Anastasia: Here's a fact about curling in this country. Qualifying for a Canadian Olympic team is harder than taking on the world at the actual Winter Games. Don't believe me? Pay attention in the days ahead as Canadian teams fight for the right to wear the Maple Leaf in Beijing.

We're not allowed to play favourites here, but just between us fans of the 42-pound rock, it's time to check in with the Tom Brady of Leads. Gold medallist, world champion, and four time Brier champ, Mr. Ben Hiebert.

It's Player's Own Voice. I'm Anastasia Bucsis.

[music]

Well, you're looking good, but how are you feeling?

Ben Hebert: I'm feeling all right, I got home last night at about 1:30 in the morning. We had a big tournament, in Swift Current Saskatchewan. Second event of the year and we picked up the W. We beat our buddies, Brad Jacobs, in the final. That was beautiful. And I got home at 1:30 with a little… I didn't drive, so I got to have a couple of road beers in the back and it was great. So it's always good to celebrate. You gotta celebrate your wins, they're hard to get, man.

Anastasia: I love that you just had said 'aboot. I think that you say 'about' the most Canadian way of any of my friends. About you say aboot.

Ben Hebert: I didn't mean to say it like that. That's my Canadian accent. But yeah, it's good. It's good little night. Feel good today. Been to the chiropractor already. Massage tomorrow. I've got to get that body fixed up. Curling is hard now that you're old. It was easy when I was young. Now I got to do different stuff.

Anastasia: How long you been curling?

Ben Hebert: Oh, I've been curling competitively for like eighteen years on the men's tour. And then I probably played six seven years before that. So 25 years, 26 years.

Anastasia: How have you curled for 25, 26 years?

Ben Hebert: Well, it's not like speed skating, like you're doing and you're...

Anastasia: I'm not doing it anymore and my body disintegrated!

Ben Hebert: I know. I was talking to Bo ( levi Mitchell) He was messaging me this morning. He's like, 'How's the body?' And I'm like 'Sore. I'm old'. He goes: I know, we had to play three games in 11 days one time. Like, well, a little different, football - curling, right?

But I just get a little bit older. If you still want to compete, you got to work hard and body… Hey, listen, if I wasn't doing it properly, my body wouldn't be sore, OK? But we're grinding. We played 10 games in four days, so I'm a little sore, but winning makes it all worthwhile so. I'm a psychotic winner, like it's the best thing in the world.

Anastasia: What do you attribute that longevity in your career to - mental or physical?

Ben Hebert: Probably mental. I think it's harder to continue to want to win and stay at the top. You know, when you've won everything and the older you get and you know, my kids are getting into activities and I hate missing out and being away from home like before when I was young, just curling, I had nothing really to miss out on. And so as you get older, you miss out on kids activities and my son's hockey, my daughter's curling, being with the wife and doing fun stuff. Weddings. I missed a wedding this weekend. So but the mental side of it is like, you know, I'm a massive Tom Brady fan. Like freak Tom Brady fan.

Anastasia: I feel like Tom Brady might be a little bit weird, though.

Ben Hebert: I don't know, I think he's cool.

Anastasia: Have you met him?

Ben Hebert: No! how would I ever meet Tom Brady?

Anastasia: I don't know you're pretty cool. You have your own podcast.

Ben Hebert: Yeah, no, I'm not that cool. No, I mean, I. He's like giving older athletes like aspirations of playing forever, right? Because he's dominating in the NFL at 44 years old.

Anastasia: Are you going to go vegan?

Ben Hebert: No. Do I look like I'm going vegan? No. no, no. I just love that… I've watched his, Tom vs. Time documentary. It's what he does for his body, his mind, mindset of it. And truly, I do believe this. I mean, you're an ex athlete. I love the battle of playing, and I fear not having those competitive juices when it's gone. So I truly am a big believer in …I'm not the guy to play when I'm, you know, washed up and brutal because I'll just go too crazy. And my team-mates would hate me and they'd cut me in a second, right? Because that's not how I roll.

But if I can still play competitively and play good and help my team win like I'm playing as long as I can, I mean, I have a little bit of a plan here of what I want to do, but you know, curve balls get thrown. Things could change that up, but I want to play as long as I can competitively like, I'm on a great team right now. We have one of the best teams in the world. We've got a good shot at, you know, hopefully going to another Olympics here. Olympic trials are in a month and then I'll be thirty eight, so I could probably run one more four year... you know how the Olympics work? A little four year tour.

Anastasia: Oh? Is it four years?

Ben Hebert: Yeah. Every four years or so. 2026?

Anastasia: Italy.

Ben Hebert: Yeah, I want to try to make a run at that and then we'll see what happens from there.

Anastasia: So from today until Beijing 2022, what needs to happen?

Ben Hebert: Well, we gotta play some good curling. I mean, we got we got the Olympic trials in Saskatoon, which are…

Anastasia: Great City.

Ben Hebert: Yeah, I love Saskatoon. Amazing City. What? November 20th to the 29th. We got nine days of curling against eight of the other top men's teams in Canada. I would say probably five or six of them are really…have a real, real good chance to win. And there's a couple, that maybe don't have a good chance to win, but whoever Canada does send is going to have a good chance at the games.

You know, I would say we have a 25 percent chance, I would say. if I was putting odds on it, I'm an odds guy. I like to gamble a little bit, I dabble. But the other men's teams are really, really good. So if we play great and we get some breaks, you know, sports is at that level. You know, a couple of bounces here, a couple of bounces there, go your way? We have a really good chance to win, but we got to be prepared and we got to be dialled in mentally, physically and we got to be prepared to battle because it's going to be a tough week.

Anastasia: What do you think would be more important for the province of Saskatchewan? You winning gold or Riders Grey Cup W 2021 Grey Cup champs?

Ben Hebert: I'm not going to compete with the Riders. It's not even close. They would. They trump me all the time. I actually went to a Riders game a couple of weeks ago, I was back in Regina promoting the Olympic Trials in Saskatoon. Oh, it's awesome. I got to go to the big scene. I got to see a whole bunch of friends and family I hadn't seen in forever. And that Mosaic stadium is like…

Anastasia: I've never been.

Ben Hebert: It's unbelievable. Yeah, I go to games here, McMahon, and then I go there and I'm like, This is depressing coming back to McMahon. The rider seems like an NFL stadium. It's beautiful, right in the heat of Regina, and it wasn't there for me growing up. So when I go home now, driving down Sask Drive, I look, I'm like, I can't believe that is there. Anyways, it's a beautiful place. It's like, it's such a nice arena. I feel like people would go to the game, just go to the arena or the stadium. So it was cool. I got to see a whole bunch of, you know, I can't go to Regina and go to a Rider game without stopping every like six feet just to see friends or family or people that I've known over the years there. Regina is pretty small, right? So yeah, it was awesome. Got to have a couple, a couple of beers with everybody and enjoy the game.

Anastasia: All right, I'd love to do that.

Ben Hebert: But yeah, it doesn't look like the Riders are winning the Grey cup if that was what you're asking.

Anastasia: Yeah, that was what I was asking.

Ben Hebert: No, no, I don't think they're getting the job done.

Anastasia: Well, you'll just have to bring home a gold medal then.

Ben Hebert: Yeah, we'll see. That'll be nice.

[music]

Anastasia: 25, 26 years you've been Curling, though, bud. What do you think the biggest change has been in? You said 15 years really at the competitive, peak. What's the biggest change you've seen in the game?

Ben Hebert: Time and preparation that you have to put in to compete. You know, when we were winning, when I played with Kevin Martin, when we met 2010 Olympics, you know, we kind of dominated the two years prior to that 2008, 2009 and we won, in 2010. You know, with that team, we worked really, really hard. We were kind of… I would say we're a little bit ahead of our time on what everybody does now. Plus plus plus plus, you know, we were in the gym. We weren't we weren't really working. It was kind of our full time gig, you know, we were practising together as a foursome, you know, not guys travelling and we were doing training camps and we had a veteran leader.

You know, we had a guy that had been there. We kind of, we tried to build a super team. You know, you have a skip in John Morris, who goes to third. Guy like Mark Kennedy, who's probably a third playing second. I'm not going to say I'm better than the lead, but I was a really good sweeper, Good athlete, so they put me at lead right? Now, every single top men's team and women's team, they're stacked. Like, there's no OK, that person's a lead, you're playing lead. Like, it's all the best players on the best teams because that's what you need to win. And that's what happens in Scotland. That's what happens in Sweden. The coaching, the preparation, nutrition, gym, like curling is not historically. That's not that's not the curling way, right? It's, you know, cigarettes on the ice.

Anastasia: Smokin a pack of darts eh?

Ben Hebert: Right and drilling pizza doing your thing… which, by the way, I still do drill some pizza, but it's just changed that way. The physical side and then and obviously curling, becoming more professional, like when you see it on television, you know, you and me were talking just prior about, you know, the women and men having equal ratings on TV.

Well, it's not like it's not a couple hundred thousand. It's millions. Yeah. So there's money attached to that, TSN Sportsnet. So with that getting bigger and bigger prize money and things on the line, you know, you get people working harder when you see how big the Olympics is getting and blowing up curling. You know, I think that's obviously put, you know, medals and mmoney and all that kind of jazz makes that makes the world go around. And so you see people putting a lot of work in for that.

Where I would say 10 or 15 years ago, you maybe had a couple of teams doing that like, I'll be honest with you, it was really easy to win back then,

Anastasia: Really?

Ben Hebert: If you did the right stuff. Yeah, whereas now you could you could bust your ass and go to an event and you could, you know, get eighth place, easily. Lose the quarterfinal. I mean, we didn't yesterday. We picked up the dub! But you could easily lose because everybody works hard. You know how that is right? If everybody works hard and everyone equal work, you know, then talent can prevail. Or a couple of breaks here or there. But it's hard to outwork teams these days because when you know you're in the gym and you're working hard, you're doing this and you're rehabbing, you know, I think most of the top teams are doing the same. So I hope they're not! But I think they are.

Anastasia: Yeah. So what's the biggest difference between like, let's say, a kid getting into the sport now and when you were starting?

Ben Hebert: Oh, man, that's a great question. I'm a little bit disconnected from the junior curling.

Anastasia: Like, I just think I mean, now I'm answering my own question, but I look at what kids are doing now in speed skating, and I'm like, What? Like, have some fun along the way, boys!

Ben Hebert: Yeah, I mean, hey, I can totally see that, but I don't see that just in curling. Like, I see that in every sport like you talk, they talk about what do they call it when you play one sport your whole life,?

Anastasia: Early specialization, yeah.

Ben Hebert: Like, Are you kidding me? Yeah, I know I can rip a football. I can drill a baseball, backhand top shelf, hockey. I played lacrosse. It's the best. But I love that. I love being able to go out and teach my kids other sports that I played growing up. I love that I still can play. I still play beer league hockey in Chestermere. I still play on a team. I play slow pitch. So to pigeonhole a kid or your kid into one sport. You know, I see Wayne Gretzky is cool. Like, let him play all these sports. Like, I completely agree. Because when they get really, really good at something by 12, 13, 14, they're going to want to do that anyways. Yeah, because they're awesome at it. And you know, what's fun? Being awesome at something? It's like, of course, they're going to go that road, but to take everything else away from them because, you know, you maybe have this parent dream or whatever the hell your programme is, but it's not going to be my programme.

My kids are playing all sorts of different sports, but I think in curling too, you know, especially curling, I find the best curlers are the people that I know in the sport, they're good athletes. You know, there's maybe a couple of guys, (none that I can even think of off the top of my head) that we play against that are only good at curling. Like a lot of guys played hockey or they're good golfers or good baseball players. And I think if you play those other sports. And it's hard to play curling at a young age! The rocks are 42 pounds.

Anastasia: Yeah, no. A little harder than Tee ball.

Ben Hebert: A little harder like that weighs more than my daughter and she's trying to get into it, you know, so we need to have the junior rocks and stuff for her. But the good thing about Curling is….You played an amateur sport right? And you got to the complete pinnacle of your sport. And when did you retire?

Anastasia: 27 years old. Freedom 27. Yeah.

Ben Hebert: You know, when you get good at curling? Like when you're 33! So if you're like, I say, this is to my daughter: Listen. Sloane, you can do this forever and be awesome at it and meet some great people along the way. Pick your own team and you can play forever if you're good.

Anastasia: She's good?

Ben Hebert: Well, she's eight. Like she could slide. I'm sure she… Yeah, I think she's OK. I mean, I know it's junior Curling. She's having fun. She loves going to the rink and seeing her friends and having french fries.

Anastasia: That's….I like all of those things too.

Ben Hebert: That's what you should be doing when you're eight. So she's not going to get any pressure for me unless she gets good, then I'm going to try to coach her up and kind of teach her the path. But yeah, it's exciting. I will see. You want you want your kids to kind of do what you do. I think they love it because I love it.

Anastasia: How old are they now?

Ben Hebert: My kids are eight and four.

Anastasia: Let's be honest to be at this level of elite athletics, you have to be laser focussed most of the time, you got to ignore a lot of other areas of life. How do you balance that with your kids getting a bit older?

Ben Hebert: Best wife ever. That's for sure. Oh yeah. Not even close. Like, yeah, I'm pretty selfish in the wintertime, that's for sure. I mean, I guess sometimes I'm selfish in the summer, too, but it's like, I mean, that's just our life. Like, I'm gone lots. And it's kind of she signed up for the programme. But yeah, we've got a good life and curling's been good to us. And you know, she supports the curling and the dreams, and we get the travel to fun places to watch us play and our kids are getting into it. And like all of my best friends that I, you know, you say I've been curling on tour for 18 years. We just got back to Swift Current to play this past weekend with a guy I haven't seen in 10 years, a guy that I played juniors with in my first two years, Man ran the Bonspiel. We go back home and it's like, you don't even miss a beat. It's like, Hey, how's it going? Oh my god, how are your kids like? It's just the best. Like all your sports, even me and you. We met 11years ago. We've had a few drinks going on in the village. Remember our epic night we had in Montreal? We were partying with all the Olympians there.

Anastasia: Grey Goose. Yeah, you made me bougie.

Ben Hebert: We went to a nightclub in Montreal and like, we didn't have any money. We were young, but we decided we are all here with our medals. And, you know, we Big Dog and get bottle service. And Johnny Mo was with us and he's like, Oh, let's get some GreyGoose. I said: You're buying. So but those are all the people you want to hang with and are those your best buddies like, What do I see you once every three years?

Anastasia: yeah and no time has changed.

Ben Hebert: Yeah, it's awesome.

Anastasia: You know what? You're a really good phone caller, though.

Ben Hebert: I text, I keep in touch with my peeps

Anastasia: Yeah, you just pick up the phone and unh….

Ben Hebert: I'm a face timer.

Anastasia: I'm always like: is that a butt dial? And you're like, No, I want to just hang out.

Ben Hebert: I'm a big face timer, especially Covid's made me a big face timer. I like seeing people see what's up, see how they're doing. I'm a good checker-inner.

Anastasia: You are very good. You're a good friend.

Ben Hebert But yeah, I like to do that.

[music]

Anastasia: Internationally, how has the game changed?

Ben Hebert: Well, they're better than us.

Anastasia: What's going on there?

Ben Hebert: Well, they got they got an interesting programme over there, everywhere, when I say that. Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, even the United States a little bit. A lot of the top teams there basically take, you know, the Asian teams China, Korea, Japan all really, really good. They have the means. We have so many good teams here that, you know, I know we harp on, you know, curling Canada or the funding of the athletes. You know, how it is. It's not like we're balling over here, right?

But when the talent pools that deep, you can't just exclude the people that maybe are coming up next. You got to fund them. You've got to feed them, right? Well, if that money is off the table and it all went to us, if there was one team in Canada that got all of the money? Yeah, you don't want, your full time and you're going to train as much as these guys and lift as many weights and practise as much. It's like, I got kids. I got to work today, right?

Anastasia: Yeah.

Ben Hebert: So if you know, I think the model probably changes, my guess is after 2022 going into 2026 because we lost in 2018 olympics. Oh I want to swear so bad right now, it still makes me mad. And then but we got second place 2019 Worlds had a great comeback. The next year, won the Briar, and then Brendan Bottcher, down the highway in Edmonton, he beat us in the briar final last year. He got sixth at the worlds. That's no good. You know, so when that happens and then I think our ladies got sixth as well.

You know, some alarm bells came off just saying, we all might have to look at the model and maybe a few more funds need to go to some different teams to be able to train as much as these other countries. But the depth we have in Canada compared to the depth they have in their countries is like, not even close.

Anastasia: Not even close. What countries keep you up at night?

Ben Hebert: Yeah, Sweden. Sweden, and Scotland are both very, very good teams. Yeah. Like if Canada, whoever we do send, if it's us or if it's, you know, Gushue or Jacobs or Bottcher. I don't even know if we'd be favoured going into the Olympics. We probably won't be favoured. You could easily win gold. I mean, at that level. Honestly, it's two or three shots a game. Yeah, but the favourites would probably have to be Sweden or Scotland at the moment, which is crazy because think about 2010…

Anastasia: or 2014!

Ben Hebert: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the last time that…like even 2018, when we went. Now we got fourth. We should have had the second blindfolded. But to get to the Gold Medal game there against Sweden, against Edin? it was a 50-50 game. Yeah, like they were, they were that good. They end up losing, which is crazy. But, you know, game just kind of changed a little bit and certainly on the women's side as well, the European women are just they're amazing. But they got a few more resources. You know, they're a little more full time, little more funding, maybe facilities. I think, you know, possibly training together. I think it's going to change the landscape of high performance Canadian curling going forward. And you'll probably see a few changes. Maybe, if I could say I'd like to play for four more years here to 2026 and see what happens, I think the model could change and you might see some different things out of our associations, but we'll see what happens.

Anastasia: Okay you keep saying the game is changing? There are like actual rule changes, though.

Ben Hebert: Oh, yeah, yeah, there's some weird ones, I mean, do you have them written down because I think I.

Anastasia: I don't have written down.

Ben Hebert: What did they change? No extra ends. No extra ends I saw. I mean, I'm not as super dialled into this because it's just like politics stuff

Anastasia: So you are just like, clear the clutter?

Ben Hebert: I got too many like real issues to deal with and stuff. I need to prep my own self to worry about other people's stuff for these rule changes that are… they are not going be able to fix them. I can have my opinion with that, which usually gets me in trouble.

Anastasia: Is it all just for TV?

Ben Hebert: Yeah. I mean, there's some rules in there that I think are ridiculous. I don't think, yes, I think they're trying some stuff. Yeah, it that's a problem. It's for TV and sponsors. So when you do things that as a player, take away from what the players want, you know, for dollar bills and for TV and advertisers, of course you can get a little pissy about it, but I'm just too old to worry about that stuff. And I'm just like, if we go out and we win, everything else takes care of itself. And that's what I'm worried about.

Anastasia: Just winning. Coming home with the dub.

Ben Hebert: Yeah, that's it coming home with a win.

[music]

Anastasia: I told my dad, by the way, that we were connecting and he was like: just ask him if he's the greatest lead of all time. I said, No, I already know the answer. He'll say Yes.

Ben Hebert: Well, I don't know. I mean, that's a loaded question because, you know. This is no different than when they talk about these other athletes at their positions or sports, all that g.o.a.t. talk. And you never know, because they never get to play against each other. You know, its just hypotheticals. TSN did a little voting poll a couple of years ago, and it gave me the nod. So I mean, I'm going to take it. A nice little feather in the cap. But I mean, Leads, you know, Lead is a position that you need to have good players on your team to get some recognition. So if I'm the greatest lead of all time, it probably means I have had the best team-mates of all time, which I mean, really hard to argue that I haven't had the best team-mates of all time. I got a couple deep rosters that I've been on, right? But I mean, obviously, I hold my own at lead and Numbers are good and still in good shape, sweeping good.

Anastasia: So who are some of the team-mates you'd take a bullet for?

Ben Hebert: I love all my team-mates. I mean. Well, I mean, currently I'm going on eight years here with Kevin Koe, you know, we've had some great success together. He's one of my best friends,you know, certainly him. I have a long term, you know, connection with John Morris and Mark Kennedy over the years. I kind of like grew up curling with those guys. So probably my three tightes.

I mean, dude, I love all my team-mates and Kevin Martin? He was like a complete prick, lots, to us. But look, but we were young.

Anastasia: Yeah, yeah, he needed to scold you, maybe.

Ben Hebert: And we didn't realise a lot of the times maybe what he was doing, or maybe what he was trying to do. His like way of doing things? Not the answer. Yeah really not the way we would do it. But he was right about 90 percent of the stuff. Some of the stuff, he's delusional, but he was an awesome team-mate for life.

So teaching us a lot of the stuff that I learnt, like even off ice stuff, what sponsors, you know, finances, we got into some talks that we were 22, 23 years old, so he was great for that. Brent Lang, you know, Jennifer Jones's husband we got four years, went to the Olympics, won a brier together, you know, one of my best friends forever. Yeah, man, I know I don't have anything bad thing to say about any of my team-mates. I love them all. And you know, I owe them all a lot of if you're going to give me that title, it probably doesn't have to too much to do with me, mostly.

Anastasia: That was a very gracious answer. I will say this. I think you are one of, pound for pound, every Canadian Olympians favourite team-mate, though.

Ben Hebert: When we win. When we win. I don't think my team-mates like me that much when we lose. I get a little hot under the collar.

Anastasia: you are one of the folks that like keeps that Olympic team a family. I will say that

Ben Hebert: I think you talked to Lummer ( Jesse Lumsden) on your podcast about our rec hockey team?

Anastasia: Oh, for sure. And you got, booted out of the game!

Ben Hebert: It was the best. I've played with, I think Brady Leman was on the team. Lummer, Gilmore. Oh man, there was a bunch.

Anastasia: Was Sam Edney on the team for a minute?

Ben Hebert: Yeah, I don't know. Sam was never there when I was there, maybe or maybe before or after. But like, I go out and I'm the only curler. And the guys are all in pretty good shape and they can skate and they're like, Who's the curler? But I played hockey my whole life, so I get out there, I was wheeling! And they're just like, holy beep! And the other team, I think we kind of like got into like a little scrum, like the first game. And I'm like, I'm not having any of this. So I was just, Oh, Trevor White, Trevor White. Oh, yeah.

Anastasia: Alpine athlete.

Ben Hebert: Yeah, so I just start chirping and these guys are like: this curler's unbelievable. I didn't know if they meant unbelievably good or bad, but they just couldn't believe that I was like, you know. Guys, it's hockey. We're not here….this isn't for fun. This is competitive. Like, well, it's actually C division. I'm like, Yeah, but this is our Stanley Cup. This if this is as good as we're getting, we're going hard.

So I love staying in touch with our Olympic buddies. Very best part for me, both games, winning, losing, everything? It's meeting the other athletes. That's why I started this podcast with Bo on the other side. I like hearing other athletes' stories. I like meeting other athletes, hearing their background, where they came from, what they had to do, like it's actually's something I'm intrigued with.

Anastasia: And when he says Bo, he means Bo Levi Mitchell, the QB for the Stamps. Yeah.

Ben Hebert: Yeah, sorry. Look, you're good at this. You like follow up and listen, go back. See, that's the thing, we're doing this podcast with Bo Levi? We don't know what we're doing.

Anastasia: That's why it works!

Ben Hebert: We are winging it. You are much. You're more polished than us. So but you've been doing it for a little while.

Anastasia: I've been doing it for too long. I'm getting old and grey. Biggest lesson learnt from 2018?

Ben Hebert: They always say you're supposed to learn something when you lose, right? Um, you know, leading up to those games, we were super prepared. You know, if there was something that we didn't do, I'd probably look back on it and be disappointed because, you know, you left something out there, you didn't do something the right way. We were super prepared to go to those games. We did all the right stuff. We played pretty good. We actually had a great week. We finished second place in the round robin.

I mean, the only thing I would say you really learn like. What do they call it, the performance on demand or playing big in big games, we just kind of…we didn't choke by any stretch. We certainly had chances to win that game. But the semi-final against the Americans. You got, you know, big players play big in big games and we actually had a bad game. There was no it wasn't nerves. It wasn't not practising. It wasn't being a good mental state. Our coach was dialled just, yeah, just kind of an off game. So what did I learn? You know, play better in the big moments and bury it and, you know, stay sharp.

Anastasia: Can you put your finger on what went wrong, though? Or does that like haunt you, you know, to to have that live in your brain where like, what the hell did we not do? To come away with that W?,

Ben Hebert: I mean, it haunts me because of the opportunity, not necessarily what played out. Like the opportunity to get to an Olympic semi-final after a full round robin of grinding against the best teams in the world, like not only doing that at the Olympics, but winning the Olympic Trials is like the hardest event ever.

Anastasia: It's the worst. Nothing is more stressful. Harder to win the trials than the Olympics.

Ben Hebert: Totally like it's, you know, so I wouldn't be able to pinpoint it because it wasn't one shot that lost us the game. And we had a bad night. I know the end, you know, the eighth end wasn't a good end and we gave up a steal which ended up losing us the game, but we had chances early.

And I mean, I don't like giving them credit because they're actually not very. They're not a great curling team, John Schuster out of the States. But they played a great week. I don't see it because I don't even know if they're top 20 in the world. I don't even know.One guy is not on their team anymore, but like, they're not, I don't even know if they're the best American team.

Like, there's another team that's better, but they kind of won that and that was the top of the mountain for them. And that's top of the mountain for everybody. And then they kind of disappear. I never would have bet, I would have bet my house, Sweden would beat them in the final. I remember getting on the bus after we lost, you know, just like depression city, and I walk on. In Korea, you know, we're not like we were in Vancouver, just hop in a cab or your buddy is there to pick you up.We were on the bus, with all the other athletes. And I remember seeing the Swedish guys and I think I said it probably just to be a dick. I was like, 'Well, congrats on the gold.'

So I kind of jinxed them, I think. But I mean, a Cinderella story for them. And I guess I mean, hey, you can't win everything. We, you know, we've been we've been on the other side of winning lots or we get to hoist the trophy and, you know, peacock and stick chest out and feel good about yourself. And that was one of those times you don't.

But you know what it taught me? Sports are alive and well, but that's what sports are for. Yeah. If you could predict everything that happened in sports and the favourite, always winning, etc? Boring. And so, you know what? We were on the wrong side of it, and I hope I get another opportunity to be on the right side of it.

Anastasia: What's different this time around than in the lead up to Pyeongchang?

Ben Hebert: Well, I like having John Morris back on my team. You know, he brings a calming influence, you know, and leadership and like two gold medals at the last two Olympics, or 2018 and then 2010 with us. You know, he's just he's got that winner mentality. You know, I think Kevin Koe, he's still the best skip in the world. He's playing great. He's got all the shots. Really good mindset, very good perspective. And I love having our third B.J. Neufeld because he hasn't been there yet. So we got that hunger and almost that like naive ness of what it is or how to do it because he's never done it. And he really wants it. So I don't think I mean, my old team that won the trials, you know, that's a big feather in the cap to win those Olympic trials that week. So nothing negative with that or this. But I mean, going in this time, I mean, I guess we're, what, four years older? I guess we should be smarter

Anastasia: and better looking.

Ben Hebert: Am I getting better looking? You are. God damn, I love it. My wife says that she's all: You're getting better looking. I say well you married me when I was ugly then. But whatever, I'm trying.

Anastasia: you DO have the best wife in the world.

Ben Hebert: Oh yeah, by a mile. Yeah, she's great. She keeps the train on the tracks in my house. That's for damn sure. I'm a busy guy. I got a full time job running the podcast, and curling, I'm gone, so I keep the lights on, she keeps the wagon rolling at home. It's good. A good deal right now.

Anastasia: It's always a pleasure to have you on this podcast, my friend, I feel like I could have just gone to the bathroom, and you could just done a monologue for 30 minutes.

Ben Hebert: Yeah right. Well, hey, I'm happy to be back on the show. I'm glad to help you out. You're back in Calgary. Good to see you back in CowTown.

Anastasia: You know what? I do miss Calgary. I miss friends like you.

Ben Hebert: You said you've been on a little bit of a.... had a couple of beers with mom and pops, couple friends?

Anastasia: I have yup, and they ask about you all the time.

Ben Hebert: You probably need to go have a beer. We should go have a beer.

Anastasia: I think we should. Should we do that?

Ben Hebert: I'm happy to end it right here.

Anastasia: All right. Good day at the office. Peace.

[music]

Well… that was easy. And I survived the post podcast refreshment, too, apparently.

Ben Hebert and I Caught Up in Calgary, Alberta.

Player's Own Voice podcast is a CBC Sports production.

Social media #Player's Own Voice.

My Handle is Anastasure.

David Giddens is our producer.

Our editor is the lovely Olivia Pasquarelli.

Adam Blinov wrote our theme music. Thanks for listening.