Culture is a tricky thing. Definitions of the word abound, seemingly endless in their iterations, but in basic terms, as a noun, it is simply the way of life for a group of people.  It originates from all manners of human existence, emerging over generations in time and place until it becomes just the way things have always been. 

But culture is also a verb, meaning to grow or cultivate living material into a culture medium. In this way, we can enable the growth of various organisms under the right conditions. 

Put verb and noun together and you get the idea that we can culture culture — we can foster the development of a way of being for a group of people.

While defining culture (verb and noun) is relatively easy, creating, changing and living it is an entirely more difficult endeavour. Culturing a culture, in any place or organization, takes an extraordinary degree of sustained effort.

And to what end?  Well, in sport, cultivating the right culture — a culture of excellence — leads to one very desirable thing: consistent high performance.

“We understand that our organizational culture likely has a significant impact on performance,” says Cathy Tong, Director, High Performance — Long Track at Speed Skating Canada.  “If we can strive to create a high performance culture, we can realize many benefits.” 

It’s an obvious end point, but not an easy one to achieve. 

Decades of success precede today’s top long track speed skaters, so why, and how, do you take one of the country’s most successful teams and build a better culture? It turns out that even in a sport that has historically been one of Canada’s best there is room for change, growth, and improvement.

The approach is an understanding that you don’t have to keep things the same as they’ve always been, even if it has been successful.  It’s an understanding that there can be, and is, a better way.

When Bart Schouten, National Team Coach at Speed Skating Canada, came to Canada twelve years ago from the Netherlands, every training group was working in silos.  “It wasn’t just the skaters competing against each other, but the coaches, too,” he recalls.  A lot of medals were won in spite of that, but over time, gaps in culture surrounding the success came to light.

Turning the tide on the silo mentality has taken years, but things are different now.

“One thing that is truly different now is trust,” claims Todd McClements, National Team Coach at Speed Skating Canada, who works alongside Schouten coaching the Men’s Long Distance group. “You can’t get to this point unless you can trust each other.”

Schouten agrees. The trust, he says, has opened up a culture of cooperation, using everyone’s expertise optimally.  “It takes a group of people getting to know each other and learning about each other, people that actually really want to work together,” he explains.  “It’s a group that has learned over time that cooperation gets you the furthest.”

The Integrated Support Team (IST) is part of that group and their expertise, and openness to working together, as Schouten suggests, is a big part of what made a culture shift possible.  “It opens the door for the IST to play a bigger role,” says Schouten.

In past years, the IST was a strong and effective unit, but one of the gaps was a lack of consistent cross-pollination between disciplines.  It happened sometimes, but not always. The team recognized that they wanted to improve upon that and make it better.

Already years in the making, it was the post-2018 debrief that set the course for the culture that would emerge over the next quad.  Tong points to increased trust, transparency, clarity and an individualized approach within the team as key factors in creating the new culture.  

Bringing together athletes, coaches, and IST to define shared values was the starting point.  What grew from there is a truly interdisciplinary team of experts that operates in harmony, though not always perfectly so, with coaches, athletes and staff.

Weaving all the threads together is the High Performance Management Team (HPMT), a group established to monitor every signal, and address them all using an iterative and fluid process to find solutions by relying on IST expertise, context from coaches, and superb communication channels. 

The HPMT is made up of Tong, Dave Paskevich, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiolgy at the University of Calgary and Mental Performance Consultant at Speed Skating Canada, and Scott Maw, Canadian Sport Institute (CSI) Calgary Exercise Physiologist and IST Lead at Speed Skating Canada, who meet weekly to discuss every last detail of who, what, where, when, and why.  

“It’s about what are you hearing, seeing, picking up, like the satellite thing,” says Maw, who has been working with the long track team for over 15-years. “We’re sharing all the information and signals and making sure were getting it. Now there’s a process for dealing with issues. That wouldn't have happened before.”

At the heart of it all is ensuring that the athletes, all of them, are getting what they need by integrating the input and context from everyone to find the right solution.

“We’re not just ticking boxes,” says Maw. “If IST members don’t work together, share and problem solve, it’s not as powerful as it can be when they do that.  Everyone’s expertise from their own domain contributes to solutions.”

By all accounts the HPMT, IST, and greater CSI Calgary community have been instrumental in pushing the envelope when it comes to seeking and implementing the best and most effective tools for performance management, be it the latest technology for athlete monitoring or establishing an IST modus operandi that everyone believes in and commits to.

McClements’ enthusiasm for the culture he now lives is palpable. “The coaching staff is truly a team,” he says. “The trust we have for our IST is huge. All of the IST members, I trust these people and that allows me to work with them.”

The change in culture — performance focused, coach driven, and athlete empowered — has had a profound impact on the team’s way of being, and it goes much deeper than just the IST and coaches, it has seeped into the athletes’ bones too. 

“Ted lost his mind when Graeme broke his world record,” recalls McClements, referring to Graeme Fish’s 10,000m World Record at the 2020 World Single Distance Championships, which he overtook from teammate and 2018 Olympic Champion, Ted Jan Bloemen.  “He just hugged him.”

This, surely, will buoy the team as they head into Beijing 2022.  But lest you think they are sitting back with their feet up, high-fiving their fait accompli, rest assured that is not the case. Culturing culture is an ongoing adventure that never ends, and this team knows it. 

“It’s not perfect,” declares Maw.  “That’s why you’ve got to keep listening and adapting. What works this quad is probably not going to work the next quad, it’s a cyclical process. It’s all listening. There are still gaps, you just try to close ‘em.”

Canadian Sport Institute Calgary: @csicalgary

Written by: Kristina Groves @kngrover

Photos by: Dave Holland @DaveHollandPics

January 20th, 2022

About the Canadian Sport Institute Calgary

The Canadian Sport Institute Calgary provides world-class training environments in Alberta. With the support of our partners, we deliver leading sport science and medicine, coach education and life services to help Canada's high-performance athletes achieve Olympic and Paralympic podium performances. www.csialberta.ca

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Media Contacts:

Annie Gagnon, Director, Marketing & Communications

Canadian Sport Institute Calgary

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Annie Goncin, Manager, Athlete Services & Digital Media

Canadian Sport Institute Calgary

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Picture this: a network of satellites zooming through space, in orbit high above Planet Figure Skating. They receive signals from “stars” on the icy surface below. The satellites then process these signals and transmit back key information to the surface, which is used by the stars to optimize and realize their best performance.

Kelly Quipp is one of the satellites. The Lead Exercise Physiologist at Canadian Sport Institute (CSI) Calgary and national Integrated Support Team (IST) Lead at Skate Canada heads a team of experts from many fields, including the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute (COPSI) Network, who work together to constantly assess, monitor, and enhance performance.

The stars, of course, are Canada’s best and brightest figure skaters, all vying for Olympic glory, passionately and persistently carving their blades into the ice with precision and artistry.

The cosmic link between the satellites and the stars is relatively new. “This is a sport untouched by sport science,” remarks Mike Slipchuk, High Performance Director at Skate Canada. “We are bringing in new concepts, ideas and methods with things like strength and conditioning that we haven’t used in the past, different ways of training.”

In a sport that is so much about art, launching the national IST has helped to bring science to the fore. “It was an opportunity to leverage experts,” confirms Slipchuk. “And how we can make it work in figure skating.”

It has been a slow, but effective development at Skate Canada. Not only is the sport decentralized across the country, every skater is like a planet unto themselves, each with its own coach and, in many cases, IST. “There are different ways to get athletes to their optimal performance, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach,” explains Slipchuk. “It’s tailored to individual athletes and events.”

Training primarily out of the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario (CSIO) in Toronto and Institut national du sport du Québec in Montréal, all of Skate Canada’s stars rely on a vast and connected network of satellites to maximize every aspect of their preparation.

The key attribute is the constant relaying of signals between local and national IST members, like therapists, nutritionists, physicians, strength and conditioning coaches, and others, who support the team with a wide array of tools, including initiatives like the injury and illness monitoring system implemented by Quipp, where skaters provide weekly health updates.

The strong core of advisors that make up the national IST fill many roles, in some cases as full-fledged IST members with direct impacts on a skater’s training and performance, in others as advisors who provide support more peripherally. “We’re like central command,” says Quipp. “Athletes and coaches know we’re here to support them, we’re not going to bother them if they have a good thing going.”

Take Paul Poirier and Piper Gilles, Canada’s top ice dance duo: The Olympic-bound bronze medallists from the 2021 World Figure Skating Championships have built up their own bespoke IST, comprised of experts in many fields, some of whom are independent providers and others that are part of the COPSI Network.

The pair worked closely with Quipp starting in September 2019, where she advised on their training, both on and off ice, helping with testing and implementing optimal training sequences. “They learned a lot from that process,” says Quipp. When the pandemic hit, Gilles and Poirier felt comfortable taking the reins and Quipp now helps primarily with testing, results and relaying any issues to the local team.

A key member of that local IST is Meghan Buttle, Physiotherapist at CSIO and working with Skate Canada and as the IST Lead at Skate Ontario, and a former ice dancer. Buttle has been the pair’s main therapist since 2016 and sees herself as the ‘eyes on the ground’ for Poirier and Gilles. “Paul and Piper are the drivers of their own team,” she says. “But I can provide additional insight by monitoring and sharing signals with the Network when necessary.”

Nick Robinson, an independent strength and conditioning coach, has also been working with Gilles and Poirier since 2016. He says what sets the pair apart is their experience, maturity and focus. “They work seamlessly together and with their team. They are very capable of relaying important issues and it’s rare that anything gets too bad,” he says.

As one of the many satellites in constant orbit around Planet Figure Skating, those are just the kinds of signals Mike Slipchuk wants to receive. “We just want to make sure everyone has what they need.”

Once that happens – once all those signals have been received and processed and transmitted back – the lights go dark and the satellites know it’s time to zoom out and let those stars shine.

Canadian Sport Institute Calgary: @csicalgary

Written by: Kristina Groves @kngrover

Photos by: Dave Holland @DaveHollandPics

December 16th, 2021

About the COPSI Network
The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute Network (COPSI Network) provides world-leading training environments to elite athletes and coaches across Canada. The team of experts delivers sport science and medicine, coaching, research and innovation, education and Game Plan services to power podium performances and help Canada win more medals. The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute Network includes four Canadian Sport Institutes (Pacific, Calgary, Ontario and Québec) and three Canadian Sport Centres (Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Atlantic).

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Media Contacts:

Annie Gagnon, Director, Marketing & Communications

Canadian Sport Institute Calgary

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Noah Wheelock, General Manager, Operations & Communications

Canadian Sport Institute Pacific

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Jean Gosselin, Director, Communications & Marketing

Institut national du sport du Québec

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Laura Albright, Senior Advisor, Communications & Marketing

Canadian Sport Institute Ontario

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Jaime Lammerding, Communications Coordinator

Canadian Sport Centre Saskatchewan

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Sarah MacNeil, Communications & Project Lead

Canadian Sport Centre Atlantic

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Jessie Davis, Marketing & Communications Specialist

Canadian Sport Centre Manitoba

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VANCOUVER (February 1, 2022) – Teck Resources Limited, the Official Mining, Metals and Minerals Partner of the Canadian Olympic Committee, in partnership with the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute (COPSI) Network, announced plans to outfit high-performance Team Canada training facilities with antimicrobial copper on high-touch surfaces to help protect athletes. Copper is the only solid metal touch surface registered by Health Canada and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, proven to eliminate up to 99.9% of bacteria.

"Using antimicrobial copper at national athlete training facilities is another important step forward as we work to enhance safety through our Copper & Health program,” said Don Lindsay, Teck’s President and CEO. “We are proud to partner with the COPSI Network and test this initiative in Calgary and in Ontario to support the health and wellness of Canada’s top athletes, coaches and support staff.”

The Canadian Sport Institute Calgary (CSI Calgary) and the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario (CSIO) were selected as pilot project locations to balance Team Canada’s summer and winter training facilities as well as supporting athletes across Canada.

Teck has made a $200,000 (CAD) investment – $100,000 in each facility – to outfit antimicrobial copper on exercise equipment and high-touch spaces including dumbbell handles, exercise equipment and door handles, prioritizing high-touch surfaces that can spread germs between users.

“We hope this project will showcase the value of built environments within exercise spaces to help reduce the spread of infection on shared touch surfaces,” said Gary Davies, CSI Calgary’s President and CEO. “This partnership with Teck and the COPSI Network aligns with our commitment to sport science and innovation and also helps us understand how Canadian mining can directly support the health and safety of Canadian athletes.”

The installation will take place throughout the 2022 calendar year by which time the feasibility to retrofit copper across other COPSI Network training facilities will be assessed.

”This is an exciting day because the results could improve our understanding of infection prevention in shared public spaces across the high-performance sport community,” said Debbie Low, CSIO’s President and CEO. “The development of the installation is just getting started, and we are working closely with our partners to innovate on ways to cater to the unique training and equipment requirements for athletes, coaches and practitioners. Being able to potentially reduce infection will allow them to focus on training, competing and representing Canada on the world stage.”

The partnership with the COPSI Network builds on Teck’s previous successful investments to install antimicrobial copper coatings in healthcare and post-secondary institutions, and on transit. Teck’s Copper & Health program is committed to raising awareness of the importance of antimicrobial copper to help reduce the spread of infection in high-traffic spaces.

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ABOUT TECK:

As one of Canada’s leading mining companies, Teck is committed to responsible mining and mineral development with major business units focused on copper, zinc, and steelmaking coal, as well as investments in energy assets. Copper, zinc and high-quality steelmaking coal are required for the transition to a low-carbon world. Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, Teck’s shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols TECK.A and TECK.B and the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TECK. Learn more about Teck at www.teck.com or follow @TeckResources.

ABOUT TECK’S COPPER & HEALTH PROGRAM:

Through its Copper & Health program, Teck is working with partners across Canada and beyond to increase the use of copper surfaces in healthcare and public spaces to reduce the spread of infections. When installed on high touch surfaces, copper is a proven killer of bacteria, reducing the spread of infection and improving health outcomes. There is no commercial benefit to Teck from the increased use of antimicrobial copper as the amount of metal needed is very small; the goal of the program is to improve health and safety for communities.

For more information about the role of antimicrobial copper, the Copper & Health program, and other examples of copper in action, please visit www.coppersaveslives.com.

ABOUT THE COPSI NETWORK:

The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute Network (COPSI Network) provides world-leading training environments to elite athletes and coaches across Canada. The team of experts delivers sport science and medicine, coaching, research and innovation, education and Game Plan services to power podium performances and help Canada win more medals. The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute Network includes four Canadian Sport Institutes (Pacific, Calgary, Ontario and Québec) and three Canadian Sport Centres (Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Atlantic).

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Annie Gagnon, Director, Marketing & Communications

Canadian Sport Institute Calgary

C: 613.262.9644

E: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Laura Albright, Senior Advisor, Communications & Marketing

Canadian Sport Institute Ontario

C: 647.395.7536

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Chris Stannell, Public Relations Manager

Teck

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Josh Su, Program Manager, Public Relations

Canadian Olympic Committee

C: 647-464-4060

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Be nimble, be quick. Isn’t that how the old nursery rhyme goes? While Jack is busy jumping over candlesticks in preparation for the upcoming Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, we present lesson number one in the IST Lowdown: ISTs are nimble and ISTs are quick.

The Integrated Support Team (IST) – a collection of experts across a multitude of disciplines that collaborate to enhance performance, is an integral component of any high-performance sport program.

These experts are physicians, physiotherapists, coaches, sport scientists, nutritionists, sport psychologists, biomechanists and others, many of whom come from the four Canadian Sport Institutes (CSIs) and three Centres that make up the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sports Institute (COPSI) Network.

To say that ISTs are nimble we mean they evolve, adapt, and deal; to say they are quick we mean they troubleshoot and solve.

Take Freestyle Canada (FC), the National Sport Organization (NSO) for the four freestyle ski disciplines of moguls, aerials, halfpipe and slopestyle. In today’s warming climate, chasing snow has become a driving force in the program. By necessity, therefore, FC is decentralized, meaning the entire team is scattered across the country and the challenge is optimizing on-snow training and competition around the globe. How do they make it work?

To help manage the program’s complexity, FC relies on the expertise and support of three COPSI Network members: Pacific, Calgary and Québec. Adrian King, Director of Sport Science and Medicine and IST Lead at FC, says that because the team is decentralized they have created an IST across the country that is an extremely experienced, high level group of therapists, doctors and sport scientists.

King says that accessing experts through the CSIs helps from a quality control standpoint, too. “The CSI helps us bring in IST members that we know are vetted, quality people and practitioners.” These are the ones who evolve, adapt and deal – the nimble part.

Todd Allison, High Performance Director, Moguls and Aerials at FC, says the partnership with the COPSI Network also allows FC to seek expert guidance on short notice, use facility space for training and logistics, book lab space for testing and analysis, and have athletes access Game Plan services – Canada's athlete wellness program that strives to support national team athletes in living balanced and holistic lives.

“These things are over and above what we get from the IST,” explains Allison. “CSIs can basically service us wherever we are. They help troubleshoot for all issues that arise — if we have a problem, they can solve it.” That’s the quick part.

Let’s highlight a real-world example of quick and nimble. A phone call comes in to Andrew Kates, Strength and Conditioning Coach at CSI Pacific and a key part of FC’s IST. “It looks like we might not have a good warm-up facility at the Olympics in Beijing.” He is unfazed: “Yeah, so?”

Dealing with the unexpected is routine for Kates and the entire FC team, IST and athletes included. “We find fast, unique solutions for training all the time” explains Kates. “Sometimes we warm up in cafeterias and hallways.”

Kates is also nimble. His primary role is crafting and implementing off-snow training programs. The key skill he has fostered is carving out specialized knowledge from the halfpipe to understand and meet the demands of the sport. “There is no textbook for how to build a halfpipe athlete,” Kates explains. “I draw on knowledge I have from more traditional sports and use that experience to see how new things will apply to this niche sport.”

For Kates, that means constantly adapting and refining his training programs, and innovating by building his own data and monitoring solutions to track every single jump.

But the next step highlights the real power of the IST, and is one of its hallmark traits – sharing information and knowledge across disciplines within the IST to help make better decisions and plans to enhance athlete performance. Because FC is decentralized, Kates can tap into the expertise of other experts in the COPSI Network.

“This collaboration is essential to providing an optimal performance environment”, says Lu Bonnett, High Performance Sport Advisor at Institut national du sport du Québec (INS Québec). FC relies on INS Québec to meet needs and standards in data collection, and facilitates sharing knowledge with the IST that directly benefits athletes.

It’s not always seamless and communication can be a challenge, but it’s a way for experts to rub heads together and collaborate, which advances the sport to higher levels of performance. Build knowledge, share, improve, repeat.

So, there you have it: IST takeaway #1. WECAN be nimble and quick – COPSI Network experts create specialized knowledge, share that knowledge with each other and thrive in a complex, decentralized sport.

Canadian Sport Institute Calgary: @csicalgary

Written by: Kristina Groves @kngrover

Photos by: Dave Holland @DaveHollandPics

December 16th, 2021

About the COPSI Network
The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute Network (COPSI Network) provides world-leading training environments to elite athletes and coaches across Canada. The team of experts delivers sport science and medicine, coaching, research and innovation, education and Game Plan services to power podium performances and help Canada win more medals. The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute Network includes four Canadian Sport Institutes (Pacific, Calgary, Ontario and Québec) and three Canadian Sport Centres (Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Atlantic).

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Media Contacts:

Annie Gagnon, Director, Marketing & Communications

Canadian Sport Institute Calgary

c: 613.262.9644

e: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Noah Wheelock, General Manager, Operations & Communications

Canadian Sport Institute Pacific

c: 250.220.2534

e: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Jean Gosselin, Director, Communications & Marketing

Institut national du sport du Québec

c: 514.757.9092

e: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Laura Albright, Senior Advisor, Communications & Marketing

Canadian Sport Institute Ontario

c: 647.395.7536

e: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Jaime Lammerding, Communications Coordinator

Canadian Sport Centre Saskatchewan

c: 306 975-0830

e: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Sarah MacNeil, Communications & Project Lead

Canadian Sport Centre Atlantic

c: 902.595.0485

e: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Jessie Davis, Marketing & Communications Specialist

Canadian Sport Centre Manitoba

c: 204.891.5441

e: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.