Alan Hudes, Author at AthletesCAN

Call for Nominations: AthletesCAN Board of Directors

Posted on 6 October 202327 October 2023 by Alan Hudes

AthletesCAN is pleased to launch the nomination and election campaign period for the 2023-24 Board of Directors.

AthletesCAN has four (4) total positions up for election this year; three (3) director positions each with 3-year terms and one (1) director position with a 1-year term.

Board Nomination Period

7:00 p.m. ET Friday, October 6th, 2023 – 5:00pm ET Friday, October 20th, 2023

All interested candidates must provide the completed nomination form in the language of their choice and a photo to [email protected] within the above noted Board Nomination Period. Candidates should review the organization’s strategic plan (link) and Director Job Description (link) to fully understand the prospective role.

In accordance with the Board Nomination & Election Policy AthletesCAN shall translate all nominations to both official languages for the voting period which are received by Friday, October 13th, 2023.

2023 Election

The voting period will be open to all members at 9:00 a.m. ET, Tuesday, October 24th, following the close of the nomination period. All members may review both the nominees and the current slate of directors to consider and cast their votes virtually. Details regarding access to the voting platform will be provided closer to the opening of the voting period.

Voting Period

Successful candidates will be contacted following the end of the voting period and invited to virtually attend the next Board of Directors meeting on November 19. The newly-elected directors will be announced at the Annual General Meeting on November 8.

Notice of 2023 AthletesCAN Annual General Meeting

Posted on 5 October 20239 November 2023 by Alan Hudes

Notice to members is hereby given of the Annual General Meeting of AthletesCAN – Athletes Association of Canada, to be held virtually online on Wednesday, November 8 at 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. PT.

Location: Virtually via Zoom.

Members of AthletesCAN as of October 31, 2023 shall be entitled to one vote at such meeting. New members who register in the period of
Nov. 1- 8, 2023 shall not be eligible to attend or vote at the AGM.

At the Annual General Meeting, members will be asked to:

1. Approve the minutes from the 2022 Annual General Meeting;
2. Receive and consider the reports of the Directors of the organization for the year 2022 – 2023;
3. Approve any proposed Policies and/or revisions, if any;
4. Receive and consider the audited financial statements of the organization for the year ended March 31, 2023;
5. Appoint Auditors of the organization for the year ending March 31, 2024

Anti-Doping Information for Santiago 2023 Games now available for Team Canada

Posted on 3 October 202327 October 2023 by Alan Hudes

Ottawa – Anti-doping information for the Santiago 2023 Pan American and Parapan American Games is now available for Team Canada athletes and support personnel. The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) has consolidated information about education, therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs), supplements, and more. Go to www.cces.ca/santiago2023.

Athletes have access to tools and resources that will help them navigate doping control, medication selection and management, and clean sport concerns that are specific to the region, such as coca tea and contaminated meat.

Congratulations and good luck to all Team Canada athletes who will represent Canada in Santiago! We hope that Team Canada will live their values and embrace the True Sport Principles that represent the good sport Canadians believe in.

New interactive E-Learning course guides coaches toward a True Sport approach

Posted on 18 September 202327 October 2023 by Alan Hudes

Ottawa – The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) is excited to introduce Values-Based Coaching: A True Sport Approach – an interactive, self-reflective e-learning course for coaches at all levels of sport. Interactions between coach and participant are important determinants of an individual’s sport experience: the values and practices modelled by coaches can be powerful and enabling for all, or they can drive participants out of sport for a lifetime.

Values-Based Coaching: A True Sport Approach gathers a coach’s previous experience, knowledge, and sport-specific needs, then demonstrates how they can use the True Sport Principles to nurture positive and enriching sport experiences for every participant. The course walks coaches through personal reflections about their values, coaching philosophy, and motivation, then gives them practical tools and resources to implement a values-based approach to their work. This innovative course also extends coaches’ understanding of long-term development and explains the connections between Safe Sport and True Sport.

Former AthletesCAN President Dasha Peregoudova : Athlete abuse testimony needs to be turned into action

Posted on 10 September 202321 December 2023 by Alan Hudes

RICHMOND, B.C. – A national inquiry into safe sport is not necessarily the answer to helping Canadian athletes, according to a former member of the country’s taekwondo team and ombudsperson for Canada for the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Dasha Peregoudova, former AthletesCAN President and the director of sanctions and outcomes for Abuse-Free Sport, said Saturday that Canada has gone through a national reckoning of abuse in sport, adding work now needs to be done with what the public has heard.

“I have not had, myself, those experiences those athletes had … I don’t want to trivialize that,” she said of Canadian athletes who have spoken out about abuse and misconduct.

“My reservation about a national inquiry is not that it’s not a good use of time or resources, I just have some sense that it would say what we already know which is that there are rampant safe sport issues in sport and that we need to do something about it.”

Her comments to The Canadian Press came after she, lawyer Amanda Fowler and former athletes Chris de Sousa Costa and Josh Vander Vies participated in a panel discussing governance in Canadian sports held by AthletesCAN.

46th Canadian Sport Awards: Nominees unveiled, Toronto Star named Presenting Sponsor of Randy Starkman Award

Posted on 8 September 20238 September 2023 by Alan Hudes

TORONTO / VANCOUVER – AthletesCAN, the association of Canada’s national team athletes, is proud to announce that the Toronto Star has been named the Presenting Sponsor of the Randy Starkman Award for Leadership in Sports Journalism.

The award, which was revived last year as part of the Canadian Sport Awards following a decade long-absence, will be officially handed out at this year’s celebration on Friday evening.

The award was initially created in 2012, following the sudden passing of its namesake just a few months prior, who served as a long-time Toronto Star amateur sports reporter and advocate. It recognizes the extraordinary career and unparalleled contributions of the late Randy Starkman in telling the stories of Canadian athletes and sport for over 30 years from an athletes’ perspective.

“We are grateful for the support of the Toronto Star, as we celebrate the second year of our renewed Randy Starkman Award. Randy was cherished by the National Team athletes he covered and inspired so many of his colleagues in the media industry through his work for The Star. We’re proud to partner with them on such a meaningful tribute as part of the Canadian Sport Awards.”

Alan Hudes - Manager of Communications and Sport Parterships at AthletesCAN

Previous winners of the award include 2022 recipient and veteran sports reporter Lori Ewing, who spent over two decades with The Canadian Press before moving to the United Kingdom last winter to join Reuters Sports, and Starkman himself posthumously in 2012. Olympic canoe sprint bronze medalist Thomas Hall – now the Director of Communications and Media Relations with the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC), following a distinguished career in sports reporting – accepted the award in its inaugural year on behalf of the Starkman family.

“This is such a great way to honour Randy. And he had some really good friends all through that Toronto Star building - in the library, the switchboard, the sports department – it would mean a lot to him that the Star is sponsoring the award."

Mary Hynes - Starkman’s partner of nearly 30 years

The award will serve as an ongoing recognition of Starkman’s legacy and will be a call to action to inspire current and future Canadian sports journalists to strive for the kind of sports journalism that he demonstrated throughout his career. Nominees for each of the Canadian Sport Awards are now available online here.

Kicking off the first in-person AthletesCAN Forum weekend since 2019, veteran CBC Sports host Scott Russell will helm this year’s celebration of trailblazers, athlete-centred accomplishments and initiatives – as the Canadian Sport Awards take place on the evening of Friday, Sept. 8, with five notable winners recognized at the Vancouver Airport Marriott Hotel in Richmond, B.C and live on AthletesCAN’s digital channels. The event is made possible in part by the generous contribution of Richmond Sport Hosting.

Following Forum, a national digital campaign in partnership with CBC Sports along with the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committees for the People’s Choice Award for Most Trending Moment of the Year will take place in December, after the conclusion of the 2023 Pan American and Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile.

Nominees

Devin Heroux, CBC Sports

Devin Heroux is a cross-platform reporter who covers Olympic and Paralympic news and has reported on the last three Games in PyeongChang, Tokyo and Beijing. He is also a curling correspondent, hosting That Curling Show with World Champion turned-broadcaster Colleen Jones. Heroux is based in Toronto after working for the CBC in Calgary and Saskatoon.

Sean Fitz-Gerald

Sean Fitz-Gerald most recently worked for seven years as a Senior National Writer at The Athletic, having been one of the company’s first hires with its Toronto bureau in 2016. As a reporter, he has covered the Olympics and Pan American Games, and is well known for finding unique human interest angles and gaining insightful responses in interview features, particularly with Canada’s national team athletes. Prior to The Athletic, Fitz-Gerald also worked as a sports reporter for the Toronto Star, National Post and The Canadian Press.

Rachel Brady, The Globe and Mail

Rachel Brady began writing for The Globe in 2011, and has profiled many of Canada’s biggest athletes, reporting on issues such as gender equity and athlete abuse.

She won the 2021 National Newspaper Award for sports coverage and received a Michener Award nomination, partnering with colleague Grant Robertson on an investigation that revealed a troubling number of elite amateur Canadian athletes binge, purge and starve themselves, often under pressure from coaches and National Sport Organizations.

Brady also worked as a producer with Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium (CTV Olympics) covering the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.

46th Canadian Sport Awards: Bruce Kidd Leadership Award Nominees

Posted on 5 September 20235 September 2023 by Alan Hudes

Bruce Kidd Leadership Award

The Bruce Kidd Leadership Award is presented annually to a retired national team athlete, sport leader, or organization, who has provided meaningful contributions to the betterment of sport as a leader, advocate, change agent, or builder. This award highlights the groundbreaking work that contributed to the betterment of sport through inspirational leadership, innovative practices, and/or positive influence on the Canadian sport sector.

The award is named in honour of 1968 Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame Inductee Dr. Bruce Kidd, who has made enormous contributions to Canada’s sporting community as an athlete, advocate, author, historian, and academic

Dr. Sandra Kirby, Rowing

Sandra Kirby represented Canada in rowing at the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games. After competing at the Olympics, she went on to become one of the leading voices in fighting sexual harassment and abuse, homophobia, and violence against children in sport. Her accomplishments include being one of the founding members of Safe Sport International, lobbying the IOC to drop their requirement of chromosomal gender verification for female athletes and being one of the lead authors of the IOC Consensus Statement on Sexual Harassment and Abuse.

Rick Hansen, Para Athletics

Most famous for his “Man In Motion” journey around the world, Rick Hansen is also a six-time Paralympic medalist. Today, he operates the Rick Hansen Foundation for People with Disabilities, which works to make the world more accessible for all. Their school program educates students Grades 1-12 about inclusiveness, disability awareness and leadership while their foundation provides quality of life grants for individuals with disabilities. Rick also aided in the creation of the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, the worlds foremost research program on spinal cord injury repair.

Jane Roos, Canadian Athletes Now Fund

Jane Roos was a promising track athlete, but a car injury ended her career at the age of 19. Roos turned her attention to helping other athletes fulfil their Olympic dreams and started CAN Fund, a non-profit dedicated to helping Canadian athletes pay for coaching, training, nutrition and living expenses. Over the last 20 years, CAN Fund has raised over $50 Million for Canadian athletes, and helped support 80 per cent of the Canadian athletes who have competed at the Olympics since the Athens 2004 Games.

46th Canadian Sport Awards: #AthleteVoice Award Nominees

Posted on 31 August 20231 September 2023 by Alan Hudes

#AthleteVoice Award - Rep of the Year

The #AthleteVoice Award for Rep of the Year recognizes the significant contributions of an athlete representative within their national sport organization, multi-sport organization or international sport organization. The athlete representation movement is only as good as the athletes chosen by their teammates to effect positive change. This award highlights the initiative, courage, and leadership of these individuals.

Canadian Soccer Players Association

Led by Janine Beckie, Christine Sinclair, Sophie Schmidt and Quinn, the Canadian Soccer Players Association initiated a job action against Canada Soccer during the SheBelieves Cup in February, protesting significant budget cuts to the women’s program. The team skipped practice sessions and wore purple warmups as a sign of solidarity during the tournament which serves as preparation for the World Cup. These four representatives appeared in front of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to testify about how the women’s program receives less support than the men’s team in terms of funding for training camps, provision of medical and training teams, and compensation for representing Canada on the world stage. The CSPA negotiated a 2023 interim agreement with Canada Soccer that significantly increased the national team’s base compensation over 2021 levels.

Eric Radford, Figure Skating

A three-time Olympic medalist, Eric Radford stepped up his athlete advocacy work upon his retirement in 2022. Radford currently serves as the chair of the International Skating Union’s Athletes’ Commission and serves as a delegate on their council. He is also working as part of Team Canada as an Athlete Service Officer at the Santiago 2023 Pan Am Games, helping mentor and support athletes in meeting the challenges of performing at the highest level.

Jaqueline Simoneau, Artistic Swimming

A two-time Olympian, Jacqueline Simoneau is working alongside Eric Radford, representing Team Canada at Santiago 2023 as an Athlete Service Officer. She also represents Team Canada athletes to the Canadian Olympic Committee as a member of the COC Athletes’ Commission, and is an IOC Believe in Sport Ambassador. Simoneau is also a member of the IOC Young Leader’s project, where she is working to develop a platform to promote proactive health and wellness. Simoneau also took on a leadership role in the sport integrity field, presenting at the 2023 Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) Symposium on Competition Manipulation and Gambling in Sport.

46th Canadian Sport Awards: True Sport Award Nominees

Posted on 31 August 202319 September 2023 by Alan Hudes

True Sport Award

The True Sport Award recognizes an inspirational Canadian citizen who exemplifies true sport values of fairness, excellence, inclusion, and fun in a meaningful way. Through the pursuit of sporting excellence this Canadian hero showcases dedication, perseverance, sportsmanship, respect for others, and a true love of sport.

Michael Woods, Cycling

Michael Woods became just the third ever Canadian this season to win a stage at the Tour de France, one of the most prestigious bike races in the world. Formerly an elite middle-distance runner and Canadian junior record holder in the mile, Woods’ track career stalled due to injury, and he took up competitive cycling at an age when many other cyclists are beginning to burn out. He is believed to be the only person in history to have run a sub four-minute mile and to have successfully competed in one of cycling’s Grand Tours.

Austin Smeenk, Para Athletics

Austin Smeenk was one of two team captains at the Paris 2023 World Para Athletics Championships, where he won two medals. Smeenk is determined and motivated to do his best, even on the worst of days, and is a huge motivator of his teammates, competitors and fellow athletes in the gym and on the field.

Raphaëlle Tousignant, Para Ice Hockey

Raphaëlle Tousignant broke the gender barrier on Canada’s para ice hockey team at the 2023 Para Ice Hockey World Championships. Diagnosed with bone cancer at age nine which resulted in her leg being amputated, Tousignant was back on the ice just six months after her surgery with the goal of playing for the national para ice hockey team. Although para ice hockey is an open discipline, where men and women can compete together, no woman had ever made the cut for Canada’s National Team before Tousignant did this year.

46th Canadian Sport Awards: AthletesCAN Social Responsibility Award Nominees

Posted on 30 August 202331 August 2023 by Alan Hudes

AthletesCAN Social Responsibility Award

The AthletesCAN Social Responsibility Award honours a current or retired national team athlete who used their platform to make a positive impact in their sport or community at the local, national, or international level.

It recognizes the significant contributions of an athlete leader in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, community, volunteer and/or social change initiatives.

Charity Williams, Rugby

Despite spending the season sidelined with an injury, Charity Williams did not stop giving back to her community. Williams created the Function Festival as a celebration of BIPOC artists in the Victoria Community and beyond, which just celebrated its second year of operation. Through her work, she strives to bring the wider BIPOC community together and to highlight people who are most commonly missed or forgotten about.

Kaitlyn Clark, Boxing

Kaitlyn Clark took her fight beyond the ring, supporting her fellow teammates in creating a safe and supporting training and competition environment. Clark has spoken out against toxic culture, harassment, abuse and grooming in the sport she loves. Even sidelined with an injury, she continued to support her teammates and opponents in their fight for a safer, more supportive, boxing community.

Phyllis Ellis, Field Hockey

Phyllis Ellis directed the groundbreaking documentary Category: Woman which follows four female athletes who were forced out of competition by regulations that profile and target women athletes set by World Athletics. Her work documented the consequences to the bodies and lifestyles of these women as a result of the regulations that the, predominantly male, decision-makers set under the guise of fair play.

Author: Alan Hudes

Call for Nominations: AthletesCAN Board of Directors

Board Nomination Period

2023 Election

Voting Period

Notice of 2023 AthletesCAN Annual General Meeting

Anti-Doping Information for Santiago 2023 Games now available for Team Canada

New interactive E-Learning course guides coaches toward a True Sport approach

Former AthletesCAN President Dasha Peregoudova : Athlete abuse testimony needs to be turned into action

46th Canadian Sport Awards: Nominees unveiled, Toronto Star named Presenting Sponsor of Randy Starkman Award

Nominees

Devin Heroux, CBC Sports

Sean Fitz-Gerald

Rachel Brady, The Globe and Mail

46th Canadian Sport Awards: Bruce Kidd Leadership Award Nominees

Bruce Kidd Leadership Award

Dr. Sandra Kirby, Rowing

Rick Hansen, Para Athletics

Jane Roos, Canadian Athletes Now Fund

46th Canadian Sport Awards: #AthleteVoice Award Nominees

#AthleteVoice Award - Rep of the Year

Canadian Soccer Players Association

Eric Radford, Figure Skating

Jaqueline Simoneau, Artistic Swimming

46th Canadian Sport Awards: True Sport Award Nominees

True Sport Award

Michael Woods, Cycling

Austin Smeenk, Para Athletics

Raphaëlle Tousignant, Para Ice Hockey

46th Canadian Sport Awards: AthletesCAN Social Responsibility Award Nominees

AthletesCAN Social Responsibility Award

Charity Williams, Rugby

Kaitlyn Clark, Boxing

Phyllis Ellis, Field Hockey

CONTACT US

Board Nomination Period

2023 Election

Voting Period

Nominees

Devin Heroux, CBC Sports

Sean Fitz-Gerald

Rachel Brady, The Globe and Mail

Bruce Kidd Leadership Award

Dr. Sandra Kirby, Rowing

Rick Hansen, Para Athletics

Jane Roos, Canadian Athletes Now Fund

#AthleteVoice Award - Rep of the Year

Canadian Soccer Players Association

Eric Radford, Figure Skating

Jaqueline Simoneau, Artistic Swimming

True Sport Award

Michael Woods, Cycling

Austin Smeenk, Para Athletics

Raphaëlle Tousignant, Para Ice Hockey

AthletesCAN Social Responsibility Award

Charity Williams, Rugby​​

Kaitlyn Clark, Boxing

Phyllis Ellis, Field Hockey

CONTACT US

Charity Williams, Rugby