Player's Own Voice CBC Health & Sport

A funny thing about great athletes. They tend to keep on surprising us, even after their competitive careers wind down. And so, catching up with Tessa Virtue again, five years after she unlaced the skates and five years after she last came on the podcast, we learn that she has combined her high performance sport experience, a masters in applied psychology, and an MBA to build a unique business advisory role for herself at Deloitte.

At just 25, Jessie Fleming has already enjoyed a full decade of being named player of the year, top college player, Top Canadian, CONCACAF All Star, and enough adulation to convince a less modest midfielder of her own greatness. But Fleming has a ‘do the work, and do it well’ attitude that has carried her to the apex of soccer, and helped her become a well-rounded, highly-educated, self-aware young leader.

Swimming is notoriously practise-heavy. The daily accumulation of laps and dryland workouts can nudge elite swimmers toward becoming mono-focus athletes. So it’s delightful to meet Canada’s male swimmer of the year, Josh Liendo, and find a well-rounded young man tearing up the record books.

John Herdman, the most successful head coach in the history of Canada soccer, came to Toronto FC at the tail end of a miserable season for the club. But he reminds everyone that TFC is the only team in the history of MLS to win the triple crown: the Supporters’ Shield, the Canadian Championship and the MLS Cup. Why wouldn’t you be optimistic ?

Nick Wammes and Sarah Orban, track Cyclists on the Canadian National Team, are doing their best to win their sport more love. The pair are partners on and off the track, and they lean hard into social media, to draw attention to their discipline for those 206 weeks of every 4 year cycle when their sport is not enjoying Olympic audiences.

Luke Prokop was only 19 years old when he made pro sports history. A year after the Nashville Predators drafted him, Prokop told his team, his sport, and the wider world that he was gay. He is the first player under NHL contract to do so. He has now bumped up to playing plenty of AHL games, making him the first out gay player at that level, one step away from the top team.