Respect or Disrespect - July 5, 2023

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Are you ready? Let's go.

Speaker 5:
From AMI Central.

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Now start playing in the Neutral Zone. Here's the pitch on the way, 36 yards for the win.

Speaker 5:
This...

Speaker 1:
Here comes the big chance, the shot-

Speaker 5:
Is.

Speaker 1:
Is this the tiger?

Speaker 5:
The neutral zone?

Speaker 1:
This is as good as it gets.

Speaker 5:
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 program, we're joined by Tamara Steeves, a Women's Wheelchair Basketball Athlete, who is just coming off of a fifth-place victory with her team in Dubai, at the recent World Championships. We also chat about the idea of respecting and disrespecting parasports, and we're going to get into a lively discussion about that. I am sure. I'm joined by Cam Jenkins and Claire Buchanan. Let's get into our headlines.

Speaker 5:
Neutral Zone headlines.

Claire Buchanan:
We kicked things off by sending our congratulations to the first overall pick in the 2023 NHL draft. Connor Bedard, who went to the Chicago Blackhawks. The Canadian team first-round draft picks go as follows. Calgary selected 16th overall, Samuel Honzek. Edmonton Oilers selected Beau Akey, 56th overall. The Vancouver Canucks selected Tom Willander, 11th overall. Winnipeg selected Colby Barlow, 18th overall, and the Toronto Maple Leaf selected Easton Cowan, 28th overall.

Cam Jenkins:
There was also some hardware handed out in the NHL this week as the awards took place and here are some of the highlights and to no one's surprised. The Ted Lindsay Award and the Hart Trophy went to Connor McDavid. The Lady Byng Trophy for the most gentlemanly player went to Anže Kopitar. The Mark Messier leadership award went to Steven Stamkos and the E.J. McGuire Award of Excellence went to Connor Bedard. The Calder Trophy went to Matty Beniers and the Sulky Trophy, which seems like the 15th millionth time went to Patrice Bergeron. Congratulations to all the winners.

Brock Richardson:
The Boccia World Championships wrapped up this week. Here are your results. Gold BC4, Alison Levine from Montreal, Quebec. Also in Gold, Danik Allard from Montreal, Quebec. Silver, went to Marco Dispaltro from Montreal, Quebec, who is a BC4. Bronze went to Lance Cryderman from Ontario. Kristyn Collins from Newfoundland. Iulian Ciobanu from Montreal, and the team which is three on three had a silver medal and the pairs also had a silver medal and the BC3s had a bronze. That is total of 10 medals at the World Championships. Good for second place overall. Congratulations to everybody involved.

Claire Buchanan:
Here are some NBA news as it relates to the Toronto Raptors. Our own Fred VanVleet and the Houston Rockets have come to an agreement on a three-year 130 million dollar contract. And Jakob Poeltl signed a four-year contract worth 80 million dollars and we picked up Dennis Schroeder who agreed to a two-year, 26 million contract.

Brock Richardson:
Those are your headlines for this week and of course, Jakob Poeltl is a returning choice for the Toronto Raptors. I have to be honest with you and tell you that I like some of these signings, but other ones, I don't. And we'll leave it there for the time being and let the audience guess. Let's get into our chat segment for this week. I thought we would chat a little bit about exactly what I just read off, and that's the fact that Team Canada got 10 overall medals as just illustrated. That was good for second place. However, they got more medals than the first-place team and the reason the first-place team got a higher seed was because they had more gold medals. So my question for both of you is do you like the format of, if you have more medals than another nation. In this case it was Columbia, who got first place? Should you receive second place or should the person with more gold medals receive first place? Your thoughts, Claire, starting with you.

Claire Buchanan:
Well, I want to start off that I definitely skipped over the Ottawa Senators. That is not because I'm a Leafs fan. I promise my bias was not there, but the Ottawa Senator did select Hoyt Stanley, 108th overall. So I wanted to clear that up, but I can understand where this process kind of happens is that yes, you go to the Olympics, and the Paralympics to hopefully win a gold medal. Yes, that's kind of the ultimate goal at either games but at the same time, there's a lot of athletes that go there that do have a goal of just making the podium or they got a bronze medal last time and now, they're shooting for a silver. So yeah, I understand why the gold medal is put on such a high pedestal, but I think, when you look at the... When the games are over, you really look at who has the most.
And I know when I watch, yeah, you're looking at who has gold medals and stuff, but I definitely look at the overall number to see where Canada ranks in comparison to the other countries. So yeah, I definitely go in looking at total number of medals instead of just having the focus on gold medals.

Cam Jenkins:
It's all about the total medals at the end of the day, if I have $1000 and it's all in $100 bills or if I have $1000 and they're all in $1 bills, am I going to think well, because it's all $1 bills and there's like more cash, not more cash, but more bills because there's one compared to ... I suck at math, but, I think you would've ten $100 bills and a thousand, $1 bills. Am I going to be more happy because I have 1,000 $1 bills compared to 10 $100 bills? No, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter a damn bit at the end of the day. It matters how many medals you get and that's all that should matter at the end of the day. And I don't know why they put a gold medal as something better because at the end of the day, it's not. If somebody wins a medal, whether it's gold, silver or bronze, that is a huge accomplishment and it should be seen as such.

Brock Richardson:
So I pulled this up in live time as we're doing this. I just want to give full context to the top three here. So if we look at Columbia, they had four golds, zero silver, and one bronze, a total of five medals, first place. If we look at Argentina, they had three gold, one silver and one bronze, five medals. Canada had two golds, three silvers, and five bronze, a total of 10. So to me, as I read this and look at this right in front of me, this is a case of like it's not two medals, it's not one medal difference. It is double the amount of medals. To me, this needs to be moved, and I would say this just to remove my biases altogether, I would say this, whether it's any country of any stature, I believe the most medals should receive the top seeding.
I understand to a point that the gold medals are the top value, but over there, Cam Jenkins pulled out his mathematician calculator and gave us a little bit of $1 bill and-

Cam Jenkins:
It was rough too. I suck at math. It was rough, but I was trying to make a point-

Brock Richardson:
We got there. We got there.

Cam Jenkins:
Fair point. We got there.

Brock Richardson:
Okay. The point is that we got there and it's all good, but when you point that out that if you have the same amount, whether it's $1 bills or a 1000 $1 bills versus-

Cam Jenkins:
10 100s.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah. I suck at math too. Here we go.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, we all do. We're into sports. We're not a math... It's not the mathematician show-

Claire Buchanan:
Is there a reason why we're all in broadcasting?

Brock Richardson:
The Neutral Zone has nothing to do with dollar bills, folks. But yeah, the point is the same. It's the same money value. I just totally, totally disagree. Regardless of Canada, congratulations in my mind, and it sounds like everybody else's mind on the Neutral Zone panel. You guys deserve first place. With that, let's show you how you can get ahold of us on Twitter and maybe you can tell us how to do math skills better than we just did.

Speaker 5:
And welcome back to the Neutral Zone AMI broadcast booth.

Speaker 1:
Play ball.

Speaker 5:
And we are set to get this ballgame underway. The first pitch was brought to you by Brock Richardson's Twitter account at Neutral Zone BR.

Speaker 1:
Strike.

Speaker 5:
First pitch strike and hey gang, why not strike up a Twitter chat with Claire Buchanan for the Neutral Zone. Find her at Neutral Zone CB and there's a swing and a chopper out to second base right at Claire. She picks up the ball, throws it over to first base, for a routine out and fans, there is nothing routine about connecting with Cam and Josh from the Neutral Zone, @NeutralZoneCamJ and @JWatson200. Now that's a winning combination and this Oregon interlude is brought to you by AMI Audio on Twitter. Get in touch with the Neutral Zone, type in @AMIAudio.

Brock Richardson:
We are joined by Canadian Women's wheelchair basketball player, Tamara Steeves. She and her team recently came back from Dubai and finished in fifth place at the World Championships. She joins us to talk all about it from Mississauga, Ontario. Tamara, how are you? Nice to have you on the program.

Tamara Steeves:
I'm good, thanks for having me here. I'm glad I can make it.

Brock Richardson:
Before we get into the real questions, the beginning of a show, we were talking about math equations. Are you any good at math?

Tamara Steeves:
I am terrible at math. It's not like strong suit. That's for sure.

Brock Richardson:
So let me ask you this question. Do you think that when you go to the Paralympic Games, the ranking should be based on the number of gold medals you receive or total medals as a nation?

Tamara Steeves:
Total medals as a nation.

Brock Richardson:
We are unified in this. All right, let's get into the in-interview questions guys. Take it away.

Claire Buchanan:
All right, Tamara. So world championships, we're in Dubai. First off, have you been to Dubai before and can you touch on how the accessibility was like in a city like that, with a tournament so big?

Tamara Steeves:
I've never been to Dubai before so it was a cool experience to see. We had a very busy schedule, so we didn't have a lot of off days, but the days that we had off, I got to go to the Museum of the Future, which is very accessible. Very cool to see what they have planned for the future. Then, we had the... I visit the mall quite a bit, so that was pretty cool. Nice accessible, they have an aquarium in there, which is mind-blowing because it's super huge. Yeah, it was pretty cool to see how accessible it is and stuff like that, so it was great.

Cam Jenkins:
And the mall, just to... as a side note, I'm interested, have you ever been to Edmonton in the West Edmonton Mall?

Tamara Steeves:
I have. That's even huge there, the waterpark in there, pretty cool.

Cam Jenkins:
Okay, so it doesn't compare to the one in Dubai. The one in West Edmonton Mall as much bigger.

Tamara Steeves:
It's pretty cool. I don't remember. I went to Edmonton a long time ago.

Cam Jenkins:
I can't remember what I did yesterday, so I hear you on that one. So as I understand in April 2023, Basketball Canada announced that Marni Abbott-Peter would take over as the next head coach. Can you maybe talk about how things are going with her newly at the helm with this team?

Tamara Steeves:
Marni has been doing a great job so far. We haven't had a lot of camps together, so we're still trying to learn from her. So, we still have some work to do in some areas to get where we wanted to be but I think it's going great so far.

Claire Buchanan:
Marni also has a disability and comes from a wheelchair basketball background. How much does that make a difference when compared to having say an able-bodied coach come in and try to teach and coach a parasport?

Tamara Steeves:
I think definitely having Marni as our head coach with the disability brings tremendous experience. She's a former basketball player, so she's one of the best little players ever to play. She's learned lots from Tim Britt, so that aspect leading into us, I think is a great experience and getting to learn from her is amazing.

Cam Jenkins:
Now when you're in the bike, can you maybe talk about the round-robin portion of the tournament and what you thought of it and how you did?

Tamara Steeves:
It was a little tough. We came out with a great start against Brazil, a little rough to begin with. It was a close matchup. That we just... I don't know, Spain, I think we may have took too lightly in our game and that kind of backfired. Same with Australia, we play those guys, Australia multiple times. We just had a camp in Colorado where we played them multiple times and we'd be dumb, but I think it comes from within us. It's not that Australian, [inaudible 00:14:19] great teams, but I think with us, just learning with our new coach and our potential of where we want to be and stuff like that is still up in the air. So we're trying to learn from those experience. We want them back, but it's kind of hard to get those games back when the [inaudible 00:14:35] is over, but we just learned from them and lead on to other tournaments that we have.

Claire Buchanan:
You had the round-robin under your belt and then you went on to face the Netherlands in the quarter-final. Can you chat about that game and how you guys have faced off against them in the past and what was different this time?

Tamara Steeves:
We played the over a lot of, over the last couple years we've had multiple camps in Taps and Dolls, which is where their facility is and stuff like that, and we knew it was going to be a tough game if we stuck to our game plan, I think we would've been a little closer to what we wanted have but know they'd send their paralympic champs, they're a great team. We just got to learn from each to experience when we play them and hopefully we play them again soon.

Cam Jenkins:
And really all in all your final reserve was fifth place out of 12 teams. I think, but the way you've been talking, I think I kind of know where you're going to go with this, but how, not just you but the team satisfied with that result?

Tamara Steeves:
It's a hard one to settle. We knew coming in that we wanted to be in top medal position. We had that mindset coming in. We're hoping to get there. Unfortunately, we fell apart in the quarter-finals, actually a little bit before that in a round-robin play, but I think our team has lots of potential and we just got to learn from those opportunities. We have a strong 11 players and I think if we can just focus on ourselves then what we need to do, I think we'll come out way stronger. So it's a hard one to swallow, but I think we'll come out stronger, if we're Pan Am and hopefully Paris.

Claire Buchanan:
Well that leads into my next question is, I think I can speak for everyone who supports the women's team is that we do know that you guys have that podium potential right now and leading into Pan Am games and Paris. What kind of things are you putting in place to come together and possibly make that happen down the road?

Tamara Steeves:
For me right now I'm taking some time off from basketball, just try to focus on my recovery, stuff like that and taking some time with my family and friends. And then after that, just get back to training grind. We have things we want to work on and that's what we're going to work on. Hopefully, we have some camps coming up that we can work on those potentials and I'm sure the staff and the players are all going to reach out to each other soon and set goals for ourselves again this year and hopefully come out with those goals.

Cam Jenkins:
Our sources here at the Neutral Zone are saying that there's some pretty exciting things going to be happening for you in your personal life. Did you want to maybe to talk a little bit about that?

Tamara Steeves:
There is actually, so my fiance now, so I'm getting married.

Cam Jenkins:
Fiance.

Claire Buchanan:
Congratulations.

Tamara Steeves:
Thank you. Thank you. Me and Eric Voss are getting married on September 16th, 2023 of this year and I'm looking forward to it. So lots of prep coming this next couple of months and stuff like that, but just enjoying the ride along until that big day and then sure will be a wonderful day there. So that's what's personal in my life right now.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah. Congratulations. That's amazing. And how are the plans going? Is everything all done up and ready to go or?

Tamara Steeves:
Not quite yet. Still working out some stuff, but mostly everything's coming along perfectly. Eric's been a great help since I've been away, so now it's just time for both of us to grind while working on those things for the wedding.

Cam Jenkins:
Awesome. Congratulations.

Tamara Steeves:
Thank you. Thank you.

Brock Richardson:
Tamara, if it was anything like my wedding, everything came together at the last minute. You can plan all you want and something just goes sideways and we had extra time because of COVID. You're always right up to the very end and that's... But it's part of the fun. So I would suggest enjoying it and not necessarily pulling your hair out or in my case, pulling my cake down. It was a mess, yeah. Yeah, those are the stories you talk about, Tamara, one of the stories that I heard within about 30 seconds of the broadcast against the game with the Netherlands going into the quarterfinals was, "Oh, this was supposed to be a final, this is supposed to be a final." And then through the entire game, "Yeah, this is supposed to be a final or a semi-final." Does that bother you obviously wouldn't have known that in the game, but does that bother you knowing that that's what the media was portraying in the middle of the game when you have a game to play and that's that. It bothered me and I wasn't even there. So can you respond?

Tamara Steeves:
I think it's great to have that in the back of their minds, I guess but I think to think about. We're hoping that was our final as well coming into it because we know Paralympic champs, so we want to bring our game every single day. So I don't think it bothers me. I think it kind of fuels me to do it, so I'm okay with that kind of communication or portrayal of the game and stuff like that so.

Cam Jenkins:
And Tamara, how many years has it been that you've been on the wheelchair basketball team now?

Tamara Steeves:
Been a while, 11 years.

Cam Jenkins:
11 years, wow.

Tamara Steeves:
Yeah.

Cam Jenkins:
That's a long time. And you've probably seen so many different changes. Can you maybe talk about how you've changed as a person from when you first joined the team to now?

Tamara Steeves:
Oh, I remember in 2012 when I made [inaudible 00:20:20] Olympic team, I was a rookie, didn't do much. Sat on a bench, a little cheerleader, and then leading up to it back in 2015 I didn't make the Pan Am games, which was devastating for me. So then I just changed my mindset, focused on fully training 24/7, focusing on what I needed to do to get back on the team. Then I made the Rio Paralympic 2016 team and I think that changed my mindset completely of like, "Oh, you want this, you're going to work as hard as you can for it. And then leading up to after that, when we finished Fifth Place again, I was more of a leader coming up to the next year. 2017, we had new coaching staff and we didn't have that many players, literally nine of us. I remember [inaudible 00:21:09] we did have many players and stuff like that.
So I think me changing my mindset from like, "Oh, I'm not a rookie anymore. I can lead this team." To things that we need to work on and stuff like that. So I think that changed my mindset completely and I grew up way quicker for that. So I think that was a big change for me for sure. And then now I think just still leading the way of how I play, how I can teach players how to play and stuff like that. Not how I play exactly, but what they can do and what they work on and stuff like that. So I think I do that a little better but...

Claire Buchanan:
You touched on the evolution of yourself and your game. Can you put us through the evolution of the team as a whole, even in comparison from Tokyo to leading into Paris now there's new faces both on the bench and in with players. How has that changed that dynamic and has anything changed in terms of what your core focuses are leading into the next Paralympic games?

Tamara Steeves:
Oh, we're, I think since Tokyo with COVID and everything, Tokyo was a hard year for a bunch of us and stuff like that. So I think coming off of Tokyo and learning from that, I think we came a way stronger. 2021 was also training and just trying to focus on stuff like that. Obviously coming into new coaching staff, there wasn't a lot of time, but I think that's all right in our aspect of leading as a team and stuff like that. And then I think coming to Paris, like you said, "Having goals, trying to set those, trying to work towards those." Might not come right away, but we have Pan Am coming in November, we got to finish top one to make it, there's only one spot, so we don't want to go to that in the last chance tournament. We got to buckle down and do what we know we can do and just play it wild out there. No regrets.

Brock Richardson:
I was with Tamara in 2012 at the Paralympic games and I got to be honest, the growth that I've seen in not only the program but your game and your athlete maturity, let's put it that way, is unbelievable, the difference. I remember looking for Tamara in different spots at the 2012 games and we had some conversations and as somebody who'd been to the Paralympics before, I was kind of like, "Being on the bench is a good thing." And as an athlete it's sort of the hard thing to hear at the moment, but your growth has been unbelievable and you've done so well and congratulations on your development and being able to lead the team to where you want to get to. And I have all the confidence in the world that you guys will take care of business at Para Pan Am because nobody wants to go to a do or die tournament. It's just never a good feeling. So thank you so much for coming on and doing this. We greatly appreciate it.

Tamara Steeves:
Thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Brock Richardson:
That was Tamara Steeves who is a women's wheelchair basketball athlete and she of course plays for Team Canada and she's from Mississauga, Ontario. If you like this interview or anything else we do on the program and you want to leave us a voicemail, here's how you can do it.

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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:
As we carry on through the program. I am going to give you some programming notes. So this is my last episode for three weeks. I am going on a long awaited honeymoon that has been in the works for a long time. So you guys will be covered with Josh, Claire and Cameron. Cameron will be your host and Josh and Claire will be panelists plus producer. So any issues with the next two shows after the one I produce next week, you can send your tweets to Claire, Josh and Cameron. No, you guys will be in.

Cam Jenkins:
Oh no, no, no, no, no.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah.

Cam Jenkins:
We all know that you're going to have your social media on the cruise because you probably already have wifi included.

Brock Richardson:
No, I don't. No.

Cam Jenkins:
So please feel free to tweet out to @NeutralZoneBR.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, chirp him on the boat. Chirp him on.

Cam Jenkins:
Chirp him on the boat and just make his life a living H-E Double Hockey Sticks and any problems reach out to him because we don't need that kind of when we're out of our comfort zone and he's just going to be having margaritas or daiquiris by the poolside and hanging out. So no, you Neutral Zone @NeutralZoneBR any problems over to Brock?

Brock Richardson:
My phone will have to be on airplane mode because I wasn't paying the astronomical wifi prices that were on the cruise ship. So no, you cannot reach me and I'll get them afterwards but regardless, you'll be in good hands with, we're going to call them the three amigos for the next few weeks so you'll be in good hands and it'll be fun while I am gone. And then I will return on the 31st of July, which is the day we record and then we will be posting it on the first. So lots of good programming.

Cam Jenkins:
So you arrive and you're doing the show on the same day?

Brock Richardson:
No, no, no, no, no, no. I come back on-

Cam Jenkins:
Okay, that's what I thought you said.

Brock Richardson:
I come back on the 26th and then I-

Cam Jenkins:
Oh, okay. So you do have a few days.

Brock Richardson:
Yes.

Cam Jenkins:
Okay. I was going to be like that is dedication.

Claire Buchanan:
[inaudible 00:27:33].

Cam Jenkins:
You coming back off the plane, you might darn well if that was going to happen. Have to do it right from the airport because if you know got stuck on the plane or you got to wait for your bags and I was going to be, that's dedication, but I take it all back. It's not dedication because you're going to be here three days before.

Claire Buchanan:
We got to give him a few days to settle his burn down and-

Cam Jenkins:
Exactly.

Claire Buchanan:
He's got to get camera ready.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, of course, of course. All right, so let's proceed on with this program. Now that you know the coming weeks, I want to go back a little bit to Tamara's interview and I'm going to tell you, Tamara does not like to do media spots like this. I have been asking her for a long time to do this and she says, "Yeah, yeah, no problem." And then something happens. So the fact that Tamara did this, I'm greatly appreciative of that because I just know she doesn't like it. Quick thoughts from both of you starting with Claire.

Claire Buchanan:
It's honestly the past few years that this program has transitioned into... Every time we have a conversation and we're talking about women's wheelchair basketball in Canada, the sentence of them being back on the podium comes back up and we know that that team is right there and they're able to do that and they have that potential to do so. And I mean Tamara spoke on that and Brock hearing how you saw her in 2012 and kind of gave her those kind of words of wisdom of "Hey, do your time and yeah, it sucks to be on the bench right now, but you're going to grow into a better player because of it." And just to see where Tamara is now.
And I remember first meeting Tamara and getting chirped starting basketball and they were already a world champion and so much experience behind them as well and they have a lot more ahead of them. So yeah, good luck to them in the Pan Am games and I hope to see them in Paris because they can change the current state of where women's basketball is in Canada and put themselves back on that podium.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah. It's been awesome to see Tamara and just how she's grown as a person. I remember playing Sledge hockey, Paradise Hockey, whatever you want to call it, and seeing her on the rink and then just seeing her be on the team for basketball and just her journey to be the player that she is today and the confidence that she's gained. It's wonderful to see.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, with Tamara, I totally feel, even though it's a smaller part, I feel that I have had a portion in watching her grow. I'm not going to be ballsy enough to say having her grow because that would be too much, but I refereed House League and Tamara was one of my athletes who would love to chirp, would love to get on the officials and I don't see that as much now I see her leading by example. I see her doing what she needs to do. Of course, you don't see the off-court stuff because we don't see that in feeds. We only see what we see during the game. But I just love what I've seen from Tamara and she's a really great person and the whole team is really great and they will get to where they need to get to. The Paralympic games would not be the same in wheelchair basketball without Team Canada. So they're going to get there. I'm confident in that. I'm marking this as we record this, they're going to get where they need to get to. I believe it.
Something else I believe is we're finally going to get to a topic in which I have been teasing for a long time and that is respecting versus disrespecting of parasports. This is one that I've had in my mind for a while and we're talking on this streaming events versus not streaming events. On a more broad question, would you say that parasports is respected or disrespected in the way of streaming events or not streaming events? Cameron start with you and then Claire.

Cam Jenkins:
I think that it's starting to get respect in regards to streaming because that's the way the world is being able to stream events now and it seems that companies are more willing to put into dollars to be able to stream it online because I think the cost is a lot less than putting it on television. It's a lot bigger production, which is more money.
So I think it's starting to get the respect it is only online where para sports a lot of the time is going where you can watch it. I'd love to be able to see it on prime time on CBC, like the actual event or any major TV station as far as that goes. I would love to be able to see it there, but when you actually put it on like TSN, they put on the Para Sledge Hockey Championships, I forget what it's called, but TSN has it on every year and I think they just have probably the playoff games or maybe even the gold medal game and it's great to see that, but to have all of your crew and camera crews and you have the announcers and just all the production that goes along with it costs a lot to put on TV.
So the next best thing is to have it on the internet and that way it's accessible to all because most of the time it's also free. So you don't have to have a subscription to TSN in order to be able to watch it. You can just go on Facebook and which is free to get a Facebook account and be able to watch a lot of the events on Facebook so.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, I would say that it has a long way to go and it has come a long way, but at the same time it's not consistent across the board. I personally recently was at the Canadian Wheelchair Rugby Championships and this was their first year that it was actually being streamed on CBC Gem and we recently saw other sports, and parasports be streamed on the CBC Gem app as well. And that's fantastic. That's like you said, Cameron, "It's accessible to all." You don't have to have a cable subscription to access it and there is a lot of parasports being live-streamed on Facebook and YouTube and having those free access points to parasports is great, but like I said, it's not consistent across the board. It would be great to see more prime time, like you said, more prime time events on TSN with para-athletes being part of the broadcast and stuff like that.
You do see during the Paralympic games and stuff and it's tough when you don't get to see all the games in that specific tournament leading up to a gold medal game and then all of a sudden the gold medal game is right there on TSN across the board. So yeah, we've come a long way. I would like to see a lot more consistency across all para-sports. I can speak from personal experiences being inducted to the Sports Hall of Honor recently. They asked for content for me, videos of me playing, videos of me playing ball sports because I was playing wheelchair basketball at some point as well and there wasn't any content, the last games that were live-streamed for women's para hockey that we were able to get a hold of where last year's world challenge in Green Bay and then before then the last time it was 2018, 2019 and even then it was from a bird's eye view camera, so couldn't even pick me out on the ice to even get content. So it's...

Cam Jenkins:
[inaudible 00:36:55] they've been able to see it.

Claire Buchanan:
Bird watching, but, yeah and that's where I want to see the consistency of if we're able to get broadcasting companies like CBC Gem to jump on board and have that commentating and have that good quality video, it's those kinds of things that is going to draw in the sponsors and the broadcasting companies that want to put in that investment into parasport because we all know that just like you see in women's sports growing right now, that if you invest in it, people are going to be excited about it, people are going to watch it and it's just going to grow. So yeah, I can talk for days about how much we need to invest in parasport, but when it comes to it, it's all about money, right?

Cam Jenkins:
Well I think, oh and that's what it's always been. And I think we also need to give a shout-out to a friend of the show Nico Cartelli because he has his own company as well and he's done a lot of live-streaming and trying to promote parasport as well. So it's advocates like that that are going to keep putting out the content that eventually it's going to get to a better place than it is right now. And in leaps and bounds it is so much better than it was five, 10 years ago. And a lot of that has to do with social media and the internet and being able to produce a show or a sports event that's making it much more economical to do so.

Brock Richardson:
I've seen four different events over the last little while streamed. I've seen wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball, I've seen para ice hockey at the national level and provincial level and goalball. Some of these events were done well and some of these events were done poorly. I'm not going to oust which ones were done well and poorly that's not the point of this conversation. But I do believe that there is something to be said for the sports that are more recognizable. Those are the ones that tend to draw the, let's put this one here, let's invest more money into broadcasting.
Let's do this, let's do that versus the ones that aren't where you sit there and say, "Hmm, we don't see this." Or we see it but we see it put up there where it's the camera's at one end of the gym and you're supposed to decipher and figure out what's going on with the camera when there's no commentators and you're looking through mesh and it's all that kind of thing. What do you think about this idea? Is there a world or a situation where we can use one overall platform to streamline all para-sports? I don't care what it is, instead of leaving it up to the national sport organizations to stream it. Should there be a place where it is one network, one situation of any kind, where they become the streamliner? In my mind, I'm looking at this and thinking maybe the Canadian Paralympic Committee, maybe that's my suggestion. Would something like that work in both of your minds? Claire, start with you on this one.

Claire Buchanan:
I don't think it would be a bad idea to try and the Canadian Paralympic Committee would be a great place to start. When you were kind of giving that description. I CBC Gem stuck in my mind because they have done a fantastic job recently of covering parasports. But when you get in with a company like that, you have to make sure that the people that are doing those shows and running those events are knowledgeable in parasports. We need to have broadcasters and we're reporters and people in the industry that have lived experience or know about parasport because that's where the disconnect is that there's a big chunk of the able-bodied world that only knows of a handful of sports that exists. So if we have that transferring over into these broadcasting companies, it's not really fixing anything without having that kind of lived experience of, "No, actually these other sports do exist and they're just as good."
Yeah, I mean are we calling out CBC right now to pick up parasports? Let's have one streaming system that covers everything because what I love watching wheelchair basketball and I love watching rugby and para hockey, but we need to be watching out for the swimming and the badminton and the track and field that we don't get to see a lot of it. That in itself only gets picked into pieces here and there of only showing specific events and seeing the Paralympic games and kind of sports trickling down from that. There's so many more athletes that deserve the exposure because they're training just as hard as these other athletes that are getting it nonstop.

Brock Richardson:
I'm not-

Cam Jenkins:
And if you're just talking about CPC streaming it or being the one to, are you just talking about when it's paralympic time because they're already streaming those? What about the grassroots of the hockey tournaments or the volleyball tournaments or the Ontario Provincial Championships? I think that it may be a good place to start with CBC, but you would also want them to have other events whether it's world championships or some of the grassroots as well. So it's not an impossible task, but I just think that yeah, it is just going to have to take some thinking and unfortunately I can't think that quick of a solution of, yeah, it should be this.

Brock Richardson:
Let me be clear. First of all, the Canadian Paralympic Committee has been a very big supporter of this program and I'm not even remotely saying that they're not already busy enough in the things that they do. What I'm wondering though with when you think about the grassroots situations, because that is what I'm looking for because parasports, but sports in general has to start somewhere. It starts at the smaller events. Those are where you get to know the names of the people that are on national teams when you just simply put the national event or the international event and that's it. People don't know where it starts from. And those are the situations where you can look and you can say, "Well, I remember so-and-so from this event." Or that event or whatever, as opposed to just throwing people on a streaming service and saying, "Here's X sport and we're just going to put it on here." When you don't know the names of the people because those international competitions, what are we going to do?
We're not going to get them to give us all the stories and to tell us who's who and what's what because they're going to assume that by this level, who Tamara Steeves is who Marco Dispaltro is, you know who, "Name the athlete here." Is. And so to me, I think it does need to start at the grassroots level and I think somebody needs to put more money into the guy doing the parasport or girl, whoever it is, doing parasports and saying, "We're going to invest money in you and we're going to put the money in you because we believe in what you're doing."
I think it's far too much for a national sports organization to be putting their own individual sport on and saying, "Here's a commentator, here's this that." You need a streamlined situation where one service can say, "I can provide this, I can do this and this is how we're going to do this." Of course you're going to have to have an army to do it because you can't expect people to be at seven events on the same weekend, sure. But I just think there needs to be a better streamlined situation than there currently is on this.

Cam Jenkins:
So the... I've just come up with it and it's a $1 million idea. This is how it should be done. Recently there's been articles or in the newspaper about SDPN, which is the Steve Dangle Podcast Network and how they've just kind of created their own company and their own contents. What there needs to be is a disabled sports network and that way you could create content about certain shows and you could concentrate on sitting volleyball or any show you wanted to and you could really talk about the grassroots of it. And if you get reporters throughout the country, you know, could get them on and be an expert on a certain topic and yeah disabled sports network, I'm going to trademark that as soon as I get off the show.

Claire Buchanan:
I love it.

Brock Richardson:
That's not to be confused with TSN out there for you. I just think there's a way that it can be done because as I was watching some of the sports that were really well done and some of the ones that were not so well done, I'm thinking, yeah but on the ones that aren't so well done, maybe the individual who's running it doesn't have the technology background, doesn't have the finding a good broadcaster. There's got to be something missing. I think it's all well-intended on everything people are trying to do, putting it out there, but I just think there can be a sort of missing puzzle piece that nobody can really find and say, "This is how we're going to do it. And this is my suggestion."
So I think where I'll put this to sort of close this portion of the conversation is to ask you, we've been having this discussion over the last little while in this segment. Do you guys think from some of the things we've said and brought up, do you guys think overall that parasport is respected or disrespected when it consists to streaming or not? And has your answer changed from the beginning of the conversation to the end? Cameron, start with you.

Cam Jenkins:
No, I think it is more respected than it ever has been. And you're seeing that because of the content that is on social media or is on the internet. So I think it is getting respected, it still needs a way to go, but it is getting respected.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, my answer is state the same is that it has come a long way and we are seeing big leaps in exposure of parasport happening, but not consistently. And that's what I would like to see, and I think that a lot of sports are... Like this is their first time kind of putting their sport or their league or whatever on a streaming service and it's kind of trial and error at the same time as well. It's not going to be perfect right away, but not doing anything about it is way worse than giving it a shot and saying, "Hey, all right, this turned out really crappy this time, but hey, we did it. This is the first year of doing it." And you can build on that and get to a place where it's good broadcasting. Yeah, we got to start somewhere.

Brock Richardson:
Even the greatest stream that you could ever have, whatever that looks like is going to have its flaws. It's going to have its things where we look upon it and say, "I would do this differently instead of that I would..." Whatever you would do. And I think there's another component that everybody has to factor in is the visually impaired component. How do those individuals retain the same content as someone who's sighted? So there are all kinds of different factors to this and I think somewhere it's got to start and to me, the Canadian Paralympic Committee, as we mentioned would be a good place to start, but that goes further than just nationals or international events. We need to put the spotlight on the grassroots situations. I think CBC Gem, what we've seen in the last little while with the Paralympic games with different events that they've chosen to stream and they're using a feed that already exists and just sort of placing it on their platform.
I think that's the place where you look and you say, "Well, here's where it can be." Because I'll be honest with you, there are events that they have streamed where I can literally go to their page and I can pick whether I want to watch Canada versus pick the team or a game that happened hours ago, there are ways. The other form that I would choose is YouTube. Maybe YouTube looks at this and says, "This is where we're going to put this." YouTube is becoming sort of this broader platform where it's not just the silly videos that you look up or the songs you want to listen to or whatever. I think there are many platforms that you could put this on and say, "This is where we're going to stream it." And the beautiful thing about YouTube is you can take the YouTube content and stream it on another device if you're visually impaired, which might be bigger, which might be have your contrast. There's all kinds of positive things that are sorted out.
But again, I want to reiterate that nothing will ever be perfect. And I think for anyone that sits here and they say, "This is going to be perfect, this is going to be the way..." It's not realistic to say, this is going to be perfect because even the best broadcast is going to have its flaws. Final thoughts from both of you before we close the show, starting with Cameron.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, I think YouTube's a great idea and you can live stream on YouTube too as soon as you've been talking about videos on YouTube then like cat videos and panda videos started to go into my head for some reason so.

Claire Buchanan:
It seems like Cameron ends up just in a black hole of YouTube once he gets on, but hey, if we had YouTube, a whole section of YouTube blocked off for a parasport, maybe we can avoid those black holes. But yeah, I mean, we have so many platforms that parasport can be on and we're seeing it grow, and I'm excited to see even these next Paralympic games, what kind of broadcasting that brings out and kind of building off of that again, because we all know what happened in 2012 in London where it kind of rocket shot parasports up into the stars a little bit and kind of pushed us in the direction that we want to go in. And I think we're kind of leading into another kind of jolt of pushing parasport on that next level as well.

Brock Richardson:
The black hole for me can be TikTok. That is a place that I can just scroll-

Claire Buchanan:
That's mine too. Yes.

Brock Richardson:
And scroll for days. Do not put parasports on TikTok because that is just probably not the platform that it should be on. Let's put it on something a little bit different.

Cam Jenkins:
Man. I've never ever signed up for TikTok.

Claire Buchanan:
Oh man, you're missing out.

Brock Richardson:
God, don't even-

Cam Jenkins:
No, but you can get the exact same stuff on. Well, mine is the Instagram Reels. So you see enough tomfoolery on the Instagram Reels, but most of it's from TikTok anyways, so there's tomfoolery no matter where you go, but sometimes you just need to see a funny animal video to make you laugh or an exercise video where somebody hits the dumbbell and it hits them in the head or whatever. It's just, just funny stuff and sometimes you need that.

Brock Richardson:
That is the end of our program for this week. I'd like to thank Jordan Steeves, our technical producer, Cam Jenkins and Claire Buchanan. Tune in next week when the three amigos take charge of your next edition of the Neutral Zone. I will see you on August 1st. Be safe. Be well.