Diver transfers Olympic dream to bobsled

VANCOUVER – Early in the NHL season, Rick Tocchet is still searching for one element from his Vancouver Canucks — consistency.

The head coach challenged his group to play a full 60-minute game Monday when they hosted the Carolina Hurricanes.

Instead, the Canucks fell behind 3-1 early in the second period and had to rally to level the game at 3-3 late in the third. Ultimately, Vancouver settled for a single point in the 4-3 overtime loss.

“You’ve just gotta stay focused on your task at hand. You can’t have those lulls. I think sometimes we lose focus at a certain part of the game, and then the next line loses focus,” Tocchet said.

“If somebody’s had a bad shift, I get it. Or maybe there are two bad shifts. We need that third shift to get back to what we’re talking about. You can’t pour gasoline on the fire. But we’ve had one regulation loss, so it’s not horrible.”

Consistency is a factor the Canucks (4-1-3) need to address now, early in the season, before it hinders their spot in the standings, the coach said.

“If you’re not playing well, you could lose three or four or five in a row if you’re not careful,” Tocchet cautioned.

Carolina outshot Vancouver 13-5 in the first period on Monday and took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission.

Captain Quinn Hughes admitted the Canucks were “a little bit on (their) heels” during the first 30 minutes, but said they had some looks and pushed in the second half of the game.

“We’re eight games in … and I think we’ve played some pretty good hockey for the most part,” said Hughes, who scored to cut Vancouver’s deficit to 3-2 midway through the third period.

“And we’ve just got to stay with the process, and just continue to do what we’re doing.”

Vancouver earned a reputation last season for clawing its way back in games, particularly in its first-round playoff series against the Predators.

Kevin Lankinen witnessed those comebacks from the Nashville bench as the Preds’ backup goalie. Now a starter in Vancouver, the Finnish netminder said the Canucks shouldn’t ever be counted out.

“I think with this team, anything is possible, especially in (Rogers Arena),” Lankinen said. “I feel like when we get the crowd on our side, it’s a really tough building to play in as an opposing team. And tonight we showed that we gained some momentum in the third.

“We’ve got some really special skill, too, and guys who can step up in big moments and make big plays. So I think that showed tonight.”

Vancouver is now 3-0-2 when leading after two periods this season, and 0-1-1 when trailing heading into the third.

While it’s early in the campaign, consistency is something every team in the league strives for, said left-winger Jake DeBrusk.

“That’s what you build towards throughout the whole year, let alone in the playoffs. It’s what you want as your final product,” he said. “But in saying that, obviously, I think the starts come from us. We’ve just got to be ready to play.”

POWER PLAY PROBLEMS

Vancouver’s power play looked potent to open the season, going 2-for-4 in the first game of the campaign. It’s sputtered since, with just three goals in 21 man advantages over the last seven games. The Canucks’ power play went 0-for-3 on Monday.

“We’re gonna have to make some changes. Not working hard enough, very lackadaisical,” Tocchet said. “(Carolina’s) a high pressure team. We had the odd time when we had a couple of looks. … But I thought a couple of guys there were playing slow. You can’t play it slow against a high pressure (penalty kill), you just can’t.”

STILL STREAKING

The Canucks have points in their last five games (4-0-1) and will look to stretch that streak to six when they host the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2024.

CALGARY – Yohan Eskrick-Parkinson couldn’t have imagined when his high school Halloween costume was a Jamaican bobsledder that he’d eventually intersect with that world of sleds and ice.

He grew up in Calgary diving competitively. He represented Jamaica at both the 2023 and 2024 world aquatics championships in a bid to qualify for the Olympic Games in Paris.

He didn’t fulfil that dream, but another one has arrived quickly. At almost six-foot-two, Eskrick-Parkinson was unusually tall for a diver, but that frame gives him the potential power to push a bobsled.

After attending testing and push camps provincially and nationally in the summer and fall, Eskrick-Parkinson will slide down a track for the first time in his life Thursday in Whistler, B.C., with the goal of doing that for Canada at an Olympic Games.

“I’m just looking forward to it because it’s another sport that’s fast and it’s aggressive on the body and that’s what diving is like with flips and everything,” said the 24-year-old.

“I’ve done all the levels of sport, except for the Olympics. And I thought, ‘you know what? If there’s a chance to go perform at that level or higher, again, I might as well take it and contribute.’ And that’s a huge opportunity that I can’t deny.”

Eskrick-Parkinson’s father Desmond emigrated from Jamaica to Canada in the 1990s. His mother Melissa lived in Calgary during the 1988 Olympic Games. The underdog Jamaican bobsled team there inspired the 1993 movie “Cool Runnings.”

Eskrick-Parkinson knew the story well while attending Calgary’s National Sport School at WinSport, which was the site of the ’88 sliding track.

“Cool Runnings was a big movie we watched pretty much every year of high school,” he said. “There’s a lot of connection there.”

But his sport was diving until he retired earlier this year.

Eskrick-Parkinson competed for Alberta in the Canada Games in 2017 and in the Canadian junior diving championships in 2018 before joining Northwestern University’s NCAA diving team for four years.

He felt his best chance at qualifying for Paris was in synchronized diving.

Jamaican diver Yona Knight-Wisdom was similarly tall, which Eskrick-Parkinson said made them a good synchro pair. The duo placed 13th at this year’s world championship in Qatar.

Eskrick-Parkinson studied neuroscience at Northwestern. He’s applied to medical schools while he pursues bobsled.

He was working out in a Calgary gym in the spring when Jamaican-born brakeman Lascelles Brown, who pushed Canada to two-man Olympic silver in 2006 and four-man bronze in 2010, suggested bobsled to him.

“I thought ‘if I can adopt this mentality, this hard work and get big and get fast, maybe I can do it’ because having him say that is a huge, huge honour,” Eskrick-Parkinson said.

It’s common for athletes from power sports such as track and field, rugby and football to graduate to bobsled.

A diving background might be unusual, but Eskrick-Parkinson says power is needed to launch from a springboard and his body awareness from diving’s acrobatics can make him a fast learner in a different sport.

“I’m a really good jumper, and that’s very related to running,” he said.

“Diving is super technical. Every single dive we do, we’re looking to our coach, and we do 60 to 100 dives a day. I can use the same process here, where I am going to push the sled, I’m going to get corrections, and I’m going to get better.”

Bobsled pushing technique and how to load the sled on the run can be learned relatively quickly.

“I could tell he had an athletic ability just from his first few touches on the sled,” said Eskrick-Parkinson’s pilot Taylor Austin.

“He has already a mentality around high-performance training and high-performance sport, so I felt like it was an easy transition for him.

“You can tell he’s been putting in the work. It’s great to see that he’s trying to take advantage of this opportunity that he has to to try a second sport and excel at it.”

Eskrick-Parkinson’s first run down Whistler’s track will be a reckoning, however, as Austin says he’s seen the odd athlete get on a plane and go home after their first time going 150 kilometres per hour down it.

Eskrick-Parkinson says years of centrifugal forces from spinning in the air might make that first slide less daunting.

“There’s photos of me on the internet where I’m in a tuck position, hands on my shins flipping, and my face is just spread out because I’m just all stretched from the G-force,” he explained.

“I’m anticipating the same thing. I’m sitting in that sled. My head’s down, I’m tucked in, and I’m just going to be taking these corners.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2024.

Veteran goalkeeper Erin McLeod, whose soccer career has taken her to Sweden, Germany, Iceland and the Unites States, is coming back to Canada as the first player signed by the Northern Super League’s Halifax Tides FC.

The 41-year-old McLeod announced her retirement from international football in January 2023, after 119 caps. But the native of St. Albert, Alta., continued her club career, most recently with Stjarnan FCin Iceland.

The Northern Super League is slated to kick off in April with teams in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa as well as Halifax.

“I’ve wanted this league since I was a kid,” McLeod said in an interview.

“I’m 41 years young and that’s a reality,” she added. “But I definitely want to compete. I’m just excited to be able to extend my career, and, honestly, to come home.”

McLeod is the new league’s fifth player signing, following forward Jade Kovacevic (AFC Toronto), midfielder Charlotte Bilbault and goalkeeper Gabrielle Lambert (both Montreal Roses FC) and midfielder Farkhunda Muhtaj (Calgary Wild FC).

“Bringing Erin into our team is an important step for Halifax Tides FC,” Halifax sporting director Amit Batra said in a statement. “Erin is passionate about Canada finally having our own domestic women’s league and knows there is so much talent in our country that goes unnoticed.

“Her extensive experience at the highest levels of the game will help guide our team and inspire young athletes across the country. We’re proud to have her as the Tides’ first signing.”

McLeod has family ties to Halifax and has spent time there working as an equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility consultant.

“I met a lot of wonderful people there,” she said. “The sense of community and a lot of what they’re doing inclusive spaces is something I’m passionate about.

“And, of course, my sister lives there with her family. And my partner and I just had a fresh baby so we’re going to need family support while we take on this new adventure.”

McLeod and her wife, Iceland international midfielder Gunny Jonsdottir, had a baby boy 10 days ago.

McLeod has spent the last two seasons in Iceland, working on her coaching licences while playing. She had been transitioning to a coaching role but says her desire to keep playing was reinvigorated by news of the new Canadian women’s league.

“My motivation started coming back. And after about a month of not playing any games, I started playing games and playing really really well.”

McLeod last played for Canada on Oct. 26, 2021, in a 1-0 friendly win over New Zealand in Montreal — her 47th clean sheet.

She was in goal for the Canadian women’s bronze-medal run at the 2012 London Olympics and started throughout the 2015 World Cup on home soil. She was an alternate with the team that won gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 but dressed for the game against Chile when Kailen Sheridan stepped in for the injured Stephanie Labbé.

McLeod was 19 when she made her Canada senior debut in a 4-0 victory over Wales in March 2002 at the Algarve Cup.

She has survived a string of injuries since then, with five knee surgeries and one shoulder operation.

“I’ve definitely changed the way that I’m training and also changed the way I speak to myself and deal with mistakes,” she said. “I’m enjoying it, probably the most I have as long as I can remember. Because I’m embracing the good and the bad. I’m just excited to keep playing.”

McLeod began her career with the Vancouver Whitecaps in the USL W-League in 2004. She went on to play for the Washington Freedom, Sweden’s Dalsjofors GoIF, Chicago Red Stars, Houston Dash and Sweden’s FC Rosengard and Vaxjo DFF before joining the Orlando Pride in February 2020 and being loaned to Stjarnan.

At the collegiate level, she played two years at Southern Methodist University and two at Penn State. As a senior, she led the led the Nittany Lions to an undefeated regular season in 2005 when she was a MAC Hermann Trophy semifinalist and Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year.

McLeod has many strings to her bow.

She has long served as an LGBTQ spokeswoman. In 2014, she combined with fellow Olympian Adam van Koeverden, now parliamentary secretary to the minister of health and minister of sport, in the successful campaign to add sexual orientation to the Olympic Charter.

In 2019, McLeod launched the Mindful Project, developed in tandem with Bethel University professor Rachel Lindvall. The goal is to help focus more on positive thoughts while moving past negative ones.

Away from soccer, McLeod has worked as an artist, musician and entrepreneur.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2024.