Para Ice Hockey Down Under - July 18, 2023

Stinger:
Are you ready? Press come. From AMI central now start playing in the neutral zone. Here's the pitch on the way, 36 yards for the wind. This, here comes a big chance. The shot, is this the tiger? The neutral zone. Oh my god. This is as good as it gets.
Now here's your host two-time Paralympian Brock Richardson.

Cam Jenkins:
And how's it going everybody? I'm filling in for Cam Jenkins. As you can see, I'm not Brock Richardson, two-time Paralympic champion, but I'm Cam Jenkins, maybe a two-time silver medalist at the Para Ice Hockey Ontario Championships maybe. We'll go with that.
So welcome to another edition of the Neutral Zone. As I said, I'm Cam Jenkins, filling in for Brock. He's going to be back on August 1st. And coming up on today's program, we'll release another interview from the Canadian Paralympic Committee Summit and we're going to feature Nate Riech.
So how about we get into this week's headlines.

Stinger:
Neutral Zone headlines, headlines, headlines.

Joshua Watson:
The Major League Baseball Home Run Derby took place on Monday. There were a couple of interesting notes.
Pete Alonzo of the New York Mets was trying to tie Ken Griffey Jr. with three Home Run Derby wins in his career.
Julio Rodriguez of the Seattle Mariners was trying to win at home for the first time since Todd Frazier did it back in 2015 for the Cincinnati Reds.
And Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was attempting to be not only the first Blue Jay to win the event, but he was also trying to be part of the first father and son to ever win Home Run Derbies. And he pulled off the feet. Vladimir won with a total of 72 home runs, 26 in the first round, 21 in the second round, and 25 in the final.

Claire Buchanan:
Now if you did tune into the All-Star Weekend, you caught the All-Star Game where the National League won 2-1 in a thrilling pitcher matchup.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, it's just unbelievable that you don't see too many All-Star Games have a pitching duel and a 2-1 considering you see so many pitchers, they only usually pitch two, maybe three innings at the most. So that's probably the lowest score in an All-Star Game that I've seen.
The World Para Athletics Championships are taking place in Paris, France, and it's currently going on from July 8th to the 17. And so far Canada has two gold, seven silver, and five bronze for a total of 14 medals. In today's medal list, the latest in Canada's medal haul was Renee Foessel and she won it in discus, in the F38 class.

Joshua Watson:
The World Youth Boccia Championships took place in Povoa de Varzim, Portugal. Congratulations go to Olivier Roy for winning bronze in the individual BC2 category with honourable mention going to Nico Lemma and Carter Plumb, who competed hard but ran into some tough competition in the individual BC3 category. Congratulations to all.

Cam Jenkins:
Those are your headlines for this week and for today's topic, we're going to be discussing the All-Star baseball game and just what we thought about it.
Claire, do you want to go first?

Claire Buchanan:
I think I am on the fence when it comes to All-Star Games if I want them to be an offensively-focused game or if it's going to be a show for how good players are defensively. And also the pitching as well. We spoke about in the headlines that I want to see a lot of home runs, but I also love seeing some really good catches where people are taking away home runs from people. So it was a good game and yeah, really good pitching and I think that's just where baseball is these days. The pitching is just out of this world these days.
And then you have pitchers like Ohtani who are able to do both. A couple of years ago you wouldn't have caught me tuning into the All-Star Game, and this year I did, and I'm getting to be a big fan of it.

Joshua Watson:
I enjoy All-Star Weekend. I'm not necessarily a fan of the game itself. I find that it can either be all home runs and all offense and pitchers that look like they're throwing beach balls or it can be almost no offence like it was this year. And I guess I liked the beach balls a little better because I found this game really boring to watch.
I really did enjoy the Home Run Derby though. The new format where you have two players facing off against each other and having an elimination-style tournament was a lot of fun.
There were some funny moments, of course. At one point the cameras caught Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. playing rock paper scissors with each other from opposing dugouts since they're now on opposite sides. So that was kind of fun to see and to catch.
But otherwise, the game itself was okay. I was a little scared when I saw Jordan Romano leave the game after Gurriel nearly hit a home run off him, that pesky lower back tightness as they like to call it. So I hope he's okay. I don't recall seeing him in a game so far since they've come back, so-

Cam Jenkins:
No, he hasn't.

Joshua Watson:
I hope Jordan's all right and that he's good to perform his duties when called upon.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, and I just saw today where he's not going to be pitching in the San Diego series either, so hopefully he's going to be okay and he's not going to be too long before he can start pitching again.

Joshua Watson:
Was that Romano or Gausman? Because I know Gausman is out for the San Diego series.

Cam Jenkins:
Well Is it? Oh, maybe it was Gausman then.

Joshua Watson:
I think it was Gausman. Romano I think is 'available', but I don't know that he's a hundred percent.

Cam Jenkins:
Gausman. You are correct. It was Gausman.

Joshua Watson:
Oh good, okay.

Cam Jenkins:
He's not going to be available for San Diego series.

Joshua Watson:
I thought maybe you saw something I didn't.

Cam Jenkins:
No, no, no, that is correct. And Gausman, he's been a pretty good picture for us, so I think that's going to be a big loss and hopefully, he's not out too long either. So we'll see how that goes.
And I also love the All-Star game usually, but not when it's 2-1. That's a soccer score. And when you got to sit through nine innings of watching baseball and only getting a couple of runs...
If it's a World Series game, maybe that's a little bit different because you would expect them to be a bit more defensive and maybe a bit of a low-scoring game. But in an All-Star game, you want to see the hitch, you want to see the home runs, you want to see the hitting for the cycle or whatever the case is. So I was a little bit disappointed with that, but there were a couple of phenomenal catches in the game. I guess though, that was the most exciting part of it.
So if you want to get ahold of us on social media, here's how you can do it.

Stinger:
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 @neutralzonebr.
Strike, first pitch strike.
And hey gang, why not strike up a Twitter chat with Claire Buchanan for the Neutral Zone, find her @NeutralZoneCB.
And there's a swing and a chopper out to second base right at Claire. She picks up the ball, throws it over to first base for a routine out.
And fans, there is nothing routine about connecting with Cam and Josh from the neutral zone @NeutralZoneCamJ and @JWatson200.
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Cam Jenkins:
And welcome back to the Neutral Zone here on AMI Audio. And now you're going to be listening to another Canadian Paralympic Committee summit interview with para athletics athlete Nate Riech. And it's an interview that Brock Richardson did during the committee summit.

Brock Richardson:
So it's my understanding that you were hit in the head by, let's try that again. It's my understanding that you were hit in the head from over 150 yards away. Can you tell us about that first and foremost?

Nate Riech:
Yes. So I was living in Phoenix, Arizona at the time and I was 10 years old and I think naturally as 10-year-olds do, they drive their parents a little bit crazy. And so I think they're trying to shoe us out to go and do something fun for the day.
And the round was going as planned until the seventh hole. Older group of gentlemen asked to play through and they're honestly trying to take care of us. So they said, why don't you hit your balls and then go stand 150 yards left at the fairway under a tree because it was about 45 degrees Celsius out that day. I said, Phoenix can get super hot and remember the first person was going to hit.
And I remember looking back and noticing he was hitting this certain driver that made this tin trash cans sound. And then I remember hitting or hearing that sound and then all of a sudden this tingly numb sensation hitting my body and I realized I'd been hitting it by a golf ball.
And that tingling sensation freaked me out. And then I saw a ball jump in a weird direction and my friend said, Nate, you just got hit by a golf ball. And I called my mom and she at first thought I was faking it. I was a pretty dramatic kid in general. And so she came and picked me up from the hospital, or sorry, came and picked me up from the golf course and took me to the hospital, took my friends home first, and by the time we got to the hospital I had become fully paralyzed on the right side of the body.
And that was very scary for me. And I had my first seizure while I was in the hospital and that was my oh crap moment thinking that I'm probably not going to get out of the hospital today and go play my All-Star baseball tournament the following day.

Brock Richardson:
It's funny that you say that because you can take the athlete out of the person sometimes, but you can't necessarily take the... Nope, not going to go there with that one.
Yeah, it's tough sometimes as you recognize with life, your passion becomes being an athlete and sometimes it's hard to remove that. And so when we hear, "Oh, I can't go play my baseball", and people are like, "Man, but you just got hit in head with a golf ball", "Yeah, but I wanted to go play baseball". It's tough sometimes. So thank you for sharing that.
I think secondly, I'm just curious, when did para-sport become known to you in all of your recovery?

Nate Riech:
I knew of the Paralympics earlier on, but I did not know that there was a classification for coordination impairment. So it really came into my vision in 2017 when I had finished college and was pretty dejected with how my college D1 career ended.
And then my mom said, "You know there's this coordination impairment classification, they all run around your PB, there's a guy or two faster than you. But I think you would really fit into this classification and I think it would honestly change your life. You get to travel the world, do we get to get the opportunities that you always dreamt of."
And so she asked me what country I wanted to run for, US or Canada, and I said Canada. And so she emailed the head of the Paralympic program, Carla Nichols, and then that's how the ball got rolling and I got classified shortly after.

Brock Richardson:
What was the draw for you competing for Canada over the United States?

Nate Riech:
Yeah, there's a couple layers there for sure. First of all, my mom was the main person who helped me for all of my recovery. The one that drove me to all those things, the one that really pushed me and the one that I got out of the hospital on Sunday and she told me I'm going to school on Monday.
So she was someone that didn't allow me to have excuses and I really appreciate her for that. And so as saying thank you, I wanted to compete for Canada as well as my grandpa Jim Harrison, played for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Played NHL for 12 years. Played with Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky, and I always thought the love that he had for Canada every summer I would hang out with him in British Columbia at his campground. And I really wanted that sense of nationalism or pride for your own country and Canada seemed to be that country for me.

Brock Richardson:
You mentioned a couple of things here that I want to touch on. Number one, you said that your mom gave you the drive to no-nonsense attitude. How do you think that has shaped your career as time has gone on and you've grown up and become a para-athlete? How do you think that mindset has shaped you into who you are?

Nate Riech:
Personally, I think it's everything for me. I think she's told me not to take no for an answer. I might do it slower, I might do it differently, but I still need to do it. And so I just learned to adapt. I think anyone with a disability has to adapt, actually anyone just in general has to adapt their life and she just taught me to not say excuses and it's taken me here.
And I remember sitting in my room in Tokyo the night before my race and thinking, wow, how cool would that 10-year-old kid paralyzed in the hospital bed think that this is right now? That sports nerd, that kid that just dreamed every night of being here and now I'm actually here. I almost had to have someone pinch me.

Brock Richardson:
What would you actually tell that 10-year-old kid? Is there a definitive thing that you would say to that 10-year-old kid that you could share?

Nate Riech:
Yeah, I would say believe in yourself and bet on yourself. And I would let them know that success isn't linear. You're going to get better quick at some points and sometimes you're going to regress and it's going to be really tough, but no matter how tough it gets, stay in the fight and always, always look forward.

Brock Richardson:
And let's touch on your grandfather playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs. What has that meant to you watching him be who he was and have a successful career?

Nate Riech:
Definitely. I didn't understand the gravity of hockey in Canada. I knew it was really, really popular, but I didn't realize until I came to the summit in 2020 and everyone knew who my grandpa was, they were like, "Oh, you are Jimmy's grandson, aren't you?" And I chuckled a lot because I didn't realize how many people people knew him and from everyone that anyone's ever said, they have a great respect for him. And he was always very modest and humble and I certainly hope I can follow in his footsteps.
And just to be fully honest with you, how proud of me he was to see me have the Team Canada kit on at the Paralympic Games. I know it brought tears to his eyes and I'm just really proud.

Brock Richardson:
Love that.
You touched on it a bit at the beginning saying that you moved from Phoenix to train with the Pacific Institute. Can you tell me about that and how that helped you into where you are?

Nate Riech:
Yeah, so in 2018 I decided to move up to Victoria, British Columbia, and I knew that if I wanted to be world champion and paralympic champion that I needed to create a team around me, similar to the team that was around me in 2005 when I got paralyzed.
The team was going to look different. Would still going to have some of my family in it, but it was really important to build that support staff because running at that level is much bigger than yourself. And so that was really important for me to build that team and it worked out pretty well in Tokyo.

Brock Richardson:
And to that point, when I was preparing for this and one of the things that kept constantly coming up was the fact that you are one of the biggest names that had burst onto the scene in para-athletics. What does that mean to you and how do you balance that for motivation versus pressure?

Nate Riech:
Yeah, that's very nice of you to say that. I don't look at myself that way.
I've always wanted to repeat in 2024, and so I still have that goal and I've always had that goal. So that was really important to me. And to be honest with you, I love training so much that almost got taken away from me at one point.
And so I remind myself of that a lot and I know how lucky I am, let's be honest. It was a miracle that I'm able to walk and I know there's certain people who I could have... My circumstance could have been switched very easily.
And so that's why I still give back to local children's hospitals because I remember how much of an impact it made on me. And so I just try and be a leader and try to inspire the younger generation and that really keeps me motivated.

Brock Richardson:
You continue to break your own record for the 1500 meter. How do you continue to have the motivation to break your own record?
It's one thing to say I broke somebody else's record, but to continuously break your own record, that must be hard because you're beating yourself, you're betting on yourself.
How do you get up for I'm going to break my own record and I'm going to better myself again and again?

Nate Riech:
Yeah, so my goal from the very jump was to find my limits and it wasn't to set world records, which yes, they do feel really good when you do them, but I wanted to find where that limit is and I still haven't found it. So I think that just keeps me pushing.
And to be honest with you, I have the best coach in the world, Heather Hennigar, she's so patient. We very much undertrained from 2018 to the late of 2019. And then really when it was time to really pick things up, she did it gradually. And I honestly for really the first time I bought into a coach's training and I've always heard that if you buy into something you really see those results. And thankfully I finally listened.

Brock Richardson:
Why are coaches so important in the life of an athlete and what would you say to somebody who says, what's the value in a coach?

Nate Riech:
There's so much value, but I think there's so much value in a coach that is more than just a coach. That checks on you once a week or every practice to see actually how you're doing because it takes a lot of emotionally and mental energy to be on that edge and run that hard. And so you're not going to be able to get the results that you want if you're stressed out all the time or just emotionally you're really taxed.
There's been times where we've gone over that edge and my central nervous system is just completely imploded and I'd about to take a week off. I know other coaches would've just said to push through it, but she understands some of the human movement and part of the body. And so I'm just super lucky to have a coach that keeps on learning and honestly, she's much more than a coach. She's going to be in my life for the rest of my life.

Brock Richardson:
If I could accomplish blank in my career, that would be what?

Nate Riech:
If I could accomplish inspiring the next generation of paralympic athletes, then I would be very happy.

Brock Richardson:
What has today meant to you and this whole summit? What's the goal for you?

Nate Riech:
Yeah, the whole goal for this summit is to get my story out there and I almost was out of the sport recently because I didn't have the financial support to pay for my rent. And so I have no sponsorships. CAN Fund, I guess is my one sponsor, but when it comes to shoe companies or other corporate companies have never been sponsored.
And so I think just getting my story out there and having people understand that my injury is like mental health, it's invisible. And sometimes those can be some of the toughest injuries is those ones that people don't see and they just assume that I'm able-bodied whenever they see me walking around. But there's a lot of things that I've had to deal with.

Brock Richardson:
Awesome. Thank you so much for stopping by and taking the time to share your story and we greatly appreciate it.

Nate Riech:
Thank you for your time.

Cam Jenkins:
I hope you enjoyed the interview and that was an interview with Nate Riech who is a para-athlete in para-athletics, and that was from the Canadian Paralympic Committee Summit interview series that we are currently doing with Brock Richardson.
If you like what you heard with this interview or anything else and want to leave us a voicemail, here's how you can do it.

Stinger:
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.

Cam Jenkins:
Welcome back to the Neutral Zone. We are joined by Emma Poynton, who continues to be a big contributor to the growth of para ice hockey, not just locally but globally. She joins us from Victoria, Australia.
Emma, thanks for joining us.

Emma Poynton:
Yeah. Thanks, Cam. How are you going?

Cam Jenkins:
I'm going okay. How are you going?

Emma Poynton:
Yeah, good. I'm actually not in Melbourne, Australia. I'm actually in Czech Republic at the moment. So I'm fresh off a 20 something, I think it was a 25-hour commute. So I'm about 45 minutes south of Prague over here doing a training camp at the moment. So different time zone, but I'm jet-lagged, but ready to go here.

Joshua Watson:
Now Emma, you've been involved with able-bodied hockey, women's hockey specifically in Australia for quite some time. Can you tell us a little bit about how that came about and how it led to para hockey?

Emma Poynton:
Yeah, so originally my involvement with hockey was through my own hockey involvement. So if you go back over more than a decade, and you could say I start feeling old when I say that, but if you go back sort of my original sporting critique was I was a junior tennis player and a junior sprinter, my track sprinter. Then running took over and then sadly I injured my foot as a runner.
So I actually did a sports transition into ice hockey. So I started playing ice hockey and that was just literally enrolling in the local hockey school or the hockey academy at the local rink. And I learned to skate and learn to play and started a club. That led to being involved in the Australian Women's Ice Hockey League from a medical side of things. And I had this ambition where I thought, I want to play this.
So if I could volunteer my time as a medic, I could watch and learn from behind the scenes and get involved. Then I became a player and then I was approached to become general manager of the Australian women's team for the IIHF program.
So I did that for a number of years and it's amazing how some things tumbleweed life tumbleweed sometimes, and it went from being involved with the Australian women's team to been involved with para ice hockey, which was a blessing in disguise when I was approached when they needed a female coach at one of the world para ice hockey development camps in Korea, which was in the lead up to the PyeongChang games in 2018.
And that's where I started meeting the international athletes, international coaches, starting to get involved international women's program. And as I said, things just tumbleweed from there.

Claire Buchanan:
Can you give us a glimpse into what the para-hockey community looks like in Australia where it isn't typically known for their winter sports?

Emma Poynton:
Look, Australia as a whole, isn't known for winter sports globally. Australia isn't known for ice hockey and Australia definitely isn't known for para ice hockey.
So the para ice hockey program is definitely in its entry-level fundamental stages. So we were lucky enough to coordinate a team to send to the 2018 World Para Ice Hockey C-Pool, which is the third division World Championships. They were held in Vierumaki, Finland. Unfortunately, we haven't sent teams to the World Championships since then. So we are in that sort of fundamental rebuilding stage.
So what does it look like? It looks like we're growing, we're rebuilding models and hopefully, we can get a model off the ground in the coming years.

Joshua Watson:
Now you probably have touched on it a little bit already, but if you can maybe expand a bit upon what led you to be connected with the Women's Para Hockey Program and what stage it was, what stage it's in from your point of view.

Emma Poynton:
The stage it's at, it's definitely growing. They'll look at building programs at each state, trying to recruit athletes, both classifiable and non-classifiable to make up numbers, et cetera, and then to ultimately build teams to attend things like the World Para Ice Hockey World Championships and all social tournaments as well.
I know there's been talk of sending teams to some of the social tournaments that get held throughout North America and Europe as well. So numbers are fairly low at the moment in the sense of women's para ice hockey, the numbers are extremely low, but you build one or two and you find three or four and before you know it, you've got seven plus two. If you do only need seven plus two for a women's team to attend the international events.

Claire Buchanan:
So fast forwarding to 2023 where there are now five teams competing at this year's World Challenge in Green Bay, can you dive a little more deeper into what the steps have been to get to that point of having five teams and making sure that the numbers are still growing?

Emma Poynton:
So ultimately our end game is to try and have women involved in the 2030 Winter Paralympic Games. So the steps we're doing at the moment now is actually sort of feed us ultimately into having both a men's tournament and a women's tournament hopefully at the 2030 Winter Paralympic Games.
Now, what we did last year is World Para Ice Hockey sanctioned and hosted the First Women's World Challenge. And that was with Team USA, Team Canada, Team Great Britain and a combined world team.
This year, as you mentioned Claire, we're going to go to five teams. So we'll have USA, Canada and Great Britain, and we're actually splitting the world team into two continental teams you can say. So we're going to run one Team Europe and one Team Asia to expand it to five. The idea of doing that is we can engage more female athletes from more individual nations on those two teams on Team Europe and Team Asia. And that will be held the backend of August and September.
So the second Women's World Challenge will kick off the 31st of August through to the 3rd of September in Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA, with the ultimate aim of increasing female participation where hopefully these girls can come and participate, have an absolute blast, go home.
And the idea is that maybe you coming from Japan and there's three girls from Japan on Team Asia and maybe those three girls go home and say this was absolutely a blast, had a ball. And they find, as I say, they find five friends and they come back next to you with a team, independent Team Japan seven plus two.

Cam Jenkins:
You're listening to the Neutral Zone here on AMI Audio and we're joined by our hosts, Claire Buchanan and Joshua Watson. And we're currently speaking with Emma Poynton from the Australian Para Ice Hockey.

Joshua Watson:
Now with the World Challenge in its second year, what are some of the things you're looking forward to and what challenges do you think will be faced in the event?

Emma Poynton:
I guess without a doubt, the number one thing you look forward to is seeing everyone. It's a really tight community, the women's international community, and I genuinely look forward to catching up with all the players and all the coaching staff and the team managers and the volunteers associated with the team.
So it's such a friendly community environment. You consider people that you might see once or twice a year or more often once a year, true friends, so can't wait to see people on the circuit, so to speak.
And also look, it's quite rewarding what we're involved in and we're quite lucky to be involved in what we do. Because you can see the improvements in the athletes. You can see how much they've improved from this year, last year. You can see the improvements in the teams and not just how the teams play, but how the teams prepare, how the teams present, et cetera. They're becoming more sort of professional, so to speak.
So I think just seeing the growth of the individual athletes, seeing the growth of the teams, but also just catching up with all the girls is what I genuinely look forward to.

Joshua Watson:
And where can people go to watch the tournament?

Emma Poynton:
So the tournament this year has been held in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the Cornerstone Community Ice Hockey Arena. It will be free to attend. So if you happen to be in the area, it's free to attend.
And of course, we encourage all the local hockey-interested people or anyone who wants to fly and have a look to come down and have a look. And there will be a live stream of course, which we'll share those details through the World Para Ice Hockey social media closer to the 31st of August. When we can go.

Claire Buchanan:
Switching gears to the Para Hockey C-Pool World Championships that you helped organize. Tell us what the experience was with it being in Thailand and also how important it was to have it in a place like Thailand.

Emma Poynton:
And look, here's the thing, Thailand's exactly like Australia. It's a non-traditional ice hockey nation. You can all argue that the number of people, when you say you're going a World Ice Hockey Championships in Thailand, you can argue everyone just goes that like you're talking to a puppy dog that sort of look up going, "What, what did you just say?"
So it really was a what? Thailand has an ice rink. Bangkok has an ice hockey team and it was very cool to head to Bangkok, although the humidity temperatures are very hot. But look, it was a very cool city to head to. And the fact we had France, Great Britain, Austria, Kazakhstan, and Thailand, all there competing was really special. And I can't commend and thank the Thai local organizing community enough. Everything was very professionally done. So they're excellent hosts, they're very professional in hosting events and we encourage them to put their hand up and bid to do that one more time.
But look, having the European nations, I think having the adventure, being able to come into Bangkok and travel into a different destination was also a highlight for the athletes. You are there to compete and partake in world championships and represent your country, but it also gives a lot of these athletes a once in a lifetime experience. They got to go to Bangkok to play ice hockey and that's pretty cool.

Joshua Watson:
It is pretty cool indeed. Now that tournament was a historic one. Not only did Great Britain win the tournament for the first time and be promoted to the B-Pool, but there were women competing in the tournament for the first time. How did that feel to witness that?

Emma Poynton:
It was absolutely spectacular and it shows the growth of the game, that there are more females participating, there are more females highly skilled who can make those national teams. So it was pretty special to see females playing in C-Pool and definitely would like to see particularly Great Britain who's been promoted to B-Pool, would love to see those females continue their growth and their development and make further selection and push their way up into B-Pool as their teens get promoted as well.
So the direct response to hosting World Para Ice Hockey development camps and the direct response to hosting the Women's World Challenge was we now see females participating in the A, B, C-Pool World Championships.
So it's definitely a positive sign, we've got more female participation and females of higher skill being selected for their national teams. So slowly, slowly we can see that the idea and the model of our 10-year strategic plan increasing women's participation and getting us to that 2030 Paralympic start is working.

Claire Buchanan:
Now, coming full circle back to para hockey in Australia, what is next for para hockey in Australia but also for the national team, hopefully coming back to the C-Pool?

Emma Poynton:
Yeah, Australia ultimately needs to look at growing the foundations at home first. This is just my personal opinion, that we need to grow foundations at home. We need bums in sled participating weekly in a para ice hockey program in each state.
So we need to increase the population of participants, both classifiable and non-classifiable in each state. So we've got a really solid foundation of participation rates. And then from that pool of athletes, you then select your national team to travel to C-Pool. And then hopefully my dream would be that we have a pool of athletes to select a women's team to attend the 2024 Women's World Challenge.
Australians love sport. This is the thing that Australians love sport and they love crash tackle combat sports. We are good at rugby, we're good at football, we love watching these tough sports. When you think about it, we are really good at wheelchair basketball. We're really good at wheelchair rugby. That makes sense that as a general population, we love sports, so we should be able to build and recruit para-hockey teams.

Joshua Watson:
Now for those that are interested in getting involved in para hockey in Australia, where should they go? Who should they talk to? How should they reach out?

Emma Poynton:
Yeah, there's a couple of different channels. Paralympics Australia is obviously our governing body or our NPC. The International Federation responsible for ice hockey in Australia is actually Ice Hockey Australia. So that would be where you'd start and then they can guide you to your local state association.
So for example, I live in Melbourne, Victoria. If I wanted to participate, I could contact Ice Hockey Australia, the International Federation, they could filter me down and give me contacts for Ice Hockey Victoria. And they can guide you in the right direction.
So since it's still its niche entry level, I'd almost say contacting Ice Hockey Australia is definitely the way to go.

Claire Buchanan:
Now we know that the World Challenge is next on your calendar, but once that has concluded, what is next for you personally in your contributions to para hockey?

Emma Poynton:
Yeah, where to from here? So at the moment I'm in the Czech Republic participating in a training camp, that's for standup hockey.
Next week we actually do have a World Para Ice Hockey training camp. So the international development camp is actually taking place in Bangkok. So that will see athletes from Korea, Japan, Thailand, Australia, participating in the annual World Para Ice Hockey development camp. So that's my next stop.
I'll literally travel straight from Prague through to Bangkok on the weekend. We host the World Power Ice Hockey development camp, which is actually really exciting to head back, as I said, to head back to Thailand to see the people. They were very good at hosting World Championships. So we know they're going to be very good at hosting the International Development Camp. That's step number one.
Step number two is the women's World challenge. That's Green Bay at the end of August, September.
After that, we look towards the B-Pool and C-Pool World Championships. And then throughout all of this, we obviously look to keep growing the women's population globally. So we look at assisting athletes and trying to grow this game internationally for women's participation. And we see what 2024 brings us.

Cam Jenkins:
That's a lot of different places that you're going to be in. And I feel like that I'm playing a game called Where in the World is Emma Poynton instead of Carmen Sandiego. But Emma, we do appreciate you.

Emma Poynton:
It's a game that everyone plays.

Cam Jenkins:
Exactly. We wish you nothing but the success in the future and we really do hope that the game is able to grow in Australia and everywhere as well for the women's teams. And Emma, thank you so much for joining us today and we hope to connect in the future.

Emma Poynton:
Yeah, thank you very much everyone. And thanks for the opportunity to promote and support women's para hockey globally. I really do appreciate it.

Cam Jenkins:
So it was great chatting with Emma and all that she is doing in regards to a para ice hockey with Australia and just all over the world.
Josh, maybe we'll start off with you and your thoughts on the interview.

Joshua Watson:
Yeah, I've really enjoyed the interview. I am always interested to see how people get involved with certain things. And so to hear that she started in what might be considered more of a traditional Aussie sport like running and then transitioned into hockey and then para hockey from there was really fascinating for me.
And just to see how involved she is with everything going on from para hockey in general to the women's game to international Pool C, the whole nine yards. It's really fascinating.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, I met Emma in 2018 when she helped facilitate a women's international tournament in the Czech Republic actually. And now knowing her that long, it's just something that you would just say that Emma's just one of those people that is so passionate about the game that they just naturally help it grow wherever they go.
And it's funny that at the end of that interview that she was talking about, she's just here and there and everywhere and it shows because everywhere she goes, hockey is growing and more people are getting butts in sleds and it's just exciting to see and be a part of having such a great human be connected to this sport.
And I never realized, it never dawned on me and I've played multiple sports at the para level and people don't look at Australia as really a sports country in general when you think about it, but when you actually take a look and yeah, they are one of the teams to beat in rugby and one of the top teams in Australia for quite some time and they are these kind of powerhouse countries that do invest in their disabled athletes.
So it's exciting to see where Australia will be just in a few years and just solely because they have Emma to thank.

Cam Jenkins:
Oh, Emma, she is just a firecracker and you can feel and hear the passion that she has to be able to grow the game and to make it better. So she is a great role model to have for Australian para-sports.
And it's really going to be interesting moving forward because what I thought was funny was when she talked about Australians like their, I forget the word she used, but kind rough and tumble or the rugby or the football or Aussie rules football, things like that. And yeah, it's so true.
And I think I remember Australia at one point in time, I think they were pretty good in the pool as well, swimming. So yeah, they certainly should be known as maybe not a powerhouse, but they should be known more for their sports than they are, just my personal opinion.

Joshua Watson:
Yeah, so just expanding on what you were saying there, Cam, I find it really interesting how she's moved not only from, as we said, the para hockey, sorry, from standup hockey to para hockey. She's now, as she said in Czech Republic doing her training camp there for I think she said standup hockey.
It's just remarkable how one flows into the other flows back into the first and just back and forth and back and forth. And I think your comment about where in the world is Carmen Sandiego was a good one because clearly, she is all over at least Southeast Asia and Australia for sure. And probably more if we had more of a chance to talk to her.
And just hearing about what she sees the game doing, how she sees the game growing. And it would be really cool one day I think, to be watching a women's world championship or even a men's world championship in here and now taking to the Ice Team Australia and have the general public go, "I'm sorry, what?"

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, when they had that slight, that small little appearance at the C-Pool tournament, that's exactly what it felt like it was, wow, okay, here they are. And I got to say, it wasn't the prettiest tournament they had. But hey, that's what Emma preaches, is that you got to start somewhere and that's all that matters is that you start. And that's the message that she's bringing around globally, is that you guys might not have a program right now, but why not now? Why not right now? And to actually have her on board and have these kind of steps in place so that things aren't just, oh yeah, maybe this could happen or it's a possibility.
No, Emma's making sure that, all right, you're thinking about it, let's put what we need in place to make it happen. And it's just like things like this Women's World Challenge, going from one more team added here and there and just taking the steps. It is not going to happen overnight. And it's like that in any sport at any level, whether you're dealing with able-bodied sport or para sport, it's going to take time.
And it's like I said, I met her in 2018 and just excited for what the next five or six years even more down the road brings.

Cam Jenkins:
Absolutely. And with that, Claire mentioned about the program and that's going to do it for this program for this week. And before I leave, I just want to thank Claire Buchanan and Josh Watson. Our technical producer for this program was Jordan Steams. The regular host is Brock Richardson. Like I said, he'll be back August 1st and I will be filling in and as I said before, I'm Cam Jenkins until we meet again next week.