Small Town Success - June 20, 2023

Speaker 1:
Are you ready? Let's go.

Speaker 2:
From AMI Central.

Speaker 3:
Now circling in the neutral zone.

Speaker 4:
Here's the pitch on the way. 36 yards for the win.

Speaker 5:
Here comes the big chance, the shot.

Speaker 6:
Is this the tagger?

Speaker 2:
This is The Neutral Zone.

Speaker 5:
Goal.

Speaker 7:
This is as good as it gets.

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

Brock Richardson:
What's going on? It's time for another edition of The Neutral Zone. I am indeed your host, Brock Richardson. Coming up on today's show, we release another interview from the Canadian Paralympic Committee Summit. Today we hear from Meghan Mahon, who is a Canadian goalball athlete from Timmins, Ontario. We also talk about the concept of whether professional athletes can run out of gas during a championship run. I'm joined by Josh Watson. Let's get into our headlines.

Speaker 1:
The Neutral Zone headlines.

Josh Watson:
The Vegas Golden Knights win their first championship in NHL history and only their sixth year in the league. We also congratulate Jonathan Marchessault for winning the Most Valuable Player in the NHL Stanley Cup final. One cool fact about him. He is one of the original six members of the Vegas Golden Knights to still be a part of the team. Congratulations, Vegas. It was a really exciting series.
Moving on to the NBA, the Denver Nuggets win the NBA Championship for the first time in franchise history. Along with winning the championship, Nikola Jokic wins the MVP in the NBA final.

Brock Richardson:
Former assistant GM for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Jason Spezza, will be joining the Pittsburgh Penguins. Why that's significant is because Kyle Dubas is the director of hockey operations now in Pittsburgh. Old friends reunite. Best of luck in Pittsburgh to both of you.

Josh Watson:
Toronto Raptors star point guard, Fred VanVleet has decided to decline his $22.8 million player option for the upcoming 2023/2024 season. This will mean that as of July 1st he will become a free agent. According to some in the know, there is still an opportunity for Toronto to re-sign Fred, but we will see what happens since he has indeed released his option for next season. Good luck, Fred. As usual, he's choosing to bet on himself.

Brock Richardson:
For me, I just wonder, if you decide to go to free agency and you're opting out of a player option, that's your choice, should the Toronto Raptors bring you back? If you make that decision, you should just move on. I don't think if you as the player have decided you're going to opt out of that deal, and it's your choice, I don't think the Raptors should have to pay you more money because you've opted out of your deal. Your thoughts on this?

Josh Watson:
Well, I think ultimately what it comes down to is that this is just Fred deciding that either he doesn't A, think that the money is enough anymore for what he's going to need to do for the team, or B, maybe he's decided that he doesn't want to play under a new head coach with Toronto and wants to try and go somewhere else where he can possibly have a different role, a bigger role, maybe even a diminished role and just be a role player and not have to carry everything. It's definitely interesting and who knows, I guess only time will tell whether it's the situation that he wanted out of or just felt like he deserved a bigger pay raise.

Brock Richardson:
I understand the fact totally that times change, but when you sign $22 million at the time of your contract, that's fine if you want to opt out, but don't make it out like the Toronto Raptors are the leading candidate. And I'm not saying that Fred suggested they're the leading candidate, but all the prognosticators that I've seen say Toronto Raptors or Phoenix Suns. If you weren't happy with the deal, opt out and move on to another team. It's that simple for me. Let's get into our actual chat segment, as I went on a little bit of a tirade there for a few minutes.

Josh Watson:
Just a little one.

Brock Richardson:
NBA star Ja Morant has learned his fate from the league after another incident involving a firearm. Let's take a listen to this clip.

Geffen Kulba:
Memphis guard Ja Morant has been suspended for the first 25 games of the upcoming season for his second known incident of displaying what appeared to be a firearm on social media. The NBA announced the suspension on Friday. Morant will also have to adhere to certain conditions before being reinstated. It is the second time he has been suspended in the last three months for showing a firearm on social media, following an eight-game suspension in March. Morant now stands to lose just over $300,000 per game during this suspension or approximately 7.5 million. I'm Geffen Kulba.

Brock Richardson:
So basically, Ja Morant has been suspended for 25 games in what they're calling a second incident for showing a firearm in a bar, and the league has decided that they're going to suspend him. They gave him an initial suspension first when this happened over a year ago. And I just think that he should suffer... Not suffer, that's the wrong word. He should have a little bit more of a suspension rather than the 25 games. And I should say that he's 23 years old and so that to me plays a bit of a factor in this as well. Your thoughts?

Josh Watson:
I definitely think that there is a maturity issue here. Most people, once they reach a certain level of maturity, understand that you're a role model and perhaps you shouldn't be seen on Instagram or any other social media waving a gun around in a club. But at some point, the league has to do what the league has to do. And this is the second time and clearly you haven't learned from the first time. I've heard rumours through media that there have been other more minor incidents that kind of led up to this sort of thing in terms of other things he said or things he's done. So, unfortunately, the league has to come down on him. I mean 25 games isn't a small suspension, but at the same time for a second offence, exactly, for a second offence, for the same offence, I can totally see your point. It just doesn't seem quite right. It doesn't seem quite strong enough.
Now there was a rumour, which I think you're going to touch on here and forgive me for stealing your thunder, but there was a rumour that he was going to be suspended for the entire season. That might be a little too excessive because you do need stars like Morant in the league to generate revenue and to keep the league front of mind for fans. But at some point these players, whether they want to or not, have to understand that they are role models and they do need at least to act accordingly or make sure that the phones and cameras are put away when they decide to have their fun.

Brock Richardson:
I'll close with this thought, the fact is that your own personal time is your own personal time. But in today's world and today's day and age of social media, bosses in any field, in this case we're talking sports obviously, but they have the right to look at what's going on in someone's life. I have all of, well some of, not all of, but some of the people that I'm connected to at AMI and most of the things that I post are related to sports. It kind of gets probably boring for those people that's like, "Oh, there he goes again, sports guy putting another sports thing up." But I accept those people in my world because I know that I'm not going to do something untoward, something that goes against the belief of my organization, and/or when I was an athlete, the organization that I was a part of.
And that's the thing, as an athlete, you need to have that second and third gear that goes, "Should I or shouldn't I be doing this?" And I mentioned this on one of my hits earlier in the week. I said, "The only thing you guys are going to see from my vacation is the copious amounts of food that I'm going to take in on my cruise coming up, but that's about it." There'll be no pointing of any weapons or anything like that. And I think you just take the risk in who you add on social media. But it's not even about who you add and don't. Today's world allows bosses to check in on what you're doing. And I think Ja Morant as a 23-year-old needs to take ownership of that. And I'm not sure, 25 games, 30 games, 40 games, or 80 games is really going to make the difference. I think if you're going to learn your lesson, you're going to learn it with whatever punishment they decide to give you. What we're going to give you right now is how you can get ahold of us on social media.

Speaker 11:
And welcome back to The Neutral Zone AMI broadcast booth and we are set to get this ballgame underway. The first pitch brought to you by Brock Richardson's Twitter account, @neutralzoneBR. 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 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. This organ interlude is brought to you by AMI Audio on Twitter. Get in touch with The Neutral Zone type in @AMIaudio

Brock Richardson:
We released another Canadian Paralympic committee interview from the summit I did a couple of months ago. This time we speak with goalball athlete Meghan Mahon from Timmins, Ontario. Please enjoy the interview.
So in 2015, I understand you were part of the junior national team which won a gold medal. How do you believe that shaped your career into what it is today?

Meghan Mahon:
Yeah, I think that tournament being my first international experience and at a junior level, I was able to be a leader on that team, which I think helped with me just developing the sense of leadership that I have, now a veteran on the senior level team and just really falling in love with the sport again and at a new international level.

Brock Richardson:
Is there something that a coach said to you at that time that you think in certain moments, "Such and such a coach said X to me.", and that still carries through to you?

Meghan Mahon:
I think that it wasn't necessarily in that moment, but it's always been my coach from high school actually, it wasn't even necessarily a para coach who before every tournament still sends me a message. She's a high school teacher, and I know her grade 12 biology class learned a lot about goalball when we were at World's, and it's just her continued support that kind of gives me that push when times are a little tough.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, I totally understand that, and times do get tough as a para-athlete, there's no doubt about that. Would you say that when you get messages from her that that sort of gives you the fuel of like, "Man, I still have the support of this individual and it means so much to me?"

Meghan Mahon:
Yeah, absolutely. In 2019 she travelled down to Fort Wayne, Indiana during her summer break to come and watch a tournament and be able to just watch me play in person as opposed to on a screen. And there's other athletes who are coming up in that same school system that goalball could be a potential in their futures. So it's something knowing as well that she continues to support not only the sport but the fact of para-sport just as a whole. That really just keeps me going to know that there are other kids who are coming forward and gives me reason to again push and keep going.

Brock Richardson:
Did you ever expect that one individual in your life would have such an impact, beyond family?

Meghan Mahon:
Absolutely not. It was always said that your high school coaches are sometimes the coaches who stick around with you the most and I definitely understand that and I think that now I couldn't see any of my athletic career really being as big as it is without her. She was the first one who got me involved when I was doing athletics in high school and competing against para-athletes and really introducing me to a world of parasport when all I knew for the most part was able-bodied sport.

Brock Richardson:
I think junior teams or B teams, if you want to call it that, can be something that as athletes we take for granted because we itch so much that we want to get into the big show. Why did you believe that the junior national team was that place that you shouldn't just, "Ah, this is just the junior national team, who cares? I want to get to the big show."?

Meghan Mahon:
I think at that point I was still fairly new to the sport. I had only really been playing for two years, so for me in that moment that kind of was the big show. I didn't think or even know that 2016 in Rio would be an option for myself. So it really was just that next big step and that opportunity that I had to wear the maple leaf. Anytime I get the opportunity to wear the maple leaf, whether it be at a big tournament that's worldwide or just at an invitation with four teams, it's something that I take with extreme pride and no matter what level.

Brock Richardson:
It's my understanding that you wear the number four on the court and sometimes numbers can be just that thing. You go, "Okay, this is a number. I'll put this on." And we go on about our life. Was there a significance to the number four or was it just purely, "Eh, it's a number. I put it on"?

Meghan Mahon:
Yeah, so in goalball, we don't have much to choose from. Our numbers only go from one to nine, those are your choices. The first team when I played for Ontario at the Junior Nationals was the number four, so it's just kind of the first number I started with. When I joined the national team in 2016, there was another player who was wearing four, so I actually didn't start the national program with that number. I started with eight, which I felt was four plus four, so it all worked. And then once that athlete retired and the first opportunity I was able to switch my number back to four.

Brock Richardson:
Athletes are creatures of habit and we just have to do the same thing. Coaches preach routine all the time. It almost becomes annoying, at least in my career I've found it to be, "Oh god, we're talking about routine again? Oh yeah." But what is that thing for you it's like, "I have to do this in order to feel comfortable on the court and know that I'm in the mode that I'm in to compete at a high level."?

Meghan Mahon:
So for myself, we talk about on court in competition days. We do have it ironed out to a very specific warmup. Usually, once we're announced and we're walked in, we have about 12 minutes to do a warmup and then the starters will put on the eye patches at about seven minutes. So we really don't have a ton of time. But for myself, I will do slides on the side of the court while my teammates are throwing and things like that, and I just repeat the same things kind of like affirmations as I'm doing these slides that, "I'm confident, I have the skill, I have the technique." And just those being one of the last things I think about. And then for myself, it's also feeling the center T and just basically centring myself with our side of the court and this is usually after I've got my eyeshades on, I just make sure I go and feel that T and know where I am.

Brock Richardson:
One of the coolest things that I saw when preparing for this was you were honoured with a banner from your hometown. And I've never been honoured with a banner anywhere. So tell me about that, when that came to be, what's the first thing that goes through your head?

Meghan Mahon:
That it was super cool. Yeah, I am very fortunate to come from a small town where everyone kind of growing up knew who I was. Not many individuals in my community grew up with sight loss. My mom did a great job of just giving my brother and I, who also has sight loss, the opportunities to do whatever we wanted and to just be out there and be in our communities. So when that happened it was pretty cool. I think it was exceptionally cool for my mom, who is my biggest fan, to just kind of see that and see her kid's name up on there. In tow with the large banner, they also posted flags of my face on every lamp post. So I was getting pictures and everything like that and I received one message from my old high school coach who she said... I had to pull over and wipe the tears as I drove into town and saw these because those who have been a part of my journey for so long, I think it was a really cool moment for them to see and for me to know that even though I wasn't at the time residing in that community, that they were still fully supportive of the entire journey that I was taking on.

Brock Richardson:
There's always a moment where we step back in our career and we say, "I've done this, I've done it. I'm here. This is where it is." As I listen to you talk about the banner, for me that would be the moment where it's like, "Oh my goodness, my face is on a banner. This is real." Was that it for you? Or was there another moment in your career where you knew, "This is real, I'm going to do something with this and be successful at it"?

Meghan Mahon:
I don't think it was the banner. I felt it was really weird having my face posted all around and getting photos of my own face posted. For me, I think it was really during the games when all of a sudden I went from this is my first major national team competition outside of the junior level and I became the first choice in the center position for our coach and I was supposed to only just be a sponge and absorb everything that was going on and all of a sudden I'm on the court with two veterans who have been to multiple Paralympics and it was just time to play. And I think that was my moment where I realized that I think it was bigger than I could ever put into words.

Brock Richardson:
For me, you spoke about family a couple of minutes ago, and you need that support system, you need that proud mom moment, the proud dad moment, the proud brother moment sister, whatever. Tell me about your family networks. What have they meant to you in where you are today?

Meghan Mahon:
Yeah, they're huge. My mom raised my brother and I as a single mom. And having two kids with disabilities, I couldn't even imagine the obstacles that she was facing. And I remember her putting up a fight and not letting go with the city to put an accessible audible stoplight so that we could independently walk ourselves the three blocks to school. And really just being there to tell us that we can do it and we can find a way to do it. Between her and my grandpa, they were just the ones who no matter what would get us there, would get us to practices. I remember my mom when my brother and I were kids running one of us to hockey while the other one was being run to gymnastics and then picking up one from one venue and dropping them off at the next one and really just making sure that we knew that there were no limitations possible.
And then continuing on, I mean it's not easy for my family that I live across the country. It's a full travel day if we want to go either way. And I've missed birthdays, I've missed Christmases, I've missed any kind of celebration. But my family is so understanding and just so supportive in everything that I'm doing that they're fully understanding, as much as it's hard for everyone, they're fully understanding that this is currently the road that I'm on and sometimes it means making those sacrifices.

Brock Richardson:
There's always that moment in life where your parents use the words, "I'm proud of you." And sometimes it comes out because that's what parents feel in this moment. I got an A on this test and they put it on the fridge and they do this whole proud thing. But then in our careers as Paralympians, there is always that moment where one of the people we love comes up to us and says, "Meghan, I'm proud of you." And it really means something more than just the words. Tell me about that moment for you.

Meghan Mahon:
Growing up in a tough farming family, those words don't come out as words all the time. They come out as actions or they come out as things. And I know my mom could not be prouder. And I think when I was selected for the team for Rio she was just posting photos. I mean she went and put balloons up with my banner on opening ceremonies day and she would stream my games in her office and have the entire office just sitting there watching my games. And it's not necessarily the words, "I'm proud of you." That have come, that really mean something, but it's those actions of I know by what she does. And my whole team knows who my grandpa is because he posts on everything and reposts all of our stuff and is always there to comment and bring us up. When we lose he's always that one who's saying, "You got the next one." And it really is those moments that aren't just a one-time thing, they're continuous and they continue to show me that they're proud of everything that I'm pursuing in my paralympic career.

Brock Richardson:
If we were to do this interview in a year's time and I was to show you this interview and you were to tell yourself where you want to be in a year's time headed into the next Paralympic games, what would you tell yourself today that if I showed it to you you'd say, "I got where I wanted to be."?

Meghan Mahon:
First off, I want to be qualified for Paris. That's the big one. But I think I really want to be that athlete that has a well-rounded presence, not just physically on the court, but as a teammate off the court in our daily training environments at home or at a tournament, I want to be that athlete who is mentally strong as well as physically strong and who is able to push through all of those things as just taking them as another event that's happened as opposed to letting them break me down. Yeah, I think just being that all-around well-rounded athlete, I don't know where my career will take me after Paris, so that's where I want to be before.

Brock Richardson:
So one of the things that I just admire about goalball is that people just give up their bodies and it's like why would you want a ball to just come fly in your direction and put yourself in the way of it to stop it? Can you talk about what that feeling is when that ball really gets you and it's like, "Yes, I did it, this is great."?

Meghan Mahon:
Yeah, I think you just learn to almost accept it. There are those shots where, as soon as they're thrown, you know they're coming hard. And as an athlete and as a goalball athlete, you want them to hit you because if they're not hitting you, it's likely they're going in the net. So it really is like when someone gets a really nice ball off or there's a really big bounce shot and it hits you, it's that feeling of, "Okay, I just took that shot. I really can do anything." Physically at the time your adrenaline's going and you really don't feel each hit. I even look at there's many times where you block the ball with your face unintentionally and your eye shades go flying and the next one you're back out there throwing your body in front of it. So it really is just taking each ball one at a time and being able to when those really nice throws are coming or the ones that are maybe hitting you in a spot that you don't know if your range could have gotten there and you block them, it's a really satisfying feeling.

Brock Richardson:
What does a day like today mean to you and the whole Paralympic movement as a global thing?

Meghan Mahon:
To me, the Paralympic movement in itself is something that for the first 15 years of my life I didn't know about. As a larger scale, I mean, yes, you heard about the Paralympics and things like that, but it wasn't something that I ever saw of grassroots programs. I just thought these athletes are incredible and they're out there doing their thing, but there's so much more behind it where we really are supporting these para-athletes from the grassroots and supporting community programs and being able to just make equipment accessible to athletes or potential athletes or kids who just want to be active. There's so many different levels and a day today where we're really able to just get our stories out there and there's so many different athletes here that the hope is that every single person living with a disability out there could potentially relate to at least five seconds of someone's story or five seconds of what someone is sharing or who somebody is, and that can give them the motivation to really just be out there, put themselves out there, break their own barriers and get involved.

Brock Richardson:
Love it. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. We greatly appreciate it and I feel like I've done my job when you said to me middle of the interview, "You're getting me emotional." So checkmate for me. Thank you so much.

Meghan Mahon:
Yeah, thank you.

Brock Richardson:
That was Meghan Mahon from Timmins, Ontario, who is a Paralympic goalball athlete. We thank her for her time and efforts at the summit. If you like what you heard in the interview, please give us a call at our voicemail which can be found right here.

Speaker 1:
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:
One of the things that we've done on this program as of late is give you some of the updates that have occurred at the international tournament that is happening in Dubai, which is the world championships for wheelchair basketball. Let me tell you first of all where we are at since we've last joined you. So when we look at the men's side of things, they lost in the quarterfinals and then that means that you go into a play-in tournament. I put tournaments in quotes for a reason. Let me explain this. So anyone that does not qualify for the semifinals, so five through eight, they play a little tournament. They would play two games where then if you won, you would go on and play for the five versus six games. And if you lost, you would go on and play for the seven verses eight.
These tournaments, Josh, when we got into these five verses eight, six versus this, it just became so almost hard to handle because it was like we lost, we didn't get this done, we lost, it's too bad. And then you got to bring yourself up to play in a game that matters for placing, but it really doesn't matter in the tournament anymore. I don't know if you've had experience in playing in these kinds of things. I have and it's awful. Your thoughts before I give the actual results of what's gone on?

Josh Watson:
Yeah, place in games are always challenging. You get to a point where you realize you're not going to be in that top four, you're not going to be in a semi-final, and you just kind of feel like, "Well, tournament's over the goal is not going to be met." And you're right, it is incredibly hard to get up for those games because usually, at least in the sports that I have been involved with where this is a thing which would be ice hockey, you're beat up, you're sore, you're tired, you've probably played four or five or six games in a course of a few days, and the last thing you really want to do is get into one of these games where you have to really fight to remember the prize at the end of it essentially.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah. I'm going to give you the results before I get talking more about this format that I don't like. So if we look at the men's situation, they lost their game against the Italians 67-56, which means that they then were in the sixth place situation. So they are sixth out of 16 is the final result there for them. Then if we look at the women's side of things, they won their game against Australia, which is interesting because that's one of the games they lost and that game was 64-62, so this is good.

Josh Watson:
Wow.

Brock Richardson:
Close game. But again, this is one of those games that they would look back on and say, "Man, if we only won in the round-robin against them, then things would've been a little different. It's kind of good to get revenge, but not in this way because it's kind of like, "Ah, we get fifth and we could have been higher." They lost a game to the Spanish squad earlier in the tournament that they could have won as well. So these are the two games that they could have done different results, which would've brought them through. They had a really tough game in the quarterfinals against the Netherlands and in the broadcast they kept saying, oh, this was a matchup that was supposed to be a semi-final or a final. And sometimes when you lose two games in this situation, this can make the difference between playing somebody in a quarterfinal versus a semifinal or a final.
I will tell you this that I didn't agree with what they did on the men's side, and I'll tell you why. So the men had 16 teams altogether, right? And they decided to do a round of 16, which is normal-ish in some sports, and they did a round of 16. Obviously, Canada won their first game in the round of 16, which led them to be in the quarterfinals, but then in the women's side they had 12 teams of which they got rid of four of them before. Moving on to the knockout stage. Your thoughts on this, and I'm kind of going down a dangerous kind of rabbit hole with this one, but your thoughts on why we didn't eliminate any men's teams versus we eliminated four women's teams. Did you like this format? Dislike it? What did you think?

Josh Watson:
To be honest, I'm still scratching my head about it. I find it very hard to believe that there wasn't 16 teams on the women's side of things that they could have brought to this tournament. So I'd like to figure out why there were only 12 teams, first of all. Second of all, if you're going to have 16 teams on the men's side and have them all go through, then why would you not have all of them go through on the women's side? It's very perplexing to me. I don't quite understand the reason behind this sort of... It's very, very confusing because you would think that whatever you do on the men's side, you would automatically do on the women's side and that just didn't happen. So I'm very confused.

Brock Richardson:
The only thing that I'll say, and I agree with you, I can't imagine that there wasn't 16 teams that could have gone to these championships. In fact, I'm almost positive there are more than 12 teams in the world on the women's side, and I just thought that this was strange. When I tried to look this up, Josh, I tried to find out from the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation why this was going on, and of course, they didn't respond to me. I wasn't really expecting a response. But I thought I would try and I Googled it and worked on this frantically, I could not get a straight response. I'll be honest and say that I think this is a combined event. So you're looking at men's teams being there as well as women's teams, and although you're not crossing paths, you're well aware of what's going on with your men's or women's team or vice versa.

Josh Watson:
Sure.

Brock Richardson:
And to me, if I'm on the women's team, I'm looking at this a little puzzle going, "Okay, so you decided not to do a round of 16 with us or bring 16 teams, but you did one with them and then to double down, you decided not to do a 12 team playoff." Which the last time I checked 12 is divisible equally. So you could have done six matchups and you could have called it a day. I would've been less inclined to come on here and say, "Well, okay, this is weird that they did a 12-team quarterfinal, if you will, because you don't see that in sports." But it leaves me a little bit of a less bitter taste if you left it with the 12 teams versus saying to the men, "Yeah, you guys have four additional teams and we'll just let it be that way and let you play it out. To me, that just doesn't seem right.
So there was a bit there that I didn't quite like. But them's the breaks. These are the decisions that are made within sports and some people like them, some people don't. And I have to say to go back on the five through eight sort of format, we did that in bocce for a long time and then a bunch of us on the committee said, "We don't like this. We don't like this format. It's challenging to get up for a game like this. Can we just take the four quarterfinals and whoever has the most spread, if someone lost say 6-2 versus 4-3, well the person that lost 6-2 would inevitably finish lower than the person who lost 4-3." And that to me is what we did. And some of the argument is, "Well, X country travelled so far and we want to give them games." I hear all that, but the placement games are really hard to get up for and really hard to do.
And there's things in this tournament that I just scratch my head and I go, "This is not good. I don't like this." I will say, I loved the broadcast. I could get every game streamed on the IWBF. CBC Gem did a wonderful job, which you don't see a lot with all the sports. And I keep teasing this, I promise it's coming, we're going to talk about whether we're respecting or disrespecting parasport by doing the things we do in the coming weeks. And it's one of those things. So credit the IWBF for streaming every single game and broadcasting it properly. But their formatting was just a little bit weird to me. I wanted to move on, Josh, unless you had any other comment there.

Josh Watson:
No, no, I don't think so. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of opportunity to watch this tournament, so I'm comfortable with where we're at I think.

Brock Richardson:
That's fair. I wanted to bring up another point here, and this one's talking about sports in general. The Canadian women had five games in their round-robin and they ended up playing these games five games over six nights, and it got me thinking about championship runs and watching the Florida Panthers really make this sort of Cinderella run and run through and all this, and you see teams crash.

Josh Watson:
Yes.

Brock Richardson:
So let's start with do you think professional sports teams can get to a point where they literally say, "We're done, we're out of gas.", and that's it?

Josh Watson:
I'll agree to a point. So what I would say is a professional team or really any team that even I've been a part of as an amateur, you never come out and say, "We're done." You always say, "No, no, we want to play. We're ready to play, we're good to go." Meant it absolutely.

Brock Richardson:
[inaudible 00:42:31] Here we go.

Josh Watson:
Absolutely. But in your locker room, in your own mind, you know whether you have anything left in the tank. I will play in a hockey tournament in Brampton or London or wherever it happens to be, and by the time we hit the medal round of the tournament, I just want to go home to bed. I'm so tired and I'm only playing in four games in two days, five, six games in three days maybe. I can't even imagine doing five games in four nights and all that pressure and all of that just, yeah, pressure that comes along with playing in an international game and having to be up for that many games in a row.
It's part, I think, of what makes our fandom of sports what it is. We want to see the warriors, we want to see those guys that you know are exhausted. They're the guys that you know have given everything that they have to win that trophy. And I think that's why you see the elation on their faces when they do finally win it because it's been a gauntlet. It's been an absolute gauntlet. And always, especially hockey, you always hear about all the injuries that guys have after they get put out. And you think to yourself, "You played through a broken sternum? How?"

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, I mean, I was an athlete for a number of years and if I had a broken anything, I am not playing. And call me what you want, call me a big baby, that's fine. But a broken sternum, when you hear things like that, it's just like, "Wow, this is the level to which you went to play for the Stanley Copper?" Or site the sport, whatever it is. "This is the level you went to, you did."

Josh Watson:
Absolutely.

Brock Richardson:
And to me, I look at that and I say, "Well, good on you." Because I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that and I would put a lot on the line for my country. I would sacrifice my social life. I would sacrifice diets, which believe me, sacrificing diets was hard to do.

Josh Watson:
Yes, it is.

Brock Richardson:
But sacrificing my body because I had a broken bone or because whatever happened, the injury, it's hard. I had a concussion in my career and I couldn't play for weeks. I couldn't train, I couldn't do any of that. Now I understand we're talking about a head injury versus a broken bone. I totally get it. But it's the level to which people will say, "I've dreamt about this. I want to hoist Lord Stanley's cup, I want to hoist the Larry O'B. I want to host hoist all of it, and I want to do it because I've lived and I've breathed and I've done this." And this is the way athletes are, we're programmed to be different. But some of us are programmed in a level that others just wouldn't get to.

Josh Watson:
Exactly.

Brock Richardson:
The other side of this that I wanted to ask you about was para-athletes. As I mentioned at the beginning of all this, they played many games, five games in six nights, and it was a lot. It was a lot of games, a lot of time to be had. Do you think the disability has another level to this when we talk about stamina? Or am I literally throwing something where you're like, "Meh, that's just an excuse." What say you on this?

Josh Watson:
I absolutely think that disability does play a factor, but I think if you talk to an athlete, particularly in a team sport, if you talk to an athlete who does have a disability and who does play at that level, they will try to tell you otherwise. I truly believe they will try to tell you, "No, no, it's not a factor. It's my conditioning and I'm fine and I can do this." But I know myself that I get to a point and my brain wants to do it, and my body just says, "No, absolutely not. We are done. We are going to break if you keep this up." So I really think it does depend on the disability because there are some disabilities that just take more out of people than others. I happen to have spina bifida and I think I probably am able to push a little more and push through a little more fatigue than others are. I don't know that for a fact, but that's just my personal thought.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, there's no perfect science to this at all. I have cerebral palsy and we struggled. When we were playing back-to-back games or three games in the same day, even if one game was sort of at the top of your day and then you'd have one middle of the day and the end of the day, I got to be honest Josh and tell you that games at the end of the day were really, really hard. Because my father always told me that my body was one chord, and when one thing started to go, everything goes. Sometimes I'm sure when you're watching this on YouTube and you see as I'm getting passionate about something, my body raises and raises and raises and so does my voice as we do that.
And I think with cerebral palsy, that's one of the things that happens is that your body just gets so tired because even the muscles that you're not using or you think you're not using are still being used even though you're not attempting to use them. And so to me, I think that that's the difference too. I think coaches spend time and they'll say, "Oh, we want you to have stamina." And I think wheelchair basketball athletes are among the best to have stamina and to do that. Para ice hockey players, same thing. But there are just some sports that just simply it's harder in some disabilities to do that, are just challenging.

Josh Watson:
And don't sell yourself short either here. I've had a chance to watch bocce, both on television and in real life, so to speak, and it's a very mentally taxing sport. Whereas, I'm a goaltender in a para ice hockey team. My job is basically to follow the little black puck and make sure that I can stop it when it comes to me. That doesn't take the same mental energy that it does to look at, "Okay, my opponent is taking the shot and if he does this, then I have to do this. And if he does that, then I have to do this over here." And I just watch it and just go like, "Okay, you guys are smarter than me because I can't keep up." So let's not forget the mental energy that things take as well, because that is a factor as well.

Brock Richardson:
Absolutely. And I think with the faster sports, coaches have more opportunity to call timeouts and to slow their team down and to do that and change things around. Now in bocce, they now have the ability to have timeouts between the ends. We didn't other than just picking up the equipment, bringing it back and doing that. So I think over time sports has grown to understand disability and to understand how people work and take and do that. The Canadian women's team has Marni Abbott-Peters who is their coach, and she's also in a wheelchair. And I really think that that brings a different level to that. When you have able-bodied coach, no matter how talented that person is, no matter how skilled they are in the sport of wheelchair basketball, or name the sport, you bring yourself to the level of the person just by simply having the disability and understanding what's going through the minds.
I'm not saying that Ms. Peters is not going to be tough on her team, but I do think there's a point at which you realize, "Okay, I need to reason with this person on this level because this is what may be happening in their brain right now, and I need to put a sort of stop to it and be there to be supportive." And I don't think an able-bodied coach, as much as they're skilled, talented, all those things, I just don't think an able-bodied coach can be with you on that same level because they haven't lived and breathed the situation.

Josh Watson:
Yeah, I can see that that would be a point for sure. I think that some of the best coaches, whether they be able-bodied or disabled, will actually take the time to put themselves in their athlete's shoes. So for example, if you are a para a ice hockey coach and you don't play or you don't have a history playing para-ice hockey, you will at least get yourself into a sled and skate around the ice and shoot the puck and maybe strap on the goalie pads-

Brock Richardson:
As you should.

Josh Watson:
To make sure that you understand the fatigue and what muscles are being taxed by these sports. So I do think being a disabled coach in a sport is an advantage. But I also think that the best coaches will find ways of understanding their athletes and where they're coming from as well.

Brock Richardson:
And I think that's really important, the understanding of where you get to and taking the time to sit and speak with the athletes. I love the idea of going and doing this sport, but you also have to sit and spend time with each and every athlete because everyone's different, every situation's different, every person. This joke might make this person laugh when they're in the middle of the... You need to have that. And the best coaches that I had throughout my career would be the ones that would literally take the time and say, "Come on, let's have a meeting." And sit down and talk to you about life. My favorite thing with all of my coaches was the ones that would sit down and say, before they give you any of the good feedback, bad feedback, anything, they'd sit down and they'd say, "How's life? What's happening in life? What's going on?" All this sort of thing. And to me, that's the greatest difference because you build a bond with a coach like no other. They are with you sometimes more than others in your family, in your friends' circles.
So really great. And even though it might not have been the results that everybody wanted, to still be fifth and sixth in the world is still an accomplishment. And I know that the para Panams are around the corner and things will be a lot different because we've had a history of winning the para Panam championships in wheelchair basketball and a lot of sports, to be perfectly honest with you. So when it's there and that's a direct qualifier, that's a good thing.
What I can tell you now is that's the end of our show for this week. I'd like to thank Josh Watson. I'd also like to thank Marc Aflalo, our technical producer, Ryan Delehanty is the podcast coordinator. Tune in next week because you just never... Be well.