Hall of Fame Episode - June 27, 2023

Speaker 1:
Are you ready? Let's go. From AMI Central, now start playing in the neutral zone. Here's the pitch on the way, 36 yards for the win. This, here comes the big chance, the shot, is this the tagger? The Neutral Zone. Score! Home run! This is as good as it gets. 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. And coming up on today's show, our very own Claire Buchanan was recently inducted into the Toronto Sports Hall of Fame, along with wheelchair rugby athlete Shayne Smith, and they had the honour of being the only para-athletes to be inducted. We will sit down with them to talk all about their wonderful careers, and I know they've had a lot going on. Plus we're going to chat about the Toronto Blue Jays. With that, let's get into our headlines for this week.

Speaker 1:
Neutral Zone headlines, headlines, headline.

Josh Watson:
In honour of our Hall of Fame episode, we kick things off by letting you know who has been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame for 2023. The inductees are Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers, Mike Vernon who is most known for his time with the Calgary Flames but also played for the Detroit Red Wings, the San Jose Sharks and the Florida Panthers. Tom Barrasso made stops in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, Carolina, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and St. Louis Blues. Pierre Turgeon who played in Buffalo, the New York Islanders, Montreal, St. Louis Blues, Dallas Stars, and Colorado Avalanche, as well as Caroline Ouellette, who's most notable for her time with Team Canada. Ken Hitchcock, who was the coach of the Dallas Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, Columbus Blue Jackets, St. Louis Blues, and Edmonton Oilers, and time with Team Canada Men's Program, as well as Pierre Lacroix, who was the general manager for the Quebec Nordiques Colorado Avalanche. Congratulations to all inductees.

Claire Buchanan:
Continuing on with the Hall of Fame theme, congratulations to Paralympian Joey Johnson on his induction into the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame. The three-time Paralympic gold medalist will become the first wheelchair basketball athlete to be inducted into the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame, and the ceremony will take place on July 14th.

Brock Richardson:
I'm going to categorize this headline as unique. Paralympic gold medalist in snowboarding, Tyler Turner and scuba diver Kayleen, who are from BC will take on their next adventure on the Amazing Race Canada, which will premiere on Tuesday, July 4th on CTV. Check your local listings for more details on that.
I have to say, as a fan of all reality television shows, I love this. And I was trying to rack my brain today before doing this show, I was trying to think, have they had a Paralympian on the Amazing Race Canada? And I think the answer to that question is no. So Tyler and his partner will be setting new precedents to what we hope is going to be something we see moving forward. So congratulations to him for breaking boundaries and doing that, and we wish them all the best and I am trying to get him on the program before the Amazing Race gets too far into its season. So look forward to that.

Josh Watson:
Congratulations to this year's first overall pick of the NBA draft, San Antonio Spurs Center, Victor Wembanyama. Victor is from Nanterre France and is being compared to LeBron James and many other generational talents in the NBA. Congratulations, Victor. This is a huge honor for you and we wish you the best of luck in your career.

Brock Richardson:
Those are your headlines for this week and I love to have fun with these chat topics and today is no different. I wanted to go back on our headline that you just heard about Tyler and Kayleen going on The Amazing Race, but I wanted to find out from the group if they could, under the current circumstance of being an athlete in our own rights, what reality television show would they pick and why? Claire, start with you.

Claire Buchanan:
I feel like myself being an athlete takes up already enough of my time, so I would switch gears to an interior design competition or like a barbecue cookout or something. I would step out of the realm of sports for a little while and kind of dabble in my other interests.

Brock Richardson:
Fair enough Claire and barbecuing. I'm going to have to check more on this, see if I can get Claire behind a barbecue and cooking for-

Claire Buchanan:
I would love it.

Brock Richardson:
We'll see. We'll see how this goes. Stay tuned for that information. I'm going to dig a little more into this a little later on in the program. But Josh, what about you? What would you say?

Josh Watson:
Well, I hadn't even considered the design or cooking end of things. That might be interesting. I'm just so not a reality TV guy and you know this, so you knew this was going to be a tough one for me. Amazing Race might be cool. Survivor really doesn't interest me all that much. It's really hard to pick one.

Brock Richardson:
Big Brother, locked in a house?

Josh Watson:
Yeah, probably Big Brother.

Brock Richardson:
Bunch of strangers.

Josh Watson:
I'm good at creating alliances and getting along with people, so that's probably the best option for me, I'd say.

Brock Richardson:
So Claire started a bit of a trend because I never thought of the cooking thing until she talked about it, but I would love to know, now this has to be all things equal because for those of you that know me well enough and have watched our careers as we've done this, you know that my dexterity sucks.
So this option would not be great, but I'd love to try Master Chef or a Hell's Kitchen because I'd love to be called a donkey by Gordon Ramsay just once, just to say that I'm on the list of the people that he's called a donkey in his career.
I love that reality show, but initially, my answer was going to be Survivor or Big Brother, but I think I'd like to try the cooking angle and be yelled at by Gordon Ramsay for a little bit. If you want to tell us what reality television show you would like to be a part of, here's how you can get ahold of us on Twitter.

Speaker 1:
And welcome back to the Neutral Zone AMI broadcast booth, play ball. And we are set to get this ballgame underway. The first pitch brought to you by Brock Richardson's Twitter account at NeutralZoneBR. First pitch strike and hey gang, why not strike up a Twitter chat with Claire Buchanan for The Neutral Zone? Find her at 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 at NeutralZoneCamJ and at JWatson200. Now that's a winning combination. And this interlude is brought to you by AMI Audio on Twitter, get in touch with The Neutral Zone, type in at AAMIAudio.

Brock Richardson:
One of the coolest things we get to do doing this show is highlight great stories of great athletes and people and today is no different. Our very own Claire Buchanan and Shayne Smith recently got inducted into the Toronto Sports Hall of Fame and they were only two para-athletes inducted in this particular situation and they're here today to talk to us about their wonderful career. Hello, Shayne. We've already spoken to Claire, so I'll bring you in first. Hello and welcome to the program and as always, Claire, it's nice to have you as well.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation and I mean we'll get into this, but it's pretty cool that I got to do this with Shayne specifically.

Shayne Smith:
You took the words out of my mouth. I'm like, Claire, I don't know how well-known this is, but Claire's been one of my absolute best friends in life since we were like 14 years old, maybe 13. So to be able to have this conversation with Claire is top-notch.

Josh Watson:
Yeah. That's awesome guys. My first question for both of you is how did Para Sport become such an integral part of your life? And Shayne, if we can start with you?

Shayne Smith:
Yeah, I mean, got into Para Sport very, very young. I started with swimming when I was three. I got into equestrian [inaudible 00:09:10] when I was eight, and I did that for a few years, or sorry, before I was eight, I was like six and I did it until I was about eight because I found Sledge Hockey and anyone who knows my personality, I'm a little rambunctious and I like to get very excited. So hockey was perfect and I played sledge for, I want to say it was like 15 years.
And then in that time, I made the jump over to wheelchair basketball as well and I was playing them side by side for a while and basketball for a long time took over my life. I had a 17-year career, I played eight years with the Canadian Junior team and it was just an amazing experience. And then I retired at 25.
I was done, wanted nothing to do with sports anymore, wanted to be a motivational speaker, wanted to just put sports to the side. I'd finished that part of my life and then Kevin Orr from the Canadian Wheelchair rugby team started emailing me and started calling me and I had no interest in playing, zero. And finally he broke me down and just to get him off my back, I was like, "Okay, I'll come." Oh, that was about 10 years ago and I'm still playing.
So I've built the best friendships, as we were talking about, Claire and I are best friends and I would've never met Claire and had her in my life if it wasn't for sport. So aside from the amazing, incredible things I can say I've done with sport, I've made the closest friends in the world through it and to me that's almost even more important than all the other stuff that we do.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, Shayne said it perfectly. It's the things that connect us outside of the actual sport, the friendships and being able to travel and experience new places and new people. And like Shayne, I started off sports, not as young, but I started sports at 12 years old and I think just like any other kid, you just kind of dive in and want to try everything. So that just unconsciously makes your whole life revolved around sport because you're just trying to try different things and you're meeting new people. And the beautiful thing about Para Sport is that there's a lot of two-sport athletes in the world, so you get into one sport and you just get automatically opened up to all these other opportunities that you get through sports. So I've had some of the best times with sport and met some of the best people because of it.

Shayne Smith:
It's funny you talk about the multi-sport stuff and it's like people talk about LeBron and Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky, all these guys are the best athletes in the world, and I look at Brad Bowden who has gold medals in two separate Paralympic sports and it's like, "No, no, no", you guys, I would love to see LeBron put on some skates and win a gold medal, right?

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, totally. I agree with you. Another question for both of you and Shayne, you touched on what sports you played, so we'll not go there, but I want to know why did you feel, Shayne, that it was so important for you to dabble in so many different sports?

Shayne Smith:
I think just in general. It's proven that being a part of physical activity, being a part of sport, lengthens your life. It's science. When you have a disability, that lifespans already shorter so if I'm able to, by just going out and playing some sports on the weekend and then have it become my whole life, if that's going to add 10, 15 years to my life, to me that's a no-brainer. Give me all the sports in the world.
It's a quality-of-life thing. It makes you better. It's not easy for a lot of people in wheelchairs to stay in shape and stay healthy and all that stuff and it's such an important piece. And I'm 35, I've been on national teams and only now am I starting to understand the eating side of things and changing all that stuff.
So sport is important to me because it's really taught me not just how to be an athlete, but it's taught me how to be a human being and it's taught me how to be a better man. I would not be the person that I am today without sport. So for me that's just a no-brainer as to why it's such an important part of people's lives. Even if you're just playing rec league, you will become a better person because of the relationships that you make and the lessons that you learned through sport.

Brock Richardson:
Claire, what about you on that front? Why would you say that playing so many sports was such a big deal for you?

Claire Buchanan:
I mean, I was a dual sport athlete at the national level for three or four years there, both sports kind of overlapping each other and when you let something into your life that brings you so much joy, you want to do it as much as possible. And I eventually did have to make the decision of picking a sport because I ended up having a child. But again, it's one of those things that if we have found something like sport that brings us so much joy, I want to do as much as I can to keep having that feeling and it's working in sport outside of being an athlete, that also brings me so much joy. I get to work with athletes like Shayne and it's pretty cool that you can have this kind of everlasting career whether you're playing the sport or not.

Josh Watson:
Now this question might be a tough one. We'll start with Claire on this. Was there ever a point where you recognized that this career of mine might be worthy of a Hall of Fame at some point?

Claire Buchanan:
I think I started feeling that way over the last couple of years of the work that I've been able to do. Again, outside of the actual sport itself, the stuff that happens off the ice is just as rewarding as the things that happen on the ice for me.
And I feel very lucky to be in a position to be able to catapult a sport like women's para hockey like we are right now and putting it out there that we deserve to be here and be part of something bigger than the sport itself and showing that next generation that just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean that we can't do it and it's never-ending too. It's cool to be in this position growing a sport like that. There's just going to be bigger and bigger milestones coming up and those things are going to be really cool to experience with the people that I know now and the new athletes that might and will come into the program over the next few years.

Brock Richardson:
Support systems have always been a really big and important part of any successful athlete and what makes them who they are. Again, a question for both of you, can you talk a little bit about your support system and some of those people and how they're behind the scenes and you don't see them but they are important? Shayne, we'll start with you on this one.

Shayne Smith:
Yeah, this year actually over the last year or so, it's really been magnified for me when it comes to this support system. As Claire knows, I've always had the most incredible support system. My mom is one of the most wonderful, incredible women anyone on this planet will ever have the privilege to meet and to know. My mom has been through so much in her life and she's so kind-hearted and she's so sweet and she's so fun. And for me, having that just propping me up there, there's nothing better than that.
And that goes even beyond sport. I remember I was 19 and there was a fire in our apartment building, thankfully not in our apartment. We didn't lose anything, but we had to go to a hotel and I was sharing a hotel with my mom and my grandma and I didn't want to share a hotel room with them. I'm 19 years old, I want my own room. So I got my own hotel room and I wanted to watch a Monday night RAW, I'm a massive wrestling fan and the remote for the TV was on top of the television stand and I couldn't reach it.
So I called my mom's room and I said, "Hey Ma, can you come grab the remote? I want to watch TV." So she said, "Yeah, I'll be right there." She comes over, she goes, "Stand up on your chair and get it." I go, "Mom, I'm too short. I can't reach it. Just give me the remote". Pushes it forward and I still can't reach it. And she pushed it forward and I still can't reach it. And she pushed it forward until it was dangling and I reached it and I got it myself. She helped me, but I did it.
And that's the kind of support system that I grew up with and I was very, very fortunate. And beyond that, I've had relationships where my partner wasn't very understanding of when I go away, being with the boys off the court and playing [inaudible 00:18:30] at night and doing all those things, that is just as important in the tournament as our games are.
And I'm so lucky I found my fiance Emily who is the most supportive, caring, incredible woman that I could ever meet. And they say that you want to find someone or people usually find people like their parents. And Emily is the closest thing I've ever found to my mom in terms of having such a big heart and encouraging me to go out with my teammates and encouraging me, not fighting with me when I'm going to play cards with the boys at night. And I feel like my game is better since being with Emily. So it's definitely a massive, massive piece of the puzzle.

Claire Buchanan:
I got to say, I can definitely vouch that Shayne's mom is one of the coolest people on the planet. It was so nice seeing her at the awards night. And I think Shayne has equally loved my mom just as much as well and we just have had similar support systems where we've just had fantastic family and people that will do anything for you at the drop of the hat, but also will give you the space and independence to go out and do it on your own and achieve things so that you feel like you did it independently. And that's hard sometimes with having parents that have kids with disabilities. They want to hold their hand and shadow a little more than their able-bodied counterparts. But we both have parents and support systems that go, "No, actually you can go do this out on your own and we're just here to support you any way that we can." And we're very, very lucky people to have support systems like that.

Shayne Smith:
I'll say this, one of my favorite things that I look forward to every year is I'm a massive, massive nerd and I go to ComicCon fan expo every year and one of my favourite parts is Claire's mom every year makes sure she texts me to tell me where she is because she goes as well and we end up hanging out for a period of time and catching up. And to have someone else's mom in the world of sports supporting you as well, there's just nothing better, nothing better.

Josh Watson:
That's awesome. My parents are like that too when they meet my teammates, so that's awesome to hear. Claire, can you talk to us a little bit about the induction ceremony itself and what that was like? And Shayne we'll get your thoughts after as well.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, so I mean right off the bat I remember just driving in and parking and one, I saw right away that Scott Russell was there and that, I mean off the top just made the night pretty cool to begin with.
And then yeah, it was an intimate thing, it was a small group, but also we were able to have our family and friends there to celebrate. And I mean we've had Scott Russell on the show a few times and interviewed him and he brought the night alive. He's such a cool guy and really good at what he does and just wants to be a good voice for anybody in sport. And it was nice to have him one, speaking about women's para hockey, but also really shining the light on just how important it is to shine light on disabled sports and having those athletes side by side like they had that night.
And again, to share it with one of my best friends, Shayne, and to be able to deliver him the message that he was also being inducted, just one of those moments that you don't expect to happen in your life and when it does, you just feel really grateful that you were able to be a part of it. So as cheesy it sounds, it's one of those nights I'll never forget.

Shayne Smith:
Yeah, I'll say this. So obviously getting the call from Claire, next level incredible to hear that news, again, from one of your best friends. It's pretty humbling to say the least. I'll say this, my favourite part of the evening, there was a gentleman being inducted with us from the Special Olympics and he just pumped all of our tires man, every time someone's name was called, he started chanting, "MVP, MVP", he made the whole-

Claire Buchanan:
Big hype man, yeah.

Shayne Smith:
... He was amazing. So for me, that was the best part. And obviously sharing it with my family, my grandma who turned 90 in February and it's been very touch and go with her health for 10 years now, to have her there, that to me was the most emotional part of the evening was I was having granny there and anyone who knows me knows that she's not my gran, she's my second mom. I grew up in a single-mother household and when things were rough when I was young and I got sick at four months old, my mom needed help, my grandma took us in. So I lived with my grandma from the time I was, I want to say eight months old until I was 30. So that's a parent, to me. And to have her there, I'm sorry, I'm getting emotional now talking about it because she really is, she's a parent and Gran, I know you're going to watch this, I love you to death and you're my favourite.

Josh Watson:
That's so sweet. I'm glad she could make it for you. Another question for both of you, and we'll begin again with Shayne if we can, you've touched on it a little bit, but how were you told about being inducted and just what reaction did you have? And we'll try to keep it podcast friendly.

Shayne Smith:
Yeah, it was a call from Claire and I'm not going to repeat what I said to her on the phone, but at first it was a very humbling moment where I saw and I heard about all these other people who are getting inducted and all the things they do outside of their sports and it's like, "Why me?"
I go out to schools and I talk to kids and I help them understand that life's not over if you are disabled and I help raise awareness for people with disabilities, but to anyone who knows me knows this, I am a very confident man. I'm a borderline cocky human being. Claire can attest to that. It's true. I own it. And I definitely saw Hall of Fame in my career. I'll say this, I never imagined that it would be this early in my life and I think that kind of knocked the cocky and a little bit of that off a little bit and it was like, wow, this is super humbling that I'm being put in this same category with names like Claire and it was just very, very humbling.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah. It was pretty cool to deliver that message. Again, I have stumbled, not really stumbled because I am very intentional with the spaces and people that I step into. Did I ever think that I'd be working in Para Sport and with other athletes? Yes. Did not think that it was going to be wheelchair rugby.
First off, not knowing much about the sport, but I knew the athletes and coming from an athlete side of it, I knew that I could be good at the job and connect well with the athletes. And when that opportunity literally came across my desk as part of work, it was a no-brainer. I emailed my boss right back and said, "Shayne's got to be a part of this and at least acknowledged and thought of in this process." And yeah, it was cool to have my boss say back "You know what, you should be considered as well." And just to have it evolve into something that we could both share is, again, so cool.

Brock Richardson:
I just love hearing both of your stories. One of you, Shayne, I've been involved in your life early on. We used to go to the [inaudible 00:27:16] games all the time with Kathy Ludwig and company and your mother is the greatest human being on the face of the planet, there's just no doubt about that.
And then Claire came on later in life and we're now working together and she has to deal with my pain in the ass requests if I can say that on the air, if not, we'll bleep it out but I love this. And we don't often do two-person interviews very often and this is great.
Speaking on the emotional side, I want to talk, Shayne, to you about something that's been well documented on this particular program in that I went to the Canadian Paralympic Committee summit and I did a whole bunch of interviews and two of those interviews I did was with Zak Madell and Anthony Létourneau who are your teammates. And on a generic level, we chatted about you and some of the health stuff you're going through and they both had high praises for you during those interviews. I'm curious if you could let the audience know how you're doing and talk a little bit about your teammates.

Shayne Smith:
So it was a whirlwind of a year for me where back in August I found a little cyst on my leg, my left leg, and I went to the doctor and it was two by two by two centimetres around, so nothing crazy. And they said, "Oh, it's a cyst, you'll be fine." So I was like, "Okay, cool, I'll get it removed after world championships", which were coming up in October. I didn't want to take away from the training and all that stuff.
So we left it and I went to World Championships, got engaged to Emily while I was out there and slowly my legs started getting a little more sore and it was just starting to be in pain kind of all the time. And I remember we had a training camp in December and I tried to play and I was like, "This is not okay. There is something wrong with my leg." I was having to take frequent breaks, which isn't like me, and I didn't feel myself. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a lot of energy and I'm kind of go go go 24/7, even when everyone else is like, "Yo, dude, relax, you don't need to keep going. We can stop."
I don't know chill. I just don't have chill. And I would go and I would go and I would go and I was in pain. And then January came around and we had a tournament in Tampa and it was to the point where I would play a two-minute shift in the quarter and sit on the bench two-minute shift in the quarter, sit on the bench. And then come fourth quarter I actually wouldn't even get out of my rugby chair and sit on the bench in my everyday chair because I was just in so much pain by the end of the game.
So got back to Toronto, went directly to the doctor who originally looked at my leg and it had now went from two by two by two to six by six by six. So he said, "You're not training today, you're going to the hospital." I went to the hospital, I had a bunch of tests run on me, everything was done at Mount Sinai and I got a call saying, "Hey, we want to go over your test results, please meet us at Princess Margaret."
As soon as they said Princess Margaret, they didn't need to discuss the results with me. I knew that if they were sending me to Princess Margaret ... I'll say this, if you're going to have cancer, I had the cancer you want. It wasn't attached to any bone. It had some tissue and some nerves in it so I'm in still quite a bit of pain today, but the biggest pain for me is coming from the fact that I haven't been in my rugby chair since January and I probably won't be back in my rugby chair until the end of August, that's kind of what we're looking at.
Sorry. Zak and the boys have been just the best medicine for getting healthy. Every time they're getting ready to go to a tournament, every single one of them has called me and told me how much they missed me and how they wish I was coming with them and how my presence is missed. And you hear that from, at this point I've been on the team so long, these aren't my friends, these aren't my teammates, these are my brothers, this is family at that point.
And Zak especially, I can't say enough. Zak goes out of his way. He knows I'm the silliest person in the world and he just sends me the silliest, dumbest memes every day just to make me smile. So actually they had a training camp in London, Ontario last month and the boys didn't know, but I'd been talking to Patrick Cote, our coach, and it was literally three days before camp started I was able to get in and out of my car and start driving again. So I hopped in the car and I drove to London and I went to see the boys. None of them knew. And what an emotional experience man, all of them just the best huggers, I'll say that. Our team has the best huggers in the world and it was just amazing. So come August, I'll be back probably I can say with pretty certainty I will not be participating in the PanAm games this year, but Paris, watch out, I'll be back.

Brock Richardson:
Awesome. Well, we wish you all the best in your continued recovery and I know from talking to both your teammates, they both said "The energy begins and ends with Shayne Smith. That is the energy of our team. And so that's something that will be missed. But we know he is there supporting us", and they said our doors are always open for Shayne whenever Shayne needs something.
And I, as producer of this program and host will also echo the same thing, that anytime you want to come and just be silly and ridiculous on our podcast, we will be more than happy to have you on our podcast. We appreciate it very much and thank you both for spending some time with us and doing this interview. We greatly appreciate it.
Claire, you're not allowed to go anywhere because we have another segment to do, but we appreciate it and congratulations to both of you.

Shayne Smith:
Thank you. I promise next time I come on, I won't go to a wrestling event the night before.

Brock Richardson:
That is totally okay. I would lose my voice for different things as well doing things the night before. You got to use your voice so I totally, totally get it. That was Shayne Smith and Claire Buchanan, our very own co-host of the program as they were talking about their recent induction into the Toronto Sports Hall of Fame. If you like what you've heard and want to get ahold of us, here's how you can do it by voicemail.

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:
We really love doing interviews and highlighting athletes and people's stories and for me, this one was one of the coolest ones we got to do and I'm going to tell you a couple of things before we move on from this interview, and we're going to get Josh's thoughts on the interview as well. And Claire to some extent, even though it's kind of weird for her to comment on her own interview, but we'll do it anyways.
But one of the things that really stood out to me was just both of you were just so open and so honest with what has happened. And I want to tell a quick story of how I found out that Claire and Shayne were part of the Toronto Sports Hall of Fame and going to be inducted. I remember, and I didn't see it on social media yet, and we have a group in our background and we share these things for different stories that we put on the podcast and things like that.
And I remember all of a sudden Josh just drops this screenshot into our group, which says Claire and Shayne have been inducted into the Toronto Sports Hall of Fame and my first reaction was, "What the heck?" And it wasn't what the heck, but-

Josh Watson:
Something close.

Brock Richardson:
... My first reaction was, "What the heck? How do we not know about this Claire Buchanan, as you are one of our very own?" And for me it's just really cool. I gloated about you guys to my wife for 15 minutes and just said, "Oh my God, my friends are in Hall of Fame." I had a pretty decent career myself, and I'm not in any hall of fame anywhere and no one's knocking on my door either. So we'll see, but just really cool.
And secondly, the second thing that stood out to me was Shayne and his mother, talking about how she pushed him to be better and with the TV remote on the top of the screen and the cabinet and he had to reach up and get it. And some of you out there might be thinking during the interview, "That's teasing the guy." And my answer to that is, nope, it's doing the exact opposite. It is bringing Shayne into the person he is, and without that sort of pushing, it's easy for us as people in the community to just fall into this I'll live my life, I'll do what I need to do and we'll move on. Those are the couple of things that stood out to me from the interview. Josh, start with you on comment.

Josh Watson:
I love doing interviews like that. I mean we've done interviews with Claire once or twice before about different things. And you're right, you're a very open person. And then we really appreciate that as people doing interviews because it makes our job just so much easier.
I played para hockey with Shayne when I was first starting out and I can absolutely attest to the energy that he brings to a team. It's crazy. I think at one time I jokingly thought of him as a bit of a spinning top because he would just bounce off people as he was skating down the ice. It was crazy. Even my parents, when they first started coming out, they'd be like, "Who's the guy with no arms and no legs?" I'm like, "Oh, that's Shayne. He's one of my teammates. Great guy."
So it was just so much fun to see him again and to get to talk to him and just to see that energy again because we haven't played together in quite a while. So it was really good to see him and to hear how he's doing.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, I've had the pleasure of being his teammate and his friend for 20 years now, and I can tell you that when you talk about Shayne, energy is definitely the word that comes to mind. He's going to be the one joking around and talking the most and trying to get everyone in the same vibe, hanging out. And he just takes everything so lightly and is very grateful as a human being.
And I definitely remember I was at a Team Canada camp, and I know you're not supposed to be checking your phones in the locker rooms and stuff, so I might get some heat on this from my coach, but I saw Shayne calling me and it was one of those moments where you just have to pick up the phone and to hear what he was going through and his cancer diagnosis, it was hard.
My mom has seen Shayne at Comic Cons over the years more than I've hung out with him. So it was an instant feeling of I just want to be there for my friend and you realize how close you are to somebody. So yeah, just really glad that he's on the upward path with his diagnosis and hearing that he'll be back on the court and doing what he loves is really good to hear. Because as athletes, when you lose that and don't really ... you don't want to stop a sport without your own decision, without you making that decision. So knowing that he's able to get back into it and push for Paris is exciting.

Brock Richardson:
I just want to reiterate something to the audience because it was not glossed over, but he just said it casually during the interview. When Shayne said, "Yeah, I was in a lot of pain and really I had to stop", Shayne would've had to been in tremendous pain. For Shayne not to want to do something that he loves, I'm telling you, if we're talking that everybody else in the world 10 out of 10 pain level, Shayne was at an 11 plus because he is a guy that says, "Nope, this is my teammate, this is my love, this is everything." So I just want to reiterate for Shayne to say, "No, no, I really have to stop and I really have to sit on the bench and take care of myself", really gives you an idea of the type of person he is.
And as I said, it was something that just was sort of casually said in the interview, "Yeah, I was in a lot of pain and I had to stop." And I remember thinking in that moment during the interview, I thought, yeah, yeah, I need to, in this portion just make sure that the audience understands who and what and why Shayne does the things he does because it doesn't come easily.
What doesn't come any easier is being a Toronto Blue Jays fan at the moment. This is a team that ... yeah, I try sometimes to do the little funny segues. This is a team that everybody expected to be in the top tiers of the major league baseball and the standings. And a couple of games ago when they were 41 and 34, in and around there, somebody reminded the audience on the broadcast, this was the same record as the 2016 team and what did they do at that year?
They went on to win the division and it was all well and good. They went to the American League championship series, lost. So this was just a way of saying, "We can do this." And I know it looks really daunting right now when the Tampa Bay Rays, they are the bane of my existence by the way, just continue to be at the top of the division. And right now as we record this, the Blue Jays are 43 and 36 and in and around about 10 games off the division, and they are tied in the wild card with about three or so teams as the top two make it through for that wild card series.
So in general, let's talk about this, what would you say about this team that is running through your mind? Claire, start with you on this one.

Claire Buchanan:
Well, I think we've hit some unexpected speed bumps that just were unexpected. We did not expect Manoah to have the season that he is right now and currently not active on the roster, got sent down to refocus and then we've had some unexpected good things happen, like Kikuchi is on a roll and that's-

Brock Richardson:
Oh no.

Claire Buchanan:
But again-

Josh Watson:
Lasted two minutes.

Claire Buchanan:
... But again, at the end of the year, there's always those teams that you're always going to have to try to fight through and I'm sorry Brock, but the Rays are that team, they're the bane of our existence is because it's that leap that we just struggle with, come playoff season.
So I hope that Manoah is feeling better because I really don't think it's a physical performance issue. Him being young and still getting in the groove of things of his career, I'm hoping that it was a mental break that he needed and get refocused and yeah, we're far from the season being over and a lot of baseball to happen, but we can't lose to the worst team in the league is what I would have to say.

Josh Watson:
And we did.

Brock Richardson:
Josh, I want to ask you ... and they did, for sure they lost one game, but they did come back and win the last two against the Oakland Athletics so we'll give them that, but I was not happy when they dropped the first one.
Josh, I want to go in a different direction here with you and Claire brought it up a little bit and she talked about Alek Manoah and before we run out of time, I just want to-

Josh Watson:
Sure-

Brock Richardson:
... Put this out there. There is this thought that he might come back for the Canada Day start. That is the next time they would need a fifth starter, right now they're running with four starters, excuse me, and not using that fifth starter. For me, what would you say to that, if Alek Manoah starts on Canada Day?

Josh Watson:
That scares me. We saw how he was when he left this team and it was not by choice. I really feel like that's not the game to bring him back for. Even July 2nd, July 3rd, that's fine. But Canada Day with a full stadium, the spotlight on him when he's had these struggles in the past, I just don't think it's a good idea, depending on the reason for sending him down. And no one outside of the Blue Jay's front office and that team knows why he was sent down, for sure. We can all speculate. We can all say that it was probably mental and he was just too far inside his own head. But we don't know we and we never will. If it's something mechanical that he's fixed, then okay, bring him back, let him start that game if you think he can handle it. But the Manoah that I saw in the last start he made for the Toronto Blue Jays was a guy who was fighting himself and his own head. And you're setting him up for failure, in my opinion, if you bring him back for that Canada Day start.

Brock Richardson:
Claire?

Claire Buchanan:
I absolutely agree. Yeah, I think that if that decision does get made and he is on the mound come Canada Day, that shows a hole in our coaching decisions.

Josh Watson:
Well, there is a hole because we've had to have a bullpen day while he's been gone. There's nobody to replace him. That's the problem.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah. And I think to Claire's point, and correct me if I'm wrong Claire, but the whole you're referring to is in the coach's minds because-

Claire Buchanan:
Yes.

Brock Richardson:
... To me, you're looking at this and saying, "We're not doing this for the betterment of the person. We're doing this for the betterment of our organization." And let me tell you, we have an episode that we're going to be releasing on July the fifth, it's a day later than normal because of Canada Day.
If Alek Manoah is the starter on July 1st, one, Brock Richardson is going to come on here and rip the organization because we can all say the importance of Alek Manoah, what he brings to this team. But first and foremost, as we've talked many, many times on this program, it is about the human being first. And if they start him and put him on the rubber and say, "Here, go get this", if this was Canada Day in any other American ballpark, nobody cares. It's Canada Day, it's just another day.
But now you're adding in the whole country. I totally, totally disagree with this. It is not appropriate. It's not doing this for the betterment of the organization. And I've heard this statement more than once about the potential of him starting Canada Day, and I just cringe every single time I hear it. Josh, I do want to get your thoughts on something you said to me in a conversation that we did not have on the air about the reasons why you think this team has gotten off to the start that they have. Could you share, please?

Josh Watson:
Sure. And I do share it carefully because I do think that it can be misconstrued, but when we look at when the baseball season starts, it starts in late March, early April when let's be honest, in Canada and even some, most northern states, it doesn't feel like baseball weather.
So when a team struggles in the first month or two of the season, that March to May timeframe, I don't worry so much because a lot of these players, and this is the part that can be misconstrued, but a lot of these players are used to playing baseball when it's really hot. And so to try and play baseball when it's eight degrees, nine degrees, 10 degrees outside, probably just doesn't feel good. And it's probably hard to get loose and to be ready because you're not really feeling like it's baseball weather. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but I don't think it's a coincidence that we're seeing a guy like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. starting to heat up now that it's late June, early July.

Brock Richardson:
Claire, thoughts on this?

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, I mean there's lots of factors that go into performance and sport, and weather is definitely one of them. And like Josh touched on, these athletes are used to playing the sport in the middle of the summer with high heat, and a lot of them naturally come from countries that they've grown up in that climate as well. So their bodies aren't acclimated to a April Canadian spring, if you will, which is unpredictable most of the time. So yeah, to touch on the Jays specifically, we're in a different spot because we are the only Canadian team, so we are experiencing a different climate when the start of the season starts.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, and I mean, I will say this, that just the amount of games that you have to play in a season is a lot. To expect your body to be in 100% condition all year round is just not appropriate. And I'm not talking injury, I'm just talking physics, you can't be in peak all season long.
I would love to see the Major League baseball shorten their season by like 80 games and play like the rest of the world and just see this, because then you're not having to have such a grind. And I know that the traditionalists will sit here and say, "I like my baseball 162 games, leave it alone." I get it. But if we're looking at physics of people, why don't we start the season in June and just let it go from there? Let it go from June to September and it's fine. I don't need to see baseball from late March to June because the standings don't matter at that point in the season.
So that's our thoughts on the Toronto Blue Jays, and we're going to keep you posted on what happens. And I'm going to say this to close out, the Toronto Blue Jays have been very lucky, as I knock on wood, with the injury bug. They have been very lucky. The injury bug has happened more mentally than it has physically.
That is the end of our show for this week. I would like to thank Josh Watson, and Claire Buchanan. I'd also like to thank our technical producer Jordan Steves, our regular technical producer is Marc Aflalo, podcast coordinator is Ryan Delehanty. Tune in next week because you just never know what happens when you enter The Neutral Zone. Have a great week and we'll talk to you next week. Be safe. Be well.