big difference as well.

Claire Buchanan:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You tune into the Paralympic Games and you think that there's only four or five sports going on because you're right, we don't get the exposure for the sports that aren't "more popular", and I think one of the benefits moving forward with broadcasting and the way that we watch and tune into sports now is that streaming can be a big benefit. A lot of people are moving away from cable, and I know for myself, the last two Paralympics, I watched them primarily on CBC Gem, and moving forward I think that's just how people are going to tune into sports in general, and especially the Paralympic and Olympic Games in Canada. CBC Gem is going to be a big platform that just is going to get bigger and bigger.
And so I really hope that they tap into that and fully tap into what that opens up for them, because they can show more sports in primetime I think without having to have those bigger contracts with, say, cable companies and they can spread out the money wider and kind of invest in more ways of seeing more coverage of the Paralympic Games and not just one little piece of it, because that's getting shown right now is you see the Wheelchair Basketball tournament and you see the hockey tournaments, but you don't see all these other exciting sports that, in any other format, you wouldn't see them.

Brock Richardson:
And the stories that go along with it.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, exactly, and the stories. That's what we are doing right now and that's kind of what we live and breathe is we love hearing the stories behind the athletes and how they got there and-

Cam Jenkins:
And that's changing too. Devin Heroux, friend of the show.

Claire Buchanan:
Exactly, yeah.

Cam Jenkins:
He is doing a phenomenal job in regards to Paralympic athletes or Paralympics or just being able to tell those stories, and he's a really good storyteller. And you made a great point about CBC Gem, I forgot about that with the last Paralympics, they had different things that you could watch at the same time, so you could turn on skiing and shooting, whatever they call that. I'm sorry, I don't remember what it's called, but I remember watching a bit of that on CBC Gem for the Winter Paralympics, and some of the other moguls and so on and so forth. So, CBC Gem, I think they are really going towards the Paralympics and they are showing different sports at the end of the day, so.

Brock Richardson:
I think where I sort of got a little bit disappointed, and before I let you guys in, I'm just going to put it all out here. I think we saw the announcement, we all went, "Okay, this is good," but the first question somebody asked me on my Facebook post is, "Will we get equal coverage?" And the answer to that person right now is, in my mind, unequivocally no. I think we're looking for improvement. I don't think it's going to jump from five hours a day to 12 hours a day within one or two games. I do think we're looking for improvement.
I think where I got a little bit disappointed, guys, was where it was like, "Oh, we made this deal," but then there was nothing attached to it. There was nothing like, "We're going to declare that we're going to do, instead of five hours a day, we're going to do eight, we're going to do six, we're going to do seven." I needed more from that press release that I did not get, and I think they could have taken the time, even if they took another six, seven months to put out this deal and they knew that it was being done, I think where it would've had a little more weight to it is if you said, "We're going to increase our hours, and plain and simple, and this is where we are going to be," instead of leaving us with questions other than to recognize where we're going to be able to get the content, because I don't think that was very secretive. I think we knew CBC was going to do it. It was just a matter of how many hours, and that's the big question, Cameron.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, and of course they probably don't want to commit to that number, especially on a press release because then they end up having to do that number. So it probably will come out at some point in time because I'm sure CBC wants to really promote it and let people know when they're going to be able to watch it.
I hope they have some live events on actual CBC, even if it's on a weekend, but like I think we've all surmised, it's probably going to be the big sports. So for the Summer Olympics, it might be the Wheelchair Racing. For the Winter Olympics, it's always the Para Ice Hockey. So I hope that they get some other events in there, and I hope that they're able to up the coverage, because I think a lot of people are starting to get interested in it. And like I keep saying, it all comes back to the corporate sponsorships.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, my big question, I mean, we have two big questions is the what, like what are the hours that we're going to get with coverage? But my biggest question is, why not equal? What are the barriers that we have right now that are restricting them from making those contracts equal? I-

Cam Jenkins:
As far as showing the same amount of hours for the-

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, like why are we still in this position of, "Oh, okay."

Cam Jenkins:
It's because of the corporate sponsorship.

Claire Buchanan:
We're not going to get the bare minimum, but we're going to give you just a little bit more of an improvement, but why can't we make that jump to, you know what? [inaudible 00:43:00].

Cam Jenkins:
Well, the corporations, they have to pony up just like they do for the Olympics and put in money for the Paralympics, and they're not doing that right now because they're putting most of their advertising dollars towards the Olympics. So, in a perfect world, yeah, we'd be seen as equals and you'd have just as much coverage. However, that's not reality, and hopefully it becomes reality, but until you get the corporate dollars to be able to pay for all of the advertising to be on primetime and during the day, unfortunately, it's not going to happen.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, I mean, why-

Brock Richardson:
Closed captioning sponsored by X, we're not getting that as much with the Paralympic games. We're getting two, maybe three, as opposed to 12, 13. I mean, that's a big difference. And even if each individual, and again, I'm just surmising out there, even if each individual gave a million dollars, you're talking about four or five million versus 12 or 13 million dollars, and you better believe that some of those places are giving more than the million dollars. I was just looking at it more of a equal number, and if there's only eight sponsors for the Paralympics but 13 for the Olympics, well, there's your discrepancy right there.
And I say it in jest, "Closed captioning brought to you by," but that is the truth. Those are the phrases you want to hear, and what you want to see, and you guys touched on it earlier, what you want to see is more faces for a longer period of time. None of this, "Oh, there was a Para Ice Hockey in the back of that advertisement, we promise," and it is getting better, but we need to see more of the forefront, "We're proud of this, we're happy," as opposed to the feeling that I still get left with, "We have to do this because we need to show improvement."

Cam Jenkins:
Well, and as well, you also have to look at it because when a corporation sponsors the Paralympics, they might not put in as many dollars as the Olympics because advertising during ... you're going to have a lot more eyes, so the advertising's going to cost a lot more. With the Paralympics, that same advertising may not cost as much, but when you look at what they're already putting on TV, so I think on CBC, they have Murdoch Mysteries as an example. So, what's the advertising dollars that they get for putting on Murdoch Mysteries compared to what the advertising dollars they would get from a Paralympics and having that on for a couple of hours? And if Murdoch Mysteries brings in more money or more advertising dollars, they're going to end up putting on Murdoch Mysteries.

Claire Buchanan:
Well, I mean, we're in this vicious cycle of we're not getting the viewership because no one's watching, but no one's watching because we're not promoting. So in this vicious cycle of ... Something needs to change, and I think like what I was trying to say is, yes, there's more money and more sponsors in the Olympic Games, but why aren't these investors going to these companies and saying, "Hey, we want to make a change. Do you want to add equal investment into broadcasting for or advertising for the Olympics and the Paralympic games?" Why are companies and investors still having these conversations that only revolve around able-bodied athletes? Why isn't that conversation changing?

Cam Jenkins:
Well, and it comes down to numbers because that's each individual, like the Paralympic Committee, each country's Paralympic Committee, and if the advertisers say, "Okay, well, we're only going to have a thousand people watch at the Paralympics, but we're going to have three million people watch for the Olympics," that's why they're not doing it because they're like, "Okay, well, if we put advertising dollars equal and we're only going to have a thousand people watching, the cost or the return on investment just isn't there."

Claire Buchanan:
Maybe not right away, but the viewership can't grow with if it's not being shown. We just witnessed that with the NCA basketball tournament. The viewership for the women's tournament was almost triple that of the men's team, the men's program, tournament, sorry. And that's just because they're putting more money into showing women's sports and they're realizing there's a big investment that can bring a profit.

Cam Jenkins:
Well, I think with that, it's also social media where you have a lot of women advocating, and I'll use the word feminism in there as well, to be able to get more people watching that. And men as well, they're like, "You know what? The women's game is just as good, so I'm going to watch it as well." And we're just not there with the Paralympics yet, but we've got to get that conversation in shows like this, keep going, to be able to get people to realize that it's great to watch the Paralympics and maybe try to get it that way.

Brock Richardson:
The challenge here that I see, which is what Claire is getting at, but I also understand where Cameron's coming from too. You cannot tell me that the very first Olympic Games that they decided to put on television and have 12 hours of coverage, you cannot tell me for a second that they actually made money off of those events. I could stand to be corrected, but I would bet my last dollar that they didn't make as much money as they thought they should have.
And so with the Paralympics, I think if you sold it as, "Look at these stories, look at this, take a chance," if you took the chance, I believe wholeheartedly, unless all of the people in my world, your world, and everybody else is lying to me and saying, "If it was more accessible, I would watch it." Claire, is that what ... I'm pretty sure that's what you're getting at here in this conversation.

Claire Buchanan:
Yes, absolutely, is access, access to actually be able to just watch the sports. And Cam, you said it very well, that we need the advocacy, and that's what I'm talking about with these companies and these individuals that are coming to businesses and sponsors with an able-bodied mindset, but having those conversations so that the way that they approach things, they want to involve disabled athletes in their pitches and their advertising because they realize that there is a value to it, and there is a value.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, no, there is a value to it, but most businesses they think just by the dollar sign. So, getting that access to it and putting that on TV, most businesses aren't going to do that unless they think a lot of people are going to buy their product because of it. So, it'd be great to have the access, but without those dollars to get the access, it's a vicious circle.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, no, I realize that it looks like I-

Cam Jenkins:
And I want the CBC to talk to BBC or talk to the UK ParaSports to see how they've done it because maybe there's some special potion or elixir or something that they've been able to do it that way, but they need to be able to talk to other countries that it's working and really do a deep dive into it to do research to figure out how we can change it here in Canada.

Brock Richardson:
It takes one simple thing to do. Are you always going to get a yes on it? No, you're not. What you have to do is you have to go to the organization and simply ask and ask and ask again.
I went to the Canadian Paralympic Committee Summit as an athlete, and I went as a broadcaster, which now, over the next number of months, you're going to get the opportunity to see those interviews. I went to AMI and I said, "Hey, I'd like to do this to put the great content on The Neutral Zone and other platforms down the line." And they took a flyer on us as the show and they said, "Oh, sure, let's do this." And I believe, as I'm tipping my own cap here, I believe in the end they're going to be very happy with what comes out of it, and it's all about taking that chance and saying, "Can you do this? Do you want to do this?" And that's where it begins. Quick final thoughts from both of you, starting with Cameron and finishing with Claire.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, I really hope ... Like we've moved forward with this, a lot further than we've ever been before, and it's just going to keep moving further as well. So, I think we're going to get to a point where it's going to be on TV or it's going to be on CBC, whether it's Gem or regular CBC, and we're going to get more coverage. It's just going to take some more time and to keep advocating and to keep asking businesses, and eventually it will happen.

Claire Buchanan:
A lot of great things, both in sport and outside of sport, have come from taking a chance and doing something that you've never done before, and I think now is the time. I know we have a contract now for the next two Paralympic cycles, but I think there's still room that they can maybe take those chances and take those "risks" that might turn into something really great, and I think London showed that when you take a risk and take a chance on something like the Paralympic Games and the Paralympic athletes, you're going to get rewarded at the end of the day.

Brock Richardson:
You have to walk before you run, and I think we are walking, we're just not running yet at this moment in time. And sometimes you got to take yourself out of the comfort zone that you're in to see success, because I know for this program, we have been out of our comfort zone many, many times, and we are still here, and we were recently declared the best ParaSports podcast, and that's due to hard work and belief in what we've done as a show and as an organization as a whole. So, just take the risk, I promise it will work out.
That is the end of our show for this week. I'd like to thank Claire Buchanan, Cam Jenkins. I'd also like to thank [inaudible 00:54:27], who is our technical producer, and Ryan Delehanty is our podcast coordinator. Tune in next week because you just never know what happens when you enter The Neutral Zone.