It's Why We Play The Games

In this first episode of two, "A Pane In The Glass Podcast" takes a look at the very essence of sport, why we play the games! I do it through the lens of wheel chair curling, one of the disciplines in the Paralympic Games but it could be any sport.  The episode begins with the words of the skip of the team that won the gold medal in the 2006 Winter Olympic Games and his desire to return to play once again, at the highest level. But the episode is more than that as he realized that he needed a fourth teammate. He called upon his wife who had never played. You'll want to know what he learned about returning to the sport he loved and how a rookie curler played her first competitive games at the national championship!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Twenty years is a long time to stay away from anything that wants to find you. It's long enough for the game to evolve for the culture to shift. For your body to forget things your mind still swears it remembers. It's long enough to build a life in between careers, losses, victories, relationships, and to convince yourself that chapter is closed. And then somehow you find your way back. Returning to wheelchair curling after two decades isn't a comeback story in the way people would probably expect it to be. It's not about reclaiming past glory or proving something to the world. If anything, it's exactly the opposite. It's about being stripped of who you were and being forced to confront who you are now. And that requires one thing above all else humbleness. Because the ice doesn't care who you used to be. It doesn't care about titles, history, or reputation. It doesn't remember your best shots or your biggest wins. It only reflects what you bring to it today. Your touch is different. Your timing is off. The instincts that once felt automatic now hesitate. And in those moments, you're faced with a choice fight it or accept it. Humbleness is choosing to accept it. It's understanding that you are no longer the same athlete. And that's not a failure. It's simply reality. It's being willing to relearn the basics, to listen more than you speak, to miss shots and not make excuses. It's allowing yourself to be a beginner again, even when you once stood at the top. And there's something powerful in that. Because when you let go of ego, you make room for growth. When you stop trying to be who you were, you give yourself permission to become something new. The game becomes less about validation and more about connection to the sport, to your teammates, and to yourself. But as meaningful as that journey is, it's not the most powerful part of this story. That belongs to Elizabeth. Four months. That's all it took for her to step into a world that took many of us years to understand. Four months to take on a challenge most people would never even consider. Four months to push past uncertainty, doubt, and every reason to stay on the sidelines. And she didn't just show up. She committed. There's a quiet kind of courage in that. The kind that doesn't need attention nor recognition. The kind that simply decides, quote, I'm going to try, close quote, and then backs it up with action. Day after day, shot after shot. Watching her has been a reminder of what this sport is really all about. Not perfection, not legacy, but willingness. Willingness to step onto the ice when you don't know what you're doing. Willingness to fail in front of others. Willingness to learn, to adapt, to keep going when it would be easier to simply just walk away. I couldn't be more proud of her. Not because of how quickly she's picked up on things or how she'll perform in the future, but because she said yes to something hard. Because she embraced the discomfort. Because she chose growth over fear. In many ways, her journey has shaped mine. While I've been relearning the game with humility, she's been discovering it with courage. And somewhere in the middle of those two paths, there's something incredibly special, a shared experience built not on past achievements, but on present effort. That's what makes this return meaningful. It's not about rewriting history, it's about respecting the process. It's about understanding that time away doesn't diminish what the sport gave you. It deepens your appreciation for it. It teaches you that pride doesn't come from what you've already done, but from what you're willing to do now. And sometimes the greatest lesson after 20 years away is learning how to start all over again. I am proud. Win or lose. I am proud. Welcome to another episode of a Pain of the Glass podcast. This is your host, Bill Sure Hart Coder Professional Coach with Coaches of Canada, coming to you from my home in Grand Bend, Ontario, and the ancestral lands of the Catalan Stony Point First Nations. The words that you just heard were those of a friend, a great athlete, and a person with a unique perspective on life and personality. His name is Chris Daw. And this was something that he wrote on Facebook. And it started to get me to the point where Chris, who is very articulate, as you will learn, has much to say about sports, not just wheelchair curling, but about sports in general and in an in particular life. And so thus we are coming together with this episode, which is going to be part one of two parts. And you're going to meet Chris and his wife Elizabeth as the three of us talk about well the journey. And the journey took Elizabeth from the sidelines of being wife to Chris after two plane. But in 2006, the discipline of wheelchair curling was at the forefront. And Team Canada happened to be skipped by a gentleman by the name of Chris Daw, who is my guest, with another guest who is going to remain nameless for the moment. But I'll give part of it away because she has done something quite extraordinary from my perspective in sports. But let's go back to 2006. Chris, lead us up to those Winter Olympics, the Paralympic Games. And they were played where, Chris?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Uh well, the Paralympics were played in uh Turin, same venue, absolutely everything. We even shared the same locker room as Mr. Gooshoe, and I have the plaque to prove it. It's called the Team Can for a reason. So yeah, we uh everything was exactly the same except the way you play the game. Uh, way back when a young lady uh that's been dearly departed and dearly missed, uh Pat O'Reed out of Ontario had a dream, and the World Curling Federation came around and asked them to put wheelchair curling together. So uh a bunch of people reached out, thought I might know something on how to get this sport going. So I threw my very first curling rock off the top of a case of moose head beer out of the Guelph Curling Club, and the rest is history. Uh, the WCF held their first world championships in 2002. As the sport progressed, we went from hand-to-rock delivery uh to stick delivery to what I got a lesson in at this latest national championships, and that is that the sport has completely redefined itself. How many ends are played, the way it's played, the sticks that are played, even the strategy. Although some of my old school stuff still worked on some of the teams, yeah, it was a life lesson for me. Uh, my team members were the uh the famous Sonia Godet, uh out of uh Kelowna, I believe. And then uh God Rest His Soul, uh Gary Cormac out of Surrey. Jerry Osgarden played third, and he, I also believe, was out of uh Kelowna, and then myself and the alternate was Karen Blatchford, who was one of the only original people other than me that helped start the sport in Canada.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Was it the pure happenstance that the members of the team were from British Columbia or was that done purposefully? Bring us to speed on that, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Well, wheelchair curling, unlike able-bodied curling, when you play the sport, it is not provincially you form a team, nationally, you've earned that right to represent your province now. Back then, it was much the same way, and then ultimately back in the day, it was we need to put the very best players that are capable of throwing a stone together on the ice together because we did not have a lifetime of experience to be able to draw from. Six months before I went to my first worlds in 2002. I learned what curling was, and it wasn't about putting a rod to your hair and figuring out how to make your hair curl. It was, you know, this legitimate sport that required endurance and effort and strategy and thinking and attitude, and all the positive attitude, not the negative attitude. You know, we were successful, we were ranked fourth going into the Paralympic Games. We didn't struggle per se, but we weren't, you know, flawless. I think in the round robin, we you know won five, lost two, and uh not bad for a bunch of people that had been put together about a year before with no curling experience. And um, like most things, much like the last Paralympic Games, it came down to the last shot and narrow margins, not narrow seconds, but narrow margins.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Well, we'll talk about that in a little bit later, a few minutes, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

And um, you know, less than a sheet of paper. Unfortunately, uh Scotland lost, and uh Canada won seven to four. And uh the victory was on, or so we thought. But you know, with every story, there's a lot more that goes on behind the scenes that never gets told.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Well, would would I be correct in saying that unlike curling, which uh some people say was born in Scotland but grew up in Canada, that the vast number of curlers that we had, able-bodied curlers, and those decades of experience mostly on the prairies uh with the with uh agriculture, with a lot of farmers playing. And when curling was a full uh Olympic sport, we still had those advantages in our back pocket, but perhaps not so much when you and the rest of your team, Canada teammates, while we're at the Olympics in Turin, you didn't have those advantages. I'm spending a lot of time going around uh the notion that uh you and your competitors in Turin kind of started at the starting line about the same. Is it would that be fair?

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Well, I think you're mostly right, Bill. I think Canada with Wells mean at least mostly right.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

That doesn't happen very often.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

No, it it doesn't, but I think you're mostly right, Bill. Um, the one thing that we did have uh that was to our advantage were actually two things. And one of them was history. Uh, we knew how to play the game, and we had great instructors to teach us how to play the game. And I I'm going to give you a little shake here. Uh, part of who I became as a good skip was the fact that a guy named Bill, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, took the time and the belief in me to uh see through all the um the the rough edges, I guess you could say, and teach me what I needed to learn. And the other major advantage that we had was the fact that Canada was actually the innovator of the delivery stick. We're the ones that brought it to the world stage. And when we brought that to the world stage, that I think, in turn, above anything else, uh, and the fact that we were willing to experiment a little bit more with how it worked and which ways to work with it, gave us that advantage that that helped get us on top.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Now, the delivery stick to which you referred initially was the same delivery stick that all curlers who used a delivery stick used. Is that correct, Chris? Well, wheelchair delivery stick so much.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Well, I I don't know the facts about that. We worked with a gentleman named Rusty Drew out of uh out of uh the upper northern part, uh just south of Algonco Park. I can't remember the name of the place right now. Race Bridge, Huntsville? Somewhere Huntsville, I think, somewhere in there. And Rusty at that point in time had this concept for aging able-body athletes to be able to deliver. And the extender was the key to that. And as we were searching, so that we did not get past, and I I have to say this when you used to throw hand to rock, and if you leaned too far out trying to deliver hand to rock, at points in time you would give up on delivering the rock and trying to save yourself from falling head over heels onto the ice. So the delivery stick allowed us to uh with the extender begin to deliver. Now that, as I'm sure you cover, uh has totally changed. And um, you know, I I'm not gonna get into the politics or the debate of it, but I honestly believe that there is still a very valid and viable place for that particular curling head or model thereof to be accepted into the sport.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Now, for those who uh were smart and watched the Paralympic Games, especially the wheelchair curling discipline, saw delivery sticks that uh certainly seemed unique. Uh they they the sticks apply the rotation. The velocity of the rock is left up to the athlete. Uh talk to that a little a little bit, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

The the sticks that you saw in the Paralympic Games are very specialized, most of them. Uh dealing only with Canada because I can talk to the Canadian sticks. Those sticks, if you look at them, are specialized design and specialized way that they hold the uh the curling handle, etc. And the standard wheelchair curler in Canada, uh, they can buy those heads, uh, but they're somewhat expensive. So we use uh a different head, uh, several different heads. And nowadays, with the onset of 3D printing, I couldn't even begin to tell you how, Bill, how many different styles of head, etc., etc. But Canada's advantage, again, going into technology, is all about what holds the curling handle at the back of the curling head. You're 100% correct that the modern curling stick somewhat automatically puts the rotation onto the stick, whether that's clockwise or counterclockwise, doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

But the way that onto the rock, onto the rock.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Yeah, onto the rock. It's all about that back cup holder or uh handle holder, as we call it. I don't really know the technical name, that truly makes the difference in select performance and select control.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Well, we've waited long enough. Um, let's talk about uh Team Canada uh in uh in Milan Kutina and the gold medal, uh, which for anybody that watched that gold medal game and the seconds were ticking down to a perilous few. And of course, what and again, correct me if I'm wrong, what what Mark and the team did not know for sure was that they had already won the gold medal. In other words, they had shot rock. Now, we could say that from a television perspective because we saw the overhead, but I'm not sure as if they saw the overhead. It seemed quite evident to me that as long as Mark delivers his rock, now to explain to people, because of the position of a wheelchair curler, it's a shot. If the leading edge of the rock reaches that hog line, it is a delivered shot. So all Mark had to do, in essence, was get the leading edge of that rock to the hog line, and uh the gold medal was his. Now, as I said, maybe they weren't sure about that, so it was down to uh I forget exactly how many seconds, and of course 2.8 seconds. Yeah, and the the thought that went through my mind is what happens in the unlikely event, because you're not having your hand on the handle, you're using that mechanical device. What would happen if it had slipped and the rock didn't reach the hog line? They would have lost the game and they would have lost the gold medal.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Well, the the good part is we didn't have to figure all that out. I I think that um from a standpoint of where John was, he's Gunthurst is you you don't have the vertical advantage of an able-body athlete when looking at a rock. And and John being you know a longtime member of Team Canada, but really sort of in this uh, do I really want to be the guy that makes the wrong call and costs the game? I I think by having Mark throw the last shot, and Mark, of course, having the confidence, the the way that it came off, uh, making the shot, uh, it was a near perfect shot. Uh kidding to to close the deal. Um, that just summed it up. Now, to your point, you know, giving the entire world and the entire nation a bit of a heart attack as to whether or not he's going to get the shot off. Well, that's probably up for debate. But the the the point is that they won. And they they won the gold and did it in a fashion, you know, that they can be proud of and hold their heads up. And the big thing is, is what happens if you rush that shot and you miss and you tap them up. Well, then you've lost. So to have that built-in confidence, to have that built-in uh psychological advantage that that particular team had, and Mark himself, for that matter, being able to write history by you know going 0-10, uh perfect draw, perfect playoffs, and then having that calm, cool demeanor to uh again give the nation an incredible heart attack where everybody probably still is hearing yelling through the TV to just throw the rock uh a few million times. Um, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

I think I'm at 10 and oh and my thought was just throw it into the boards. No, it's not a board, it's foam, but just because once it touches the boards, then if you know you're not gonna mess things up. Okay, now fast forward. I happened to be in British Columbia at the time, and he came to me and he said, Bill, I'm gonna form a team to go to Nationals. Nationals was in Boucherville, Quebec. And very quietly, uh, it was a fantastic event, uh, difficult to follow because it wasn't, you know, the Olympics and everything that goes with it. But you came to me and said, okay, you know, could you could you give us a start as best you could? I didn't have a lot of time there to do that, but I tried to. And then you turned to me and said, I only have three players. And I said, Well, Chris, I don't think I can play for your team. Now, of course, he wouldn't want me to play. He said, Well, my wife Elizabeth, who hasn't played before, is going to be our fourth player. I say, Excuse me, did you say Elizabeth, who has never played before, is going to be your fourth player? Well, I got the pleasure of spending some time on the ice with the aforementioned Elizabeth, who happens to be right here now. So, Elizabeth, this is where I want you to pick it up when your hubby first approached the idea. What were you thinking? Well, you know, what like Chris, what were you thinking? Over to you, Elizabeth.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Yeah, it was one of those, oh okay, um I guess I can try. I don't know. I I threw, as my mom put it, I I did some curling when I was younger. It was 20 or 30 years ago. Um, but I'm like, I don't know. I I guess I could try. And I've never done this before. So if you won't need me to, I guess I can try.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Well, I was on the ice with uh with you and Chris's group of wheels hair curlers at uh uh at the club in uh where is it in Victoria?

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Esquimalt.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Esquimalt, or as my GPS person calls it, Esquimalt. And and uh uh we we gave you the basics, and I I'm not saying this after the fact, but you picked it up as quickly as I have ever seen anyone pick it up, just delivering a curling rock from a wheelchair position and making curling shots. I've never seen anybody pick it up so quickly. As I said, I only spent I could only spend a little bit of time there. So Chris now has his team, and you enter the Nationals at Boucherville. So how did it go? Now I know the answer is to all this, but describe it from your perspective, Elizabeth. If the first competition you're going to play, it isn't gonna be some Saturday afternoon club event or some sort of district comp. You're going to the nationals and and some Yeah, not even a bond steal or anything, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

But but Bill, I'm sorry I have to interject here.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

There's more to this story. All right, that's why you're here. Tell us.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

For those that are wondering, and one of Elizabeth's biggest concerns was about her disability. She she has a disability, and uh she was worried about it is you, Chris.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Elizabeth, is your disability the fact you're hanging out with Chris every day?

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Oh, yeah. Well, that's true. I could not resist.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Well, he had my manny cat.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

It's true. Her biggest thing was about acceptance. So she was we had to work a lot on the mental side of her being validated. And we went through all the processes, we went through curl BC, we went through the Canadian Curling Association to verify her disability, and and it was all verified, and I told her don't worry about that. But going back to the original point, then giving it back to her. Not only did Elizabeth throw her first competition rocks at Nationals, she throw her first competition rocks ever at a nationals. Take it away, Elizabeth, with that. That's an away. Elizabeth, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Uh yeah, no, it's um it was an interesting experience just because again, my biggest thing was being accepted, as well as how am I gonna actually do with all of this, being that I'm so brand new at it. Um, the first couple of games, I didn't expect greatness out of any of us, being that Chris had stated to us that they are pretty high-level teams that we're going against. And let's just do our best. And um I'd hoped throughout the whole time that I did the best I could for what I was, you know, for the experience that I had and all of that. And um even just whole the whole idea of going through the um even before the games, uh just showing up for the opening ceremonies and all of that, that was just amazing to be able to be part of an opening ceremonies for a national event for or any event, of course, at this point. Um it was a big shock to the system and really something that I don't know, I how I really had hoped that we could do our best with. Um throughout the time, I found that there was I felt like I was getting into the groove of things. But after we lost to Team BC one, it started to feel like there was something that we could have done better. And I started to start to second guess things, and that's when we ended up losing our second um game after our first win. And so it was started going kind of go downhill, but our feet, my feet underneath me again, uh per se. So per se. Um the next day we were able to I was able to get through better and more confident again. And so it was just was um, it's a like a full emotional roller coaster doing all of that through just all brand new me in the sport.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

I would imagine that an athlete in your position could go down one of two paths that you get completely overwhelmed with the moment or of the the the uh impact of the event itself, or you you have the attitude that, hey, the ice in the rocks, and Chris knows because he's heard me say this so many times, that in any competition, the ice in the rocks have absolutely no idea who you are. It has the ice in the rocks have no idea what you've done in the past. It only knows what you're going to do with the ice in the rocks today. And one of the great aspects of curling is that there's really two competitions taking place. Of course, there's the one at the end of the rink uh called the scoreboard, but you're also playing against yourself, so to speak. In other words, you have an opportunity to play X number of shots, and when you get into the hack or into position as a wheelchair curler, there's absolutely no defense put up by the other team. There's the ice, there's the shot called. All you have to do is make the shot. And we can talk about execution tolerance, but just make the shot. And and I I learned that an awful long time ago from a gentleman at the Golf Curling Club by the name of Jimmy Broomfield, who said that to me, said, Bill, when you get into the hack, you gotta remember that the other team is defenseless. And of course, the same thing is true that when they get into the hack, you're defenseless because it's all about making curling shots. And that's why attitude plays such an important role here. And I know in talking with Chris and reading some of his other writings, that that's what impressed him so much. So, Chris, talk to me about uh Elizabeth's evolution from your perspective as a skip and also coach of the team, uh, as to her progress during those days in Boucherville.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

There is one incredibly huge moment that stands out for me for her, and it's where I saw the pinnacle change in her all the way through up, throughout it, she was looking for acceptance, looking to do her best just to be able to make a shot or two. And there was a game, and I'm not gonna say what game it was, and all of a sudden I I look up the ice, and uh knowing my wife I the way that I do, I saw her start to get very teary-eyed and very sort of upset. And it was at that moment I I said, Okay, I'm I'm gonna take a timeout, and right or wrong, we we didn't need the timeout, but my player needed that time out. And I turned to her and I said, What's going on? And she goes, We're just not performing for you, and I said, Oh, don't don't worry about that. And and that's the moment I knew that she went from being this rookie to to this competitive player, because she, you know, everything that could fall apart did fall apart during that game, including her for about 38 seconds. And I turned to her and I said, Don't worry about it, you know, do what you can do and and leave the rest up to whatever is about to happen. And she held her chin up, and I I could didn't really want to give her a hug. I I desperately wanted to give her a hug at that moment, and uh Frank that's allowed, by the way. You can do that. You know what? I you learn something every day, right? And uh Frank came up, he played third for us, and he said, What's going on? And I explained to him, and he went, Oh, just listen to him. That's the only time my third's ever gonna say listen to me. And uh, I was so proud of her not just to be able to get over that moment, but to see that progress in her to move from this beginner curler to this uh this competitive curler. And the moment that we took that pressure sort of off of her so that she understood it, well, by golly, somebody said you can perform. And man, did she show up in the second half? I think we won that game 13 to 7. And we we had been down seven to two, uh, going into the fourth end, and then we came back and we scored four in the fifth, and then four in the seventh, and then three in the eighth. And uh, I want her to be able to tell you the funny story that that happened after that. And this is where I knew she became verging elite curler, and the spirit of the game took over. What's the story?

SPEAKER_02 36:49

The other team came up to us, uh to myself and one of our other teammates and said, Um, so I think we're done. And my other teammate said, No, no, we gotta ask Chris. And she says to me, Us, well, I'm a skip. And the hat has me her hat, gives me her hand, and says, I'm done. So I took her hand and shook for the team. And it's first time that I've ever been able to. Well, the first time, of course, all of these are first.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

The first time you ever accepted a um succeed. Yeah, they succeeded the game. Yeah, so she got to have lots of firsts. Uh, I wanted to keep playing, but you know, that it's not my call anymore. It all came down to the league, who's now the professional.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

What a great story. What a great story. Well, you you did not win the nationals. In fact, there were 12 teams. You finished 11th, as I recall. But that's what I didn't get stunk. Right? And on one of one of your narrations that I read, that 11th place finish was a triumph because of all the things, all the first that Elizabeth just described, and the feeling that your team performed. Because you can't control the outcome ever. The only thing you can do is influence. You can't control your performance, but you can influence your performance. And that's why I say so often that just worry, just deal with what you can do. Do the best that you can with your experience and your skill set. Make sure that you do everything you can to make sure your teammates have a great competition. And whatever happens, well, that's why they call it sports fans, and that's why you play the game.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Absolutely, Bill. I can't agree anymore. And and that team, uh, I mean, just for me, I hadn't played in 20 years. Um, I had to learn the game from scratch, and uh for six weeks prior to that, I had actually been still throwing with the old stick, that extender stick. So six weeks in, I had swapped to the new curling style. Frank, who is a five-time national champion, he came out of retirement, did me the favor, uh, God bless him, to come play with me and have a little bit of a leap of faith. But to the other three players on the team, you know, Elizabeth being thrown in four months, four months for her to be uh playing at the level that she played, much less survive our marriage during that time was was incredible. And the other two players had started six months prior to that. So the nice part is that the expectations um for this team weren't high. We were hoping, you know, maybe maybe finish top six. We knew that we had it in us, and to be honest, one point in that BC versus BC game, and who knows what would happen after that. It was all about experience and and letting these guys ride the the wind of curling.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Wow, what a story. Thank you, Chris and Elizabeth. But the story's not over, as I indicated at the outset. Because in next week's episode, Chris is gonna bring us up to speed on what Paul Harvey would say the rest of the story. Um we have to be at a certain generation to understand what Paul Harvey was. It has been said that sport in our society plays a very impactful role. Some call it the toy department of life. Can it really change and make the world a better place? Well, that was one of the hopes and aspirations of the Olympic movement right from the start. We sometimes hear that, well, sport builds character. No, in my view, it might, but more importantly, sport reveals character. But as I said, more to come. So thank you for joining me today. And don't forget that great North American philosopher Charlie Brown. Especially with the message of this episode. Don't focus so much on things that make you sad because there are so many things that can make you happy. Until next week.