Player's Own Voice podcast transcript: Speedskating legends Catriona Le May Doan, Shannon Rempel, and Kristina Groves.at the Calgary Olympic Oval.

Episode first published Nov 2nd, 2021

If you don't live and breathe the Olympics, it probably comes as a shock to hear that the winter games in Beijing are now less than a hundred days away.

That news might have caught you off guard, but the people behind Canada's most successful winter sport - speed skating - are all over it.

This little podcast is set to burst its buttons today, because, three count em three legends of the sport are meeting me at the Olympic Oval. Chef du mission for the Canadian team, Catriona Le May Doan...Assistant team Coach Shannon Rempel, and multi medallist and commentator Kristina Groves.

What those three don't know about speed skating? Ain't worth knowing.

Anastasia: Thanks for coming. Can we just admit that one thing is not like the others and that's me. I don't feel like I have the right to be having this conversation with you. But I appreciate it. Chef de mission. All- time great, you birthed my Olympic dreams. Thank you for being here, Christina…Catriona!

All: laughs.…

Kristina Groves: My neighbor yesterday called me Katrina. If I had a dollar for everytime that happened, or I got called Christine, I'd be a millionaire.

Catriona Le May Doan: We're going to keep going. That's what I started saying, Cat-tree-ona. I say it in French, so now I say it in English.

Kristina Groves: This is very common. People screw it up all the time.

Shannon Rempel: Yeah. Catriona, Clara, Christine. Kristina. Yeah.

Anastasia: Yeah it s just. Shannon and me Lord, that was the perfect intro. I'm not even going to redo that. Shannon Rempel, of course. Coach now for Team Canada, one of my oldest and dearest friends and training partners.

Shannon Rempel: oldest.

Anastasia: Yeah, you always say that. First question. Let's just identify the elephant in the room. Oval broke down for a little over a year and the pandemic hit. How would you have dealt with that? Kristina?

Kristina Groves: As an athlete?

Anastasia: Yeah, as an athlete, it's one of the hot topics for them.

Kristina Groves I said to, I said to Scott, like a number of times throughout the last two years, I was like, I'm so glad I'm not skating anymore in this time period because I think it would have been unbelievably hard. I think every time I've run into someone, any walk of life, everyone has run into some really hard time during this pandemic. As an athlete, gosh, I think you just persevere. You figure out a way to make it work. You find the rinks, you find the invitations, you find whatever it is, it would suck, though I can't imagine having to experience that and have your whole Olympic dream derailed, you know, because you really just get the one chance. So that's hard.

Anastasia: So as a coach, though, from your lens, what did that look like?

Shannon Rempel: Yeah, we did find rinks.

Anastasia: outdoors!

Shannon Rempel: Yup. Lakes. Frozen water. We found it and we made it work. Coming into that role during the pandemic was tricky, though, because then I didn't get to interact with the athletes very much. And, you know, like, that's a big part of trusting your coach and like being a part of that. And I could tell they were having a hard time too not being able to train with each other, either because they were in separate pods all the time. But I am really proud of how they managed to do that.

I was also thankful that, not really knowing what was going on all the time, which is uncertainty is, I mean, that's what life is. But it's extra hard when you're trying to prepare for an Olympics.

Anastasia: How would you have coped?

Catriona Le May Doan: Again, I'm glad I wasn't an athlete. Yeah, exactly. It didn't stop my wine drinking time, but I was so inspired because the adaptability of the athletes, the adaptability of everybody. But most of all, athletes in all sports was incredible. And so I think what's great is that they adapted and they still succeeded on the international scene.

So it proved to them that sometimes how whether you're superstitious, whether you like your routine, whatever that is, it can be changed and you can still do well. Fortunately for the winter athletes, they actually got to compete, versus the summer athletes. And so even with the summer athletes in Tokyo, we saw how well they did, the Canadian athletes, without competition. So, you know, going into… I think it was the uncertainty of the games for the summer, at least for winter, they've known. The games were not in question. They're not in question now. They weren't ever in question. They're happening. So they can still look at that finish line.

Anastasia: Being the chef, of course, for Beijing...twenty years since you won that second Gold Medal, I can't believe that like, we're all getting old. How has it been leading the team?

Catriona Le May Doan: Different! Because when I dreamt of being chef, you'd be at every training camp, be at every trials and you'd be everywhere… but easier than for Marnie, (McBean) who was chef for Tokyo because hers was extended by a year. And again, she couldn't do anything. Where, you know, I saw some of the races for World Cup trials. I'm hopefully going to go to some events. But it's the fact that, you know, I don't know what it's like through the pandemic being an athlete, but we've had to adapt. And just trying to be a leader to the athletes, I know what it's like to be an athlete, to have the different experiences, to have the pressure. I know what it's like to be media, so if I can help them in any single way, then that's what I've always dreamt of doing.

And you know, you probably don't know this, but I don't have the Olympic ring tattoo and I always said I will only get it if I'm ever chef eu Mission. So, I have 100 days to figure it out. I have two spots in mind. So that's, sort of when I explain it to people, that's the pinnacle for me. I've never allowed myself… unless I'm chef, then I'll get the Olympic rings.

Anastasia: Can you tell us which spot?

Catriona Le May Doan: It's not a secret Well, it's either ankle, but I think it's actually here ( gestures to forearm). I'm a I'm a hand talker, so when I'm here it faces people. And somebody said, 'Oh, is that too showy?' And I said, No, I believe in the in the values of the games. So to me, that's what I've lived and will always want to live. So I think that's where.

Anastasia: I'm only one that does have the rings tattoo. And I'm the only one who didn't do big things in the sport. So… sorry.

Catriona Le May Doan: Oh! Where's yours?

Anastasia: It's on my foot.

Anastasia: Aside from adaptability, because that's an easy, you know, buzzword regarding COVID, what do you think is a benefit that'll come through the pandemic?

Kristina Groves: I think you can just roll with anything, you have to. You have to just be like, Oh, the bus is late, whatever. Like, I feel from my own personal experience, as an athlete, I used to live, you know day to day, but you have that distant vision. But like the last couple of years, I've literally just… it's abandoned. You live day to day and you cope with what you can do. You have to have the vision, the plan to not react in a way that takes away your energy, your poise, your focus and just feel like, OK, I got to take a test, fine.

I talked to Scott a lot about this stuff. And, you know, watching the athletes in Tokyo. One of his observations was the athletes who performed were the ones who didn't push back against any of that stuff. And the ones that sort of maybe were a little more like, 'Oh, it's not right, I can't do it'... You know? that's where you run into sort of that resistance and not being able to just kind of roll with it. So I think that is probably the the biggest skill or tool that athletes might have gained from this experience is just now they're just constantly adapting.

Anastasia: What does the road to Beijing look like right now?

Shannon Rempel: It's I mean, that was the first step is trials or qualifying. Yeah. And now fingers crossed, there's no more restrictions put into place, so we can kind of carry on with routines that we're used to. But competitions at World Cups, hopefully those are still a go. Still some questions around that, but it's now fine tuning everything and preparing.

Anastasia: Who's surprised you or, what excited you from trials? ( and when we say trials, these are the big competitions to essentially select the Olympic team, just for the folks that haven't seen it. )

Catriona Le May Doan: I don't know if I want to say surprise, because the beauty of sport is there's no guarantee. That's why we watch it. It's why we do it. If we knew what was going to happen, it'd be boring. I think it's the fact that, you know, it's so competitive and it would still - and this is what I don't miss and yet I do miss: is you have to be good at that moment. You can be great the day before and you can be great the hour before, and for a 500m race, you look at thirty seven seconds. There's no room for a mistake. So who can put it all together? And it's the hardest thing to do. And you know, you try to be perfect. It doesn't exist. And it took me a long time after retirement, even to come to terms with. You don't have a perfect race because it doesn't exist. So I think to me, people don't necessarily surprise me. I think what I like seeing is they sometimes surprise themselves. Because of what they're capable of doing under pressure and in those moments. And I think that's what's so great. And I love seeing that people can surprise themselves because as much as we train, we still kind of go, Are we good enough?

Anastasia: Oh yeah,you can be tremendously insecure, going into an Olympic year. I remember having that conversation with you prior to Vancouver, six months out to the Olympics, you kept saying, Oh my gosh, there's not enough time. And then we were like three days out before opening ceremonies. You're like, We have so much time. Oh yeah.

Kristina Groves: I think self-doubt is awesome. I think it's essential as an athlete, and that doesn't mean that you're not confident. I just think it means you're constantly trying to get better. It feeds the focus on what you need to do to get better. And so I wouldn't say I was like plagued by self-doubt, but I'd certainly be like, Is this enough? Did I do it right? Is this the right thing? Am I on the right path? I need to fix this. And then, you know, you get to the line. And if you're thinking that you're kind of in trouble, you shouldn't be doing that.

But for me, it was part of the process. And then you hit, you hit a wall, you hit a stumbling block. You're like, Oh, That wasn't right. How do I, How can I, I've got to fix that, and I don't know, I always thought self-doubt was it was a way to refocus on those important things. If you got caught up in the outcome or if you got caught up in the fanfare of stuff, you know, all those little things come together.

Self-doubt was one for me that that kind of… just all that crap was melted away and I was like, Oh, this is about me and my journey and my process and what I need to do before I get there.

Anastasia: . How do you communicate that to your athletes now?

Shannon Rempel: The one thing I want them to do is to believe in themselves, though, because I also lived like that, not always knowing if I was doing the right thing, but is trusting that process and trusting that like every day you're putting that work in and I want them to, like, be the best that they can be. So, yeah, I guess it's being patient with the challenges that you're experiencing, like there's failures every day of training, right? So just trusting that process and then gaining that confidence from the training that they're doing so that they can step on the line when they're ready and have no doubt when they're standing there.

Anastasia: There's so much buzz and positivity that you're coaching the team now, and so many athletes…you know I connected with them to do little post-race interviews, and they all said " That was for Shannon." So, you know, it's true and it's so exciting because we need more female coaches. We need, as a country.

I hope that we, you know, stop and listen and recognise that what you're doing for this team is tremendously beneficial. What are some of those lessons that you try and implement and teach, though?

Shannon Rempel: A big one, I know it sounds cheesy to say, but enjoying it, enjoying that process every day. Training is hard. It's hard, so hard..

Anastasia: You loved training though!

Shannon Rempel: No. I liked it, There's some joy in suffering together with your team-mates. And I want them to enjoy that part of it too. It's like, it's hard, but you're doing this together with your team-mates. You're you have this opportunity to race at World Cups, train on the national team, race in the Olympics and that is cool. So I want them to enjoy that.

Anastasia: Even long road rides?

Shannon Rempel: Oh, OK, well, that's over the line…

Catriona Le May Doan: But those are the memories. When you think back to what you miss, you don't miss these big competitions. You miss that time with your team. And that's the training camps. That's the time. Yeah, it's like being brothers and sisters and knowing way too much stuff about each other. Right? That's what you miss!

Anastasia: Yeah. What do you think the biggest difference is, skating now versus skating back in the day?

Catriona Le May Doan: Um, well, the big thing which is good and bad is: we used to leave town for ten weeks. So, tough because nowadays everybody,even the winter athletes, they're full time in school, more than we were able to. It's good and bad because that time, my goodness, it was such fun and it was 100 percent focus was with skating.

And so I think unfortunately, when you don't have that, there's more time for distraction . And we need the distraction a little bit to enjoy. But the distraction can drain us. And I think that's tough.

Different pressures, too. I mean, social media is different now, so it's great because the athletes can promote themselves. They can tell their story without necessarily having the media to have to do it. But then there's so much more pressure and the people who don't have the courage can say whatever they want to the athletes. And that's not fun, either. So there's the good and the bad to my era and the era now.

Anastasia: What about you? What are your thoughts?

Kristina Groves: How far back are you going? I'm sort of in between both of you because when I was first on the team travelling to Europe, I remember we brought a foam roller because we didn't have the resources to bring a physio massage therapist, like we were thin… like it was tight, right? But then as we built into Torino, Vancouver, like all of a sudden with Canadian games, it was like, Yeah, right?

And the other change that I think to this is maybe different for Katrina. But when I was first starting on the lake, the longer distance we didn't have a legacy of excellence, of winning, right? It was like if you were in Group A or if you were top 20, that was great. And then Cindy ( Klaessen) came along. Clara (Hughes) came along and we had Catriona and we had Susan ( Auch) who were winning in the sprints, and it was sort of like expected.

But it was like, OK that we weren't the best in the world. And then Clara and C.K. came, I remember at a World Cup in Baselga di Pinè and this was like Cindy's first year. She came in fourth in whatever race she crossed the line. She's like, was that good?

Anastasia: And she'd also then ask for help sharpening her skates!

Kristina Groves: They brought they brought the culture of excellence to the women's distance team, and that was a huge shift in my thinking. When I saw that, I was like, Oh, hey, I can do that, you know? And then it shifted and we ultimately became like a force. Yeah. Cindy, Clara, Brittany, Shannon, myself, like there was always Christine Nesbitt, always a Canadian on the podium in the 1500m 3K, 5K. That shift happened in my career. So I think, to now the changes, that legacy still exists. I think there's probably, like you said, different pressures to continue that legacy, which is probably a lot harder, to be honest.

I have to say it's harder to keep those shoes filled than it is to fill them because the pressure's on. There's people watching saying, "well, ten years ago, look what happened. Look what's happening now, right?" So that shift, I lived through and I look now and I think that would be the hardest. Probably the hardest part is just to say… and to their credit, they've done it.

In a lot of ways, like Ivanie, Isabelle, the women's team, Ted. Jordan, you know, they're all there, right? So it has been upheld. And I think that's that's it's harder to stay at the top than it is to get there.

Anastasia: So. What about you, Shannon you are the most recently retired?

Shannon Rempel: True, true. And I was fortunate too when I started to race against Katrina and through my fear, a little bit.

Anastasia: How scary was that?

Shannon Rempel: God. I was living in Winnipeg, so I didn't know anyone. And there was no internet. We didn't bring laptops. So I was just forced into this room with all these legends. And I don't think I spoke unless I was spoken to, like I was just a fly on the wall trying to absorb everything.

But at that time we did Sprint World Cups separate from long distance World Cups. So the team was like kind of split. We'd have one World Cup at the end of the season that was everyone together, and then they started incorporating more and more. So for me, that had a big impact because I had an opportunity to do more races when I started training with Julie and Clara and Kristina in the long distance group. Then I shifted kind of my focus into team pursuit, which was a lot longer than if I had…

Anastasia: Too long!

Shannon Rempel: Six laps. And I had the opportunity to race the 1500m. So that I think that really changed the distances.

Kristina Groves: Putting those World Cups together changed a lot.

Shannon Rempel: Yeah. So that transition, I think, was really good for the sport because it allowed more crossover between long distance and sprint.

Anastasia: When was the last time you folks skated?

Kristina Groves: It was 2014 me and Cindy and Brit, and like Phil, Riopelle and a couple of other guys started coming at like seven o'clock in the morning.

Anastasia: Oh dear.

Kristina Groves: For like just fun skates, it does sound a little absurd right now. We did it for, like, I don't know, five or six weeks or something. And I literally had not even sharpened my skates since I retired and still have yet to have done that. And I skated five or six times. And honestly, the thing that shocked me the most is how completely normal and easy it felt like. I could do 10 lappers, and I was like, I was okay. My body was so happy. I loved it. Now we go skate with my kids and I wear hockey skates and that feeling in my body? I miss that feeling when it's just you… just this little moment of like that feeling the pressure on the ice and like, Oh, it's just felt so good. Yah. miss that!

Anastasia: Yeah. What about you?

Catriona Le May Doan: It's not 2014. Mine is like three years ago, I was out quite a bit at club time and again for accels. It felt totally normal.

Anastasia: Catriona Le May Doan was out ripping accels with 10 year olds?

Catriona Le May Doan: They were more than 10 year olds at the club time! But it was just so normal and everybody's like, Oh, it looks normal, like it feels normal. But then because it has to be at a specific time and then the kids are so busy with sports. And then last year, because I play Old Lady Hockey, I'm on the ice a lot and nobody beats me to the puck. But what I do after that?

Anastasia: Are you dirty?

Catriona Le May Doan: No, I'm not. I'm like, Oh, sorry. I don't come from team sport, right? Not even doing the Team Pursuit or anything. So that was my weakness, I was like, Oops. So, oh yeah, people in hockey are like, "Oh, you have to get aggressive" and I went to give somebody their stick and my team-mates said don't do that, you'll get a penalty! Oh, you can't give them your stick? Oh, no. So that's a no, no. So no, it's you know what? I want to get back on the ice… then last year with COVID, and the Oval, you know, kind of breaking down….

Now, It's great, like I was just watching the races. It's so nice, but I'm so analytical and so technical. I'm like, Oh, why aren't they on hard tails? Because I'm like, They're pushing back. And, you know, I just get so specific that I'm like, OK, I better relax a little.

Anastasia: So hard tails are the opposite of clap skates just for the audience. The old school, the O.G. ... Yeah, yeah. Uh, what about you? You are on skates but have you actually been in that god forsaken position?

Shannon Rempel: I tried something last year when we were out in Red Deer skating and I was like, Oh, I feel pretty fast. I looked the same. But I was going quite slow. Yeah. Oh, that was so disappointing.

Kristina Groves: Right! They looked like thirty eights but they felt like thirty twos.

Shannon Rempel: Oh it's so unforgiving.

Kristina Groves: It's unforgiving. Yeah, but when you've done it for as long as we did, it's like riding a bike.

Shannon Rempel: it totally is.

Kristina Groves: The feeling will never go away. Yeah, like I'll be hopefully 80 someday and I can still feel that way.

Anastasia: we're going to go for a rip? I'm going to try for at least one lap.

Anastasia: Um, last question, why do you think Canada has had so much success in long track speed skating?

Kristina Groves: OK, so I think it started with the bricks and mortar in this building. Yeah, there was some before like Gaetan ( Boucher) obviously But if this oval wasn't here. I don't think we would be sitting here right now. And I think what came of the bricks and mortar in this building was a culture and a group of people that built something inside this building.

And that, I think, like I came here in 1995. Infrastructure was here in place. I moved here from Ontario. It was available. I came here and I could develop. And I think that's actually the most amazing legacy out of 1988 is that this facility, it didn't close down. It didn't turn into a rec facility. It didn't turn into a ghost town. It stayed as a high performance training centre and a World Cup destination.

The building, then the people, then the athletes came. And I mean such a cliche. But if you build it, they will come. And they all did. And I think that's why we're here.

Anastasia: What about you?

Shannon Rempel: I would also give this building a lot of credit. I came from Winnipeg and there was no way I could have done another year outside in minus 40 speedskating.

Anastasia: Fun fact. Shannon is literally allergic to the cold. Yeah, she comes from Winnipeg, can't take cold.

Shannon Rempel: I got frostbite, my toes still going numb every day on the ice. So it was like a goal to get in from outside, from out of the cold. And the athletes. Like so many good athletes, and we had a lot of really good athletes from Winnipeg, and I was like, Oh, they get to go to Calgary and skate? That was cool. So having those athletes and a facility, I think, is for sure one of the biggest reasons for the success.

Anastasia: What do you think?

Catriona Le May Doan: The coaching, the ice like, everybody wanted to be the best. And so your word: culture, that's what I was thinking. And it's the fact that you look at the teams and I look at when the sprinters were successful. We wanted to be good and we wanted to embrace greatness. I mean, if you look at 2002 and we had Casey FitzRandolph training with us? And then we had people say, Oh, but Jeremy falling and Casey winning? That was just one of those situations. If the best in the world could help us, we would embrace that and we would take it, and it was across the board.

And I often compare it to Holland when they started sort of breaking apart into teams and having a lot of inner fighting. They didn't do well. And I think as soon as they've come back together as a country, they've done well. But us, as a country and as a nation, we were willing to work together. And I think it's there again. And that breeds success because those are the values of not just being …It's an individual sport, but there's a team. And so I think it started from the culture of this building and it went into the sport.

We have to buy into it and we have and that success, I mean, yes, there's ups and downs a little bit, but that's been part of it. The whole culture and the teamwork and that it is a team. I don't know anybody on any of our teams has ever crossed the finish line and said "Yeah, I did that". Nobody's ever thought that. Never.

Anastasia: How cool is that? And maybe it's cooler for me because I am a little bit younger. Just how many kick ass women have done so well in a sport, though? Like, it's pretty cool. And I need to thank you. I know I called you Christina, because I am so star struck right now,. But truly, you and I don't even know if you remember this… you skated with the Calgary club. I was seven years old and that's where my Olympic dreams were born and I still have those photos and I said, "Oh, you want to, you know, race?" We did a start, and I beat you, by the way. How cool is that? And how cool is it that you have people like Isabelle Weidemann, and Ivanie Blondin,and oh my gosh, Kaylin Irvine, and all of these women that have put themselves in serious contention now? Val Maltais even coming from short track. They look to you! and I say thank you.

Shannon Rempel: That's the benefit of the Oval is that you get to see those athletes every day like club level skates get to see national team skaters train and interact.

Kristina Groves: And I think that is so wonderful, like I remember I coached you. Yeah, I was probably trying to make extra money when I first moved here and I was like a coach for little kids in the country club that level, that you're exposed to in one location... And I remember you coming here for a whole programme, but then the national team was always, you're exposed from age five, six, all the way up to world champion. That level is all here in one building. And that's rare. Yeah, I think that's really rare.

You don't have an alpine ski team with the little kiddos on the same ski hill, right? It's like we're all housed under one roof. And I don't know. I can't think of actually another sport where you would see that like day in, day out, maybe occasionally like you got a World Cup and there's cross-country skiers all there, little kids. But I can't imagine, like for 20 years, little kids right up to world champions together for that long. And so that goes into coaching, and Catriona's comments about culture and just that, that excellence in this building.

Catriona Le May Doan: …And in fact, community kids then skate public on the same ice that this Olympic champion skated on, right? Like, that's so cool. It's so great.

Anastasia: I love it. And Beijing 2022 is right around the corner. So, you know, hopefully that legacy is added to. But folks like you? You know, the team is in a good way right now, and it's exciting. Thank you. How fun was this? I just genuinely wish we had a bottle of wine on the table, but

Catriona Le May Doan: oh, I have one in my purse. Welcome to my retirement. My daughter drives now. It's all good.

Anastasia: Peace.

We recorded that conversation at my home away from home, The Calgary Olympic oval. If it sounded a little different, we're also doing some video recording at the same time, because you don't let an opportunity with sports royalty slip by without making the most of it. We'll post those scenes at CBC sports dot ca.

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David Giddens is our producer.

Olivia Pasquarelli is in the editor's chair.

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