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Though she is still only 25 years old, 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 that is not Fleming’s way. She has a ‘do the work, and do it well’ attitude that has carried her to the apex of soccer, and at the same time, helped her become a well-rounded, highly-educated, self-aware young leader. Anastasia connected with Fleming shortly after she signed a deal to move from the English Super league’s Chelsea to the Portland Thorns, atop the NWSL. Fleming’s transfer is the richest in American women’s soccer. Fleming herself is thrilled to play closer to home on a team with a terrific fanbase. In Portland, she’ll reunite with Team Canada buddies Christine Sinclair and Janine Beckie, and club president Karina LeBlanc. Jokes about a sneaky canuck invasion aside, the presence of Canadians on top international teams does raise a question about this country’s evolution as a soccer nation. Fleming is realistic about that. She has played in European and South American nations where footie traditions run at least as deep as our hockey culture. For Canada to get there is going to take more time than casual fans might appreciate, but Fleming sees signs that we’re on our way. Learning to take disappointment in stride was one of the take aways from the last FIFA women’s world cup. Fleming came out of that tournament with a new appreciation for how the margins have tightened in the international women’s game. Traditional favourites are being bounced by newly competitive teams. Luck exists. Keepers can make spectacular saves. It happens. Fleming also offers practical advice for any high pressure situation. Whether it’s a penalty kick or a job interview, there’s much to be gained by simply facing the moment and taking a couple of deep breaths.

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. He is now a world champion and an NCAA champion, but the move from meters and long courses to yards and shorter laps can throw young swimmers off. Anastasia wants to know, how does Liendo account for his very successful transition to the NCAA and beyond? He thinks he helped himself by setting few big personal expectations. He just looked at what the existing best times were, and began to chip away at the new (to him) distances. Fly and freestyle wins came quickly, and Liendo’s name started appearing in the senior record books. And while swimming takes up a huge chunk of his time, Liendo still keeps his head in school work, pursuing health education behaviour. The studies create a few professional options for Liendo, and he’s considering those, thinking a bit further down the road. And then he’s got some musical irons in the fire too, with a background in several string instruments and a new interest in making beats. Roommates in Gainesville pull Liendo’s creative urges in one direction… teammates pull his competitive instincts into sharper focus. Training partners like Caeleb Dressel keep him charged and hungry to win everything, every day, from Mario Kart to a session in the weight room. Liendo is too balanced a guy to say winning is everything, but he admits that he really hates to lose. A genuine love of competition stokes all of it. Liendo is at his absolute happiest when the adrenaline kicks in on the starting blocks, no matter how high-stakes the race. And he’s also developing a more subtle enjoyment, settling in to a representive role he didn’t really seek for himself. He is the first Black Canadian swimmer to win a number of international distinctions, and in that, as in his general approach to life, he doesn’t seem overburdened by expectation. And on that note… there wasn’t too much pressure in Tokyo 2020, when many Canadians first noticed their fast teen from Scarborough. He is an even fast swimmer now, and Paris 2024 is shaping up to be a good time for Josh Liendo.

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. When great athletes rack up terrible results, he diagnoses Sports trauma. Herdman has been there before. He works with a team of people and trusted methods to break that bad spiral. The worst thing about trauma for Herdman, is that it brings laxity, teammates giving each other permission to deliver less-than-best efforts. There are many ways to approach the problem, but the one thing he won’t tolerate is shaming. Herdman goes back to his own childhood in figuring out how to improve teams. School was humiliating for him, a kid with undiagnosed ADHD. His openness about personal experiences can be arresting. When Anastasia asks what he would have done differently in light of the Canadian Mens’ poor results at the FIFA World Cup last year, Herdman bluntly says he should not have gone to Qatar. His team wasn’t ready, he wasn’t hungry for the win, and a tragic event within his own family left him in no condition to bring the proper fight to the World Cup. It is unusual, uncomfortable even, to hear so much honesty from anyone, let alone a sports leader. But the thing about Herdman’s candour is, he makes a listener believe. So when he’s asked how he plans to turn around Toronto FC’s recent humbling, he reminds everyone that this is the only team in the history of MLS to win the triple crown. They took the Supporters’ Shield, the Canadian Championship and the MLS Cup in a single season. Why wouldn’t you have optimism for that club? WARNING: This episode includes discussion about suicide.

In sports, as in High School, there’s the popular crowd and there’s everyone else, and crossing between those two worlds is not easy. Nick Wammes and Sarah Orban, track Cyclists on the Canadian National Team, are doing their best to rig the vote in that popularity contest. The pair of them, partners on and off the track, lean hard into social media, to draw attention to their discipline for those 206 weeks of every four year cycle when their sport is not enjoying Olympic audiences. It’s a blurry line- showing the world as much as they can from inside the velodrome, the gym, and their personal life, without actually giving away any tactical, strategic secrets from their Daily Training Environment. Talking with Anastasia, Nick and Sarah unpack the grueling ordeal that is Olympic qualifying in their sport. It’s an unusually long, 18 month process, with seven different mandatory race events. That’s two Continental Championships, one World Championship and four Nations Cups, for anyone scoring along at home. And while it is still not a certainty that either or both of them will be representing Canada in Paris next summer, fans and folllowers can at least be sure of inside access to their process.

Luke Prokop was only 19 years old when he made pro sports history. A year after the Nashville Predators picked him in the 2020 NHL Draft, 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. This season, he has also 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. So- how’s it going, in a sport that has never been at the forefront of inclusion? So far: Excellent! No stupid chirps from opponents, nothing but support from within the organization, and a heart-warming flow of encouragement from big names and journeymen, on and off the ice. Prokop has reason to praise his organization. Tennessee is a conservative state, and there is a sizeable chunk of the fanbase who would rather not see pride nights for the Predators. But those nights happen in Nashville, because the team owners believe the game is supposed to be for everyone. Perhaps the only downside for the 6’6” defenseman is that, being the one and only known gay man in professional hockey, he is requested to speak on inclusion in sports, all the time. As Prokop summarizes for Anastasia, that can be a distraction. Once in a while, the lifelong hockey player is grateful to just shut up and skate! The thing is though, Prokop loves his sport so much, he’s willing to help in whatever ways are needed for the greater good of the game, even if it does perhaps get in the way of his own career. No one wants to be remembered as ‘the gay NHL guy’ and Prokop’s honest desire, is that with time and a little luck, he’ll be celebrated for nothing but his on ice heroics.

In February of this year, Laurence St-Germain delivered a fantastic wake up call to the world’s best skiers. She won the slalom gold medal at the 2023 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Courchevel and Méribel, France. Established greats like Mikaela Shiffrin were both startled and delighted to see the friendly Canadian win her first podium on an international circuit. Other nations can be forgiven for not seeing this one coming: it has been 63 years since the last Canadian woman won the slalom world championship. Alpine history buffs take note, the previous Canadian champ was Anne Heggtveit in 1960. St-Germain settled in for a chat with Anastasia,, just as the new Alpine season was getting underway. The great news is that St-Germain has continued her hot streak. She has now finished in the top 10 in three of the last five World Cup slaloms dating back to last season. Along with ski jumper Alexandria Loutitt, St-Germain won the 2023 Prix commémoratif John Semmelink Memorial Award. That’s athlete of the year for snow sports, and also a recognition of excellent conduct and citizenship. St-Germain is justly proud of her off-snow work too- acting as an ambassador for several worthy health and wellness causes. This is her first season as a part time student- having previously raced while taking a full course load for her computer science degree. She’s following that up now with biomedical studies, with an eye to perhaps combining all that knowledge in the field of prosthesis design. When talk turns to many recent successes enjoyed by the Canadian Alpine team, St-Germain sees a pattern. All the strong performances lately have come from athletes who, like herself, have endured their ups and downs, but have been afforded the time and patience to develop. As she says, 15-year old phenoms like Mikaela Shiffrin will always be with us…but playing the long game for everyone else, the merely extremely talented skiers, has made all the difference in Canada's results.

Season seven of Anastasia’s long-running passion project kicks off with Hilary Knight, captain of the US national hockey team, world and olympic champion, the face of the American women’s game, and from a Canadian perspective, public frenemy number one. Knight dekes around all the old Can-Am rivalries talk and focusses instead on the game-changing debut of the Professional Women’s Hockey League. She was instrumental in the process that finally landed a truly professional environment for the best of the best in women’s hockey. The on-ice action deserves all the attention, but behind the scenes, Knight has plenty to say about the many elements that have been pulled together for the good of the game. Wages, health insurance (which is especially critical for the American players), proper facilities, home and away accommodations, training, fitness and medical staffing, it is a long and heartening list of wins for the PWHL player’s association. Excited as Knight is for the inaugural season, and confident as she is that her Boston team will be heading to the championship, it is the second year that she’s really looking forward to. The coming intake of new, young, top talent into the established league? That’s what it’s all about for the veteran leader. And just in case those subjects seem too wholesome to be entertaining, Anastasia also questions Knight on her well-earned reputation for pulling pranks. We’re not going to spoil the punchline, but most of her teammates have learned never to follow Knight into a bidet-equipped washroom. As the PHWPL inches closer to that historic first puck drop, there’s no better way to get a feel for the personalities who are driving the women’s game to greatness on this continent.

Tammy Cunnington has made the most of a roller coaster experience in para sport. As the child of a very active Red Deer AB family, she just barely survived a freak accident at an airshow in 1982. By the time she rehabbed sufficiently to get back into sport, at 8 or 9 years of age, wheelchair basketball became her passion. She was a big part of successful national teams, but by the time she was 19- the team culture drove her away. Bullying, being othered, it just added up to no fun. The more we learn about all the ingredients that need to work together to make safe sport happen- the more we understand how easily potentially great careers can fall apart. So almost ten years after retiring from competitive wheelchair basketball, Cunnington felt the need to get back into stronger shape. Trips to the gym became mastery of all three disciplines in triathlon, and even though she didn’t really love time in the pool…great coaching and her own determination eventually made her a powerhouse in Paralympic swimming. Where did Cunnington find the drive to excel again, since swimming itself wasn’t really her thing? In part, that was about being older than the average athlete. She knew that her age was working against her, so she trained with that much more intensity. And as every successful athlete knows- there’s no substitute for hard work. Looking back on the competitive years now ( Cunnington retired after the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics) she realized that part of her enduring success was based on not being relentlessly upbeat. When she hits setbacks, she gives herself permission to be bummed out for awhile, take stock, and carry on. The flipside of that pragmatism is that she has also learned to leverage the career highs. Intentionally summoning the memory of a winning race and a cheering crowd can give Cunnington that little extra squirt of confidence that can make all the difference as she rolls into a job interview, speaking gig, or yet another of her famously intense workouts . Chatting with Anastasia today- she makes a highly persuasive case for the power of not always positive thinking.

Justina Di Stasio has to be one of the greatest wrestlers that Canada has not yet seen at an Olympic Games. She’s excelled at major international tournaments, time and time again, but when it comes to getting on the Canadian Olympic team, the BC veteran has hit a roadblock in the form of her Gold medallist teammate Erica Wiebe. Canada can only send one wrestler in their weight class…so that explains the history. But Di Stasio is not one to brood on the past. She’s taken the last eight years as a series of chances to learn and improve and refine her technique. And so now the Coach/Teacher/74kg wrestler has definitely got her eyes trained on Paris 2024, and it’s time to say ‘en garde!’ to every opponent she’ll meet en route. Chatting on a wide range of subjects with Anastasia, Di Stasio also shares her perspective as a proud Canadian who is half Italian and half Cree. Food for thought: as a younger wrestler she sometimes felt that her Italian last name crowded her own comfort in talking about indigenous experience in this country. With the passage of time, that feeling has evolved, but throughout her career Justina Di Stasio has delightfully, authentically never swayed from representing exactly who she has been along. One of Canada’s greatest wrestlers, who just happens to also bring two sets of cultural knowledge to the International stage

When a team athlete is named MVP over and over again, that's saying something about their ability to lift everyone's game around them. Zak Madell, one of the world's best wheelchair rugby players, has owned that MVP distinction almost since the day -a dozen years ago- he first got into his notoriously rock 'em sock 'em sport. Madell is as effective an advocate for the power of sport as you'll ever meet, loud and clear and persuasive on the many ways that sport, adaptive or otherwise, has enriched his life. Seeking out, encouraging, and drafting new players is an ongoing passion for Madell. What's interesting to hear now is how his easy leadership is also expanding into areas beyond competition. Madell did architecture technology studies and that, plus his natural tendency to creativity, plus a long interest in better accessibility for all, leads him toward helping firms improve all manner of public structures. From little coffee shops to mondo condo, there's infinite room for truly inclusive improvement. But first, Madell has a whirlwind of wheelchair rugby teams and tournaments to attend to. Anastasia is keen to hear about Team Canada's battle plans for the upcoming Para Pan Am games in Santiago, Chile. According to Madell, Canada is up against new and better competition all the time. The country that invented Wheelchair Rugby (In Winnipeg in 1977, fyi) can no longer count on international podiums in the sport. And that's not because Canada is getting soft. Many more countries are in it to win it now, and even an ultra competitor like Madell agrees, that's a good thing.

If Tara Llanes was in the branding business, her personal motto might be "Once a baller, always a baller". As a kid in California she loved basketball, and she played a high level game until BMX caught her attention. And then a professional Mountain Biking career took hold. But just when Llanes began to feel like she had done all she could in cycling sport, a crash left her paralyzed from the waist down. As her rehabilitation work continued, she developed a passion for wheelchair tennis. Friends told her that she could improve her tennis game by practising seated basketball. And so the circle closed, and Llanes, now with 30+ years of perspective on the sport she never stopped loving, brings veteran leadership to the Canadian national wheelchair basketball team. One of her most pressing challenges? Finding the balance between old school hard discipline, and newer ideas of safe sport, and making that work for a team which combines younger and older athletes, all of whom expect to win international medals at the highest level. Catching up with Anastasia, Tara also explains how uniquely inclusive wheelchair basketball can be. The rules mandate a broad mixture of ability classifications on each team. The meshing together of players with varying degrees of activity limitation brings a whole layer of strategy into play, but the real magic happens when athletes maximize one another's abilities to find that winning playmaking combo. Llanes is already rubbing her hands in anticipation of the Para Panam games this November… and Canada's national public broadcaster will be delivering comprehensive Paralympic Games coverage across television, streaming and digital platforms in English and French in 2024.

Here's an odd factoid about one of the best voices in basketball. Chuck Swirsky does not care for his own name. He was 'Charlie' til his very first day in college radio, when the anchor struck him temporarily speechless with the intro 'Sports, with Chuck Swirsky'. To his enduring regret, 'Chuck' stuck. Forty years later, Mr. Swirsky is still setting the record straight, and still delighting basketball fans. 'The Swirsk' was the Raptors' first radio play by play guy. By 2001, he had the TV job too. It's impossible to separate his calls, with all their knowledge and exuberance, from memories of Toronto's early days in the NBA. Swirsky introduced countless Canadians to Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, Damon Stoudamire, and all the brighter and lesser stars of that new team with the purple dinosaur jerseys. Swirsky became an author last year. "Always A Pleasure" details a life in love with sports and sports commentary. Commentary about commentary sounds like a meta experience, but Swirsky turns everything into a good story, and he's the first to laugh at his own inevitable missteps as a rookie reporter. Do fans need reminding that it has already been 15 years since Swirsky got the offer he couldn't refuse, and moved back to Chicago and his beloved Bulls? He is both Canadian and American, but Chicago really is home. Swirsky's strange way of celebrating a Raps win "Get out the salami and cheese!" stayed in Toronto when he moved back to the midwest. Out of respect for his fellow Canadians, as Swirsky explains to Anastasia, that peculiar custom had to remain in the place where it began.