A Pane in the Glass Podcast

This One Really Hurt

• Coach Bill • Season 4 • Episode 50

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In today's episode of "A Pane In The Glass Podcast" we hear about a loss that will take some time to stop stinging. The speaker will be Danielle Inglis and the loss will be a provincial final. There will be two sound bites to conclude the episode, one by a coach with his thoughts on working with today's young athletes and the other by one of Canada's most noted journalists, Peter Mansbridge who answers a question I posed on his podcast, "The Bridge", about the value of Olympic medals but from a perspective most might not consider. 

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SPEAKER_01:

You win some and you lose some. And some get rained out. We've heard that cliche before. And today we're gonna talk about a loss that really hurt. My guest today is Danielle Inglis. Danielle has been a very good friend and has shared a number of her experiences. And today she is willing to talk about that one loss that really hurts. Welcome to another episode of a Paint in the Glass podcast. This is your host, Bill Shearhart, Chartered Professional Coach with Coaches of Canada, coming to you from Vancouver Island on the ancestral land of the Wassenick First Nation. The one loss about which I spoke occurred in the town where I started curling. That was El Myra, Ontario at the 2026 Ontario Provincial Finals. It was the women's gold medal game. Winner goes to the Scotties. That starts actually today in Mississauga, Ontario. Danielle was one of the participants and did not prevail. Let's hear her story. In fact, so often you will hear people say it's uh one of the most difficult games to deal with. And I saw what you said on Facebook, which uh was um very you're very articulate. And I don't know if anybody's ever said it the way you said it. I want you to say it for everybody listening. So over to you. Give us the background of your team and what it what it uh was what it entailed to get you to the to the provincials for starters, and then of course the gold medal game.

SPEAKER_00:

So a lot of loaded questions there, but um but yeah, I'll start with thanks so much for having me on and while I'm gonna be talking about something that that as athletes it's really difficult. And it's you often get the interviews with the the winner, but you don't always get to hear what goes on on the side of the not winners. I I put out that post just just to explain how it how it feels. It's it's a heartbreaker. It really was. And for me, for me personally, that was the worst loss of my curling career. I've lost provincial finals before. I've even lost a world final, but that was that was the most heartbreaking one. And what it comes down to are a variety of factors. It's all the things you don't see. It's the things that you do as an athlete behind the scenes. It's all of the work that goes into that one moment. You see a team in the final. Yes, and especially our team, we've we've won the provincial final the past two years. So most people would just automatically assume, oh, yeah, of course they're in the provincial final. But we had to to fight and work for every inch of of getting there. Uh, because it doesn't, it doesn't come easy. There are there are many factors that go into what you see, the accumulation that comes up to that final. You what people don't see, they don't see the the countless hours that go into practice, that go into the off-ice training, that go into team meetings, sports psychology, that go into shifting your priorities. Everybody on my team has a job, trying to make that work in and around competitive curling, which is essentially a second job in itself. I often get asked about uh, oh, is that your primary job to be a competitive curler? And the answer is no, but it certainly is a second one because of the amount of work and time that goes in behind behind the scenes. You see, you see the emotional wave that you have to ride throughout the entire season through the wins, the losses, and especially a team like ours who's been fortunate to have some success over the past few years. Every time you step onto the ice, it's it's going to be a tough game coming at you. And we've also put ourselves in positions to play some really tough teams along the way, too. So there's no sitting back and resting at at any point, really. Just feels like you're you're constantly on, um, which takes me to the whole provincials, which is an absolute grind. Uh, it was a triple knockout. We came through the B side. We played seven games um to get through there, and then hit hit the playoffs, the one-two game, and then into the final. So we we had quite a few games, and all of those games are intense. The the teams who are playing at the provincials, they're amazing caliber of teams, even the teams that people haven't heard of on the national level in Ontario. There really is a depth of field that's there. That unless you're playing against these teams every weekend, you wouldn't recognize. So it's it's not a walk in the park. So again, I go back to people just seeing our team in the final. Oh, yeah, of course they were meant to be there. Well, you really had to work for it that whole time. And it you come off of each game after giving it your all and you're just exhausted. And then you're still dealing with other factors outside. I haven't even touched on outside of curling and work, the other the personal factors. What's what's going on with our families, our our loved ones, our pets, our everyone in our our world, our friends. Um, there's there's a lot of those outside factors that that you have to deal with challenges. I know our team has dealt with that not only throughout the season, but even in the provincials. We were dealing with some factors behind the scenes to to him just try to bring our best onto the ice at every time, park, park what was going on off the ice and and bring our best. But that to grind through all that, to do all of that work and prep throughout the entire season, throughout the entire summer, dedicate so much time, and then to have it fall short in the moment when you needed it most is devastating, honestly. It and it's you because you're so close, you are so close, you're one game away from getting to where you want to be, that provincial championship, and then you're cut off at at the knees. Um, and for us, the game wasn't reflective of how we played all season or even that provincial, which makes it even more disappointing how it went down. I mean, since since I put up that post, I've had several other fellow curlers reach out to me and share their own perspective of of that. Um they appreciated that vulnerability that goes out there because they've all been there too. They've they've felt that they've they're all working just as hard to try to get there. They all have things that go on behind the scenes. And like I said before, that's not the sexy part of it. That's not the part that gets the media attention. And you only really do get that media attention once you reach that top and once you win, you don't hear, hear those other stories. I mean, the history books are are written by the winners, right? To be able to to share and to understand that that's it's such a universal thing that that players go through. Um, I I don't know how to quite explain the impact. You you almost have to have gone through it to understand just how devastating it can be to an athlete who does pour their heart and soul into the this incredible goal. Someone likened it to uh grief. And now understanding and appreciating it's very contextual. And losing a curling game is quite different than losing a loved one. But they did accurately portray that it there are some similar stages that that you go through in that process, and you're meant to to feel feel every single one of them. But what's important is what defines you when you come out of them. And how do you deal with that loss? What do you take from it? How do you learn from it? I know throughout my career, I and really any athlete's career, you gotta lose and you gotta learn to lose before you win. Um, I know I've done my fair share of losing over the years. Some losses worse than others, like I said, and this one being the most devastating loss of of them all. We didn't, especially with the the expectations on our team. Now we didn't necessarily let that get into our head, but when it finally does come crashing down that you won't be Team Ontario, you have not achieved your goal for for this season. You're also for us too, we it would have been a home province. And we would have been, we've been the team that's been a bit of the face of of some of the marketing campaigns for the Scotties, too. Knowing that that is all did not come to fruition is can be very, very difficult. And uh it just kind of gets ripped away from you really quick. But um, but that's sports, as they like to say.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we know the cliche that sport builds character, and I don't exactly buy into that. I think sport reveals character. And sometimes we say, okay, enough of the building. I've I've had enough of the building, but but I think it's true. And one of the I mean, sports has been my whole life as it has been yours, I as I know you. And every time that you step onto the ice or the court or the field, whatever it happens to be, you take a risk. And it's the taking of the risk that's the challenge, and you never really quite know how you're gonna deal with that. Because in sport, you're either going to win the game or you're going to lose the game. Somebody that we know very well, Pat B. Reed, when she was asked before her team was going to play a very important game. She said to the team, she said, Look, I know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow. Pause. And of course, her team looked at her. Uh, you know how articulate Pat is. She said, Well, I know exactly what's going to happen. We're either going to win or we're going to lose. And so I think we have to be prepared either way, because you can't control the winning and the losing. You can only control the way that you've prepared to be the best version of yourself. And sometimes it was the best version of yourselves, and the other team just played better. And sometimes you realize, you know, we didn't bring our best version. And that's when it's hard, I think, when you didn't bring your best version. Best version, first time with the new teeth, you see. And that's when it I think it hurts maybe a little bit more because you feel like you've left yourself down. But I don't think that was the situation necessarily here. And I don't mean to put words into your mouth.

SPEAKER_00:

I I felt like it wasn't my best version. There are shots I I left out there that I wasn't happy for. I know we we all felt that there were some stuff that we that we left out there, and that's hard to take, especially when we had been on such an upward trajectory all week. We were peaking where we wanted to be. We were happy with our our mindset coming into it. And to not be able to perform as we wanted in that moment was devastating. And it's not something that we've been overly familiar with, to be honest. Our our team has been really great in those big moments. And the fact that we weren't in that moment is a tough pill to swallow. And that does make it so much harder. Like you said, Bill. It really does. I'd like there kind of said bits and pieces as we've gone throughout this interview, but there are so many little things that contribute to that overall feeling at the end of the day of devastation and not feeling great. Like there are just you woulda, shoulda, coulda yourself to to death, really, when you think through all of all of the things. Um, at the end of the day, as an athlete, you're just trying to put it all out there and be able to walk away at the end of the day and say, I did everything I could. I think our team could say that, but we just didn't end up with our the best performance or the performance that we needed in that moment to make it happen. And that's what's that's so hard. But what I I do walk away with is the feeling that our our team did have and the support that we had for each other. Like after we lost the final and we we left the ice and went to the locker room. There could be many different directions. Every athlete's a little different with how they they deal with something. But at the end of the day, the four of us came together and just had a massive hug and a cry. But that kind of togetherness can't be bought. And that that says something right there. And that's something that I know I personally hold on to.

SPEAKER_01:

We win as a team, we lose as a team.

SPEAKER_00:

And we were hoping we'd be on the winning end of that. We sure were. Uh, but at the end of the day, like you said, and like you uh about what Pat says, there's gonna be a winner and there's going to be a loser, and you do everything you can to be on that wedding side. But some days we we figured uh we made a curl and got pretty mad along the way somewhere there because it wasn't in the cards for us on Sunday.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, as I said, um not many people would uh would would have had the I'm I'm gonna use the C-word, would have had the courage to share their vulnerability to how it felt to not succeed when you anticipated a better performance from yourself. And I think you will have helped a lot of athletes, especially young athletes, who you know will will be trapping that road as well. You will be stronger for it, and I don't mean to put a good spin on things, you know that you're you're you're smart, and you know you'll be stronger for it. You singular and you plural. Danielle, thank you very much for doing this.

SPEAKER_00:

I I just wanted to finish by saying uh a big thank you to uh to my team, to our coach Kim Tuck, for all the work that we collectively poured into the season to our to our friends and family and fans who were cheering us on all the way. We read every single text, every single message, every single Facebook comment. We have just cannot say how much that means. Um, and that support means and it's not only in those moments when you're winning, but also those moments when you're not. I and those people have been with us the entire, entire way. Uh this one has hurt a lot, but I am so incredibly proud of our team. Everything that we put into this run, into the season, the past few seasons together. And uh I just honestly just it brings me to tears to think of of what we've been able to accomplish together and uh and how hard we've worked. Proud of that.

SPEAKER_01:

I have two sound bites for you to end the episode today. The first one is a coach who works with young athletes, and he has some advice to those of you who are in a similar situation. And he's gonna talk about something that's not talked about very often. So let's hear what he has to say.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey coaches, especially those of us who are working with younger kids, it's time for us to have a little bit of a heart-to-heart. You might have the best drills and the best plan, but if you don't understand the psychology of this generation of kids, you are never going to reach them. Here's what I want you to hear. Not every best practice is best for every kid. Some kids will need something that goes completely against what you have always done or what you were taught was best for. But if we want to have a true impact on this generation of kids, we have to be willing to set aside our preferences for how we want to do things or how we used to do things so that we can actually be effective with kids today. There is no way we can take these kids where they need to go if we are first unwilling to meet them where they are right now. So here's the challenge for you. Can you adapt what you do so you can meet kids where they are today? Then, once you've met them there, can you then teach them what they need to know in a way that they can actually learn it, not in the way that you prefer to teach it? And then once you have met them where they are and taught them in ways they can learn, can you then lead them to where they need to go next? It's gonna look different than you were taught, and it's going to require you to change from how you've done things in the past. But it's also going to be more effective than if you just did things the way you've always done them. We don't need more dinosaur coaches. We need coaches willing to set aside their ego for the good of the kids they're trying to coach. Let's be those coaches.

SPEAKER_01:

And now for the second soundbite. And this is going to take a little bit of an explanation. One of the podcasts that I listen to on a regular basis is The Bridge. Those of you who are Canadian listeners will remember CBC's national news anchor for many years, Peter Mance Bridge. Well, he has a podcast, and it runs from Monday to Friday every week. Well, on Thursdays, he has a segment, an episode that he calls Your Turn. And he has a question of the week. And a couple of weeks ago, he changed that a little bit, and he said that he's going to have an AMA episode. Ask Me anything? Well, I did exactly that. I asked Peter about the value of Olympic medals, not from an intrinsic perspective, not from the perspective of what it does for, well, in our case, Canadian athletes and Canadian sports, but what does it do for Canada internationally? The$50 term that I use was geopolitically. Well, it uh his answer made it on his episode this week. And here is what Peter Mansbridge had to say.

SPEAKER_03:

As a national curling coach, I understand the intrinsic value of Olympic medals, but I have wondered for quite some time what Olympic medals might mean for our country. In other words, from a geopolitical perspective, if Canada does well at the Olympic Games, or poorly, what impact might that have on Canada's standing internationally? Does it make Canada stronger in the eyes of other countries because we do well at the Olympics? Well, we're coming up on other Olympics. So it's a timely question. Canada's view of the Olympics has dramatically changed during my lifetime. You know, it used to be that Canada was happy to just do our best. We sent our kids to compete with almost no financial support. And most of them finished like 15 or 34. We accepted that. Occasionally one of our athletes would win a surprise bronze medal. Even more rarely, a Canadian would stand on top of the world like Nancy Green did or Gaiton Boucher. And that was enough for us. But something changed maybe after the 76 Montreal Olympics, when we became the first country not to win a gold medal at a home game. The Canadian government was persuaded to put real money into the pursuit of medals, and something called the podium was born. A plan to identify our best medal hopes and support them on their journeys. So now we expect to win medals at the Olympics. Not as many as the Americans in the summer or the Norwegians in the winter, but a good show is no longer good enough. Canadians watch the Olympics in great numbers and cheer for the maple leaf like crazy. And they spend four years ignoring most Olympic athletes and their sports. I mean, can you name three Canadian medal winners from Paris in 2024? So I think it's all very nice. I'm sure some younger Canadians get hooked and want to compete when they grow up. And I'll be cheering our athletes going to the games in Italy. But really, I don't think it has any long-term consequences for how other countries see us.

SPEAKER_01:

Before I close off this episode of a pain in the glass podcast, again I want to thank Danielle for taking the time to share. She spoke, as usual, very eloquently, on a difficult subject. Well, it is two weeks, exactly two weeks, as I understand it. From now until the start of those Winter Olympic Games in Milano, Cortina, Italy. I get all excited about Olympic time. It's uh it's very special in the world of sports, and I do have a little bit of a bias to the Winter Olympic Games, and I guess I'm letting my Canadian show when I say that. Wherever you are, I hope that your country does well. Um, we heard Peter Mansfridge, as I said, talk about the value of medals, and I guess that can change from country to country, but I'm going to devote an entire episode to the Olympic Games. Uh, two episodes from now. Next week, you're going to hear from my friend from New Zealand, Hans From. And we're gonna talk about Olympics from a preview perspective. Uh, he is very involved in the Olympics from the media perspective, has done this uh before, so I'm very much looking forward to that. So again, thank you. Wherever you are, please remember those wise words of that great North American philosopher Charlie Brown. Don't focus too much on the things that make you sad, because there are so many things that can make you happy. Until next time,