Poet’s Corner: Dispatches from the Winter Games

Why do so many of us find sport achievement inspiring? Why do the Olympics and other games seem to draw out of even some of the most timid of our friends and neighbors overwhelming, even volatile, passions and emotions?

Over the last five to six weeks that I’ve been following the games (by the way, when I work out the math I’m astonished to discover that I’ve essentially attended at least one sporting event per day—everything’s a blur right now as I write this last dispatch before taking the plane home to Toronto), I have heard from friends and colleagues following the poems and dispatches who have also been swept up by games fever. One told me she lost her voice just jumping up and down in her living room when Alexandre Bilodeau won the first Olympic gold medal on Canadian soil. Another sent me a link to an overhead video of Vancouver’s Cambie Street Bridge—all is quiet urban landscape and then you can literally hear the city rise with a roar as Crosby scores the overtime hockey goal. A woman from Belgium that I met at cross-country skiing yesterday, who had never attended an event before, was off her seat, yelling “Come on! Come on Canada!” as Brian McKeever passed his guide to tackle nearly half the sprint course in the lead position—personally, I think he wanted to be the first person to cross the finish line. And as I watched Brian bravely take on the icy turns and pole his way to a smashing victory—his third gold in these games—after suffering heartbreak from not being able to race in the Olympics, I was close to tears. OK, I shed a few tears.

In sport, human wishes and dreams are admitted, openly, to the public. The athlete is vulnerable, and no amount of training and talent and determination can completely guarantee the outcome. The race, the game, the score, a medal, is simply a visual or quantitative representation of the dream to succeed against the odds—to have one’s dream undergo metamorphosis and step out of heart, mind, and body, and exist resplendently in front of all. Art at its best does this also. Readers, spectators are invited to participate in the dream world of another person. It’s emotional. It’s scary. It’s magical. When the dream is crushed by a fall or error or by another’s dream, it’s devastating.

I’ve spent the last several weeks literally dreaming other people’s dreams, my sleep filled with athletes and medals and glory and heartbreak. And over the course of these games, their dreams have become my dreams too. Talking to the athletes, writing poems for them and about sport, writing these dispatches, attending the live events, I have been privileged to enter the space of the elite athlete and to invite the elite athlete and other readers into my dream world as well. The experience has been an overwhelmingly positive one.

I hope it doesn’t end here. On a personal note, I want to put out to the universe that I would love to work the same job during 2012 Summer Games in London, England. And I know several of the athletes hope I will make it there, just as I hope they will make it there. But on a much larger note, I would like to see the worlds of sports and arts meet more, and on more creative terms. And I truly hope society embraces the dreams of these athletes to encourage people to live more physically active lives, not just to be healthier, but to learn the great life lessons sport offers us all. I also hope these three games encourage our policy-makers and funding organizations to recognize the importance of sport for all—for our women (who won more medals in the Olympics and Paralympics than the men), for our aboriginal youth, and for those with disabilities.

We need to dream other people’s dreams once in a while to reimagine our own.

To read this poem, look for Priscila Uppal’s collection, Winter Sport: Poems, forthcoming from Mansfield Press.

I’ve made the claim several times that athletes and artists share a lot in common, and that one of the things they share is the ability to manage pain, or to use pain as a transforming, rather than debilitating, force in their lives and work.

I’m a bit obsessed by the topic, and my new poetry collection Traumatology, to be released in a few days, explores traditional and contemporary concepts of health as divided into three categories: mind, body, and spirit. While I am happy with the subjects explored in the collection, I almost wish that I could add, at this last minute, some poems relating to what I’ve learned about health, pain, and the body-mind-spirit dynamic by watching the Paralympic athletes compete.

I feel lucky that, aside from smoking—which I quit once I realized I wasn’t young enough to smoke and run anymore—I’ve been a physically healthy and active person. I also feel lucky that I seem to possess great mental strength and determination. One of the documents relating to my life that I am most proud of is a psychological evaluation report conducted a year after my mother ran off. The doctor concludes: Child exhibits trauma. Child exhibits excellent coping mechanisms. It’s not a bad biographical sketch to live up to. And I try. I deal with mental anguish—melancholy, pessimism, existential angst, utter rage, disdain, horror—on a near daily basis. A lot of people don’t believe me when I say this, because I love to laugh and embrace the joys of the high life, but it’s true. I’m restless, and terrified, and angry, but am determined to fight back. Through my art, I try to confront the causes of our human suffering, to give it form, if not meaning.

Though I do sometimes wonder what it means to live in that pain. Does it mean I sometimes like it? I wouldn’t say that I like physical pain (I’ve never punched anyone, and paper-cuts distress me), but when my legs are aching and my throat is burning when I’m running, I sometimes realize that I’m actually smiling. Same when I’m writing a sad, brutal poem. Do we just know each other now so well as adversaries or opponents that we have some of the habits of friends? Or am I smiling because deep down I’m thinking: You won’t win. You can’t take me down.

I know that the Paralympics is an uplifting celebration of the human spirit, but to me it’s also the flicking of a giant middle-finger up to fate, a f*** you to anyone who ever said you shouldn’t or couldn’t. It’s a mastery of pain: physical, mental, psychological. The paradox is that one must live in pain to master it. These athletes not only deal with the massive challenges in this area that all elite athletes face, but have also had to handle pain in beneficial ways to be able to live with their illnesses and injuries and all the problems, challenges, and prejudices that go with them. Some of the competing athletes were born with their disabilities, some were able-bodied athletes before becoming injured, some are war veterans or victims of violence. They each have discovered strategies, or coping mechanisms, to use that pain as an intense, motivating force, and to not get bogged down in the “why me?” question. It’s as if they just admit pain, rather than fight it: Yes, I’m in pain. So what? That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing what I want to do.

We hit limits, of course. But in sport and art people test those limits all the time. When they test the limits, they encourage others to find ways to shatter them. (Sometimes it’s the next generation that figures it out, but the trailblazers, even those who failed to achieve their goals, needed to press up against those boundaries before they could be broken down.) Whenever I have writing students who have played competitive sports, they are usually much more willing to put in the hours of discipline needed to complete pieces of work. They don’t expect it to be easy, and are less likely to shy away from struggle and the pain of the process. They know that, most likely, if they keep at it, they will see results. And even if they don’t, the pain will have taught them something about themselves, or about the subject of writing, which they didn’t know before.

(Today’s poem was written in response to watching visually impaired alpine skiers fall or crash. I am boggled by the bravery required to send yourself down a hill when if you fall you will have very little idea of where you will be on the course or what you might hit on the way down.)

To read this poem, look for Priscila Uppal’s collection, Winter Sport: Poems, forthcoming from Mansfield Press.

How do you play hockey without ice skates? What does it feel like to sit-ski? How does a blind biathlete shoot the targets? How to you aim stones in wheelchair curling? While I’ve been attempting to answer these questions throughout my Paralympic dispatches as a spectator of the games, beyond simply watching the athletes compete, each venue includes a “Play Like a Paralympian” area whereby the public can try out Paralympic sports equipment and learn in a hands-on manner what skills disabled athletes develop to succeed in their given discipline. Both adults and children are encouraged to participate in these interactive spaces, and line-ups to try out sledges and sit-skis and wheelchair curling are steady throughout the day.

At Whistler, I sat in a mono-ski, the type of ski used by most alpine athletes in the “sitting” categories (those who have injuries or disabilities affected their lower bodies). While I was already amazed by the speeds these skiers execute (sometimes faster than able-bodied Olympians because their weight is so close to the ground), the turning skills required to negotiate downhill and slalom gates, and the way the ski acts as a spring on bumps propelling the athlete through the air, I had no concept of the immense strength required to balance the mono-ski on a flat, let alone a steep downhill, surface, until I was placed in one and would have toppled over if not for the kind woman explaining the equipment to me. The skier must have incredible core strength and acute balancing skills, as those are the only factors holder the skier upright. And the skier is rarely upright during alpine—he/she is always turning—which means that the skier is always in danger of falling over if not for this balance and use of poles. When you see a skier fall, the volunteer told me, now you know what strength it takes for the athlete to push the ski back up and continue down the hill.  I couldn’t even get out of the mono-ski by myself. (And I’m glad no one wanted to blindfold me and send me down the slopes to teach me about visually-impaired alpine skiing.)

The sledge hockey equipment available is adjusted to a “floor hockey” version—sledges and the hockey sticks with wheels instead of blades and picks—since ice rinks are not available for demonstrations. But hockey is hockey, and Canadians won’t give up the chance to play hockey whenever the opportunity arises, so the space dedicated to instructing would-be sledge hockey players (able-bodied or not) is usually the most popular at each venue. The volunteers even set-up mini sledge races and two-minute matches for the children. Again, you recognize the arm strength required to propel yourself down the ice. And since sledge hockey teams have fewer players than stand-up hockey, you are propelling yourself down the ice a lot. (This is why sledge hockey periods are fifteen minutes rather than twenty.)

You can try out a laser rifle used by visually-impaired biathletes, a cross-country sit-ski, and the sticks used to slide stones across the ice in wheelchair curling. (I learned wheelchair curling is even more technical than conventional curling because there are no sweepers to help navigate the stones.) It confirmed to me what I’ve been thinking throughout the Paralympics: familiarity builds interest and excitement. The children love the equipment. The adults are fascinated by the technological developments. I love learning the rules of the games and the skills the athletes need to develop to excel at each sport. You just need the opportunity and exposure to trigger the rest.

Sports are, at their core, the triumph over restrictions. In Paralympic sports, human ingenuity and creativity is showcased in amazing ways. Weekday stands are packed with schoolchildren—there’s a great initiative to bring entire grades and schools of children to the games to learn about sports, disability, and international culture, and of course none could afford to do so during the Olympic games—and it’s great to hear them cheer as loudly for Paralympic athletes as they would for any other athlete, and to screech with delight as they try out the equipment.

(Today’s poem relates to a group of schoolchildren attending the sledge hockey 7th and 8th place game: Sweden vs Norway. One boy was waving a flag with Sweden on one side and Italy on the other, and I stole little bits of overheard conversation to construct this poem.)

To read this poem, look for Priscila Uppal’s collection, Winter Sport: Poems, forthcoming from Mansfield Press.

When I made my first donation to CAN Fund, the athlete I was told received my money was a sledge hockey player named Billy Bridges. I hadn’t heard of him at the time, mostly because I hadn’t heard much about sledge hockey at the time. I knew Paralympians competed in hockey, I just had never witnessed a game either in person or on television, and so I’m sure I must have thought it would be equivalent to wheelchair basketball—the same sport but in wheelchairs or, in this case, a sled.

But each Paralympic sport (including wheelchair basketball), although based on conventional able-bodied sport categories, is in many ways an entirely new sport, or at least another distinct version of the game. If sport were a language—and it might be—we might call these versions dialects.

I was excited to meet Billy, who I now thought of as one of my athletes, and when we were introduced, we immediately hit it off. Billy loves writing and literature, and he proceeded to shoot question after question at me about my favourite authors and books, about studying literature at university (Billy is enrolled at the University of Toronto, taking a course or two a year while he competes in hockey—he’s even a member of a frat), and about creative writing. I shot question after question at him about sledge hockey. Billy was born with spina bifida and his parents were told that he would never lead an active life. At fourteen, he became the youngest hockey player ever appointed to Team Canada. He has competed in three Paralympic games, and probably has at least two more games in him. He has one of the fastest shots in the world. (Oh, and he’s also won a ton of national medals in wheelchair basketball.)

Last fall, he told me about a film called Sledhead, by David Mcllvride, a documentary following Billy and a handful of other players through their journey to the World Championships, that was showing during a Toronto film festival highlighting representations of disability. My partner Chris and I attended the screening. And we were amazed.

Sledge hockey is a very different game than stand-up hockey (as it is called among Paralympic athletes). Yes, the rules for scoring are the same. And most of the rules regarding penalties, off-sides, icing, and face-offs are the same. But these athletes play strapped into sledges, lightweight titanium sleds with skate blades underneath, and they move about the rink by utilizing two short hockey sticks with shooting blades on one end and picks on the other.

OK, so what does that mean, besides that they utilize a different mode of transport on the rink? It means that when they hit each other against the boards, one, they are hitting each other with their entire bodies, and two, they are hitting each other on the part of the boards where there is zero give whatsoever. The picks are violent weapons that the players are not shy to use on each other when they get into a scuffle or when they are fighting for the puck along the boards. At one point in the film, a player lifts his jersey so the camera can capture the multitude of jabs he has suffered during the game—his entire torso littered with bleeding or scabbing puncture holes. It also means, if you’re a goalie, that almost every shot is aimed at your face. Paul Rosen, the goalie, claims Billy has knocked out a least a dozen of his teeth, just in practice. And I know that Billy’s fiancée, Sami Jo Small, a two-time Olympic gold-medallist and one-time silver-medallist women’s hockey goalie, has found that aspect of the sport a little hard to get used to as she sometimes straps on the sled and her goalie mask for the Ontario guys if they can’t train with their team goalies.

These men are a lot tougher than the majority of NHL players. And they want to win just as badly, if not more. For many of them, the game is their life, their entry into a life, away from being “physically-challenged” persons to persons who physically challenge themselves. And they are challenged in ways that, even with a disabled father, I had never considered. Perhaps the most haunting scene in Sledhead is watching Team Canada navigate a German airport (I believe it’s Frankfurt) where there is no wheelchair accessibility available to them for their flight transfer. Men who can piggyback each other through the terminal and then to their airplane seats. Others slide across floors and up stairs on their knees, some carrying their wheelchairs in one hand. Billy tells me this happens all the time. It’s what they go through to compete.

I’m very much looking forward to today’s rounds of sledge hockey, which will mark the first time I’ve ever gone to a live game, and so the first time I’ve ever seen Billy play. I urge you to watch a game, if you can, and to rent Sledhead. I assure you, no matter how much you think you know about hockey, you will be astonished.

for Billy Bridges

This isn’t standup hockey.
Our team is colder, bolder,
more bruised under the maple leaf
than you can imagine.

This is the definition of physical.
Full-body contact into unforgiving boards,
pucks to the face, torsos to ice, spiked
sticks stabbing into sides.

Every man on the ice has a story
whose moral is victory, if only he doesn’t run out
of time.

This is ice-calligraphy.
Sleds carve their names as they race from goal
to goal, bench to bench, penalty box
to locker room.

This isn’t standup hockey.
Our team tests its strength against 
the rinks and scoreboards themselves.

No prediction remains unsmashed.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Paralympic sport is how the visually impaired athletes compete: what technology is used, how the rules are adjusted, and how a relationship is built between athlete and guide. The logistics are not just important for the success of the athlete, but are essential to ensure as much safety as is possible. In winter sport, after all, falls and spills and dangerous speeds are par of the course for fully-sighted and able-bodied athletes.

The immense courage (or recklessness, depending on your point of view) to ski let alone race without the ability to see the course is part of the appeal of watching this sport category. Spectators can’t quite believe what they are seeing. When races are delayed due to low visibility, this is done for the sake of the guides.

Now it should be pointed out that the guides are also, by necessity, elite athletes themselves. Most have skied competitively at a national if not international level, and have been recruited as guides either if they’ve fallen just short of qualifying times, if they have recently retired, or if personal reasons lead them in this direction. For instance, Robin McKeever decided to dedicate his skiing career to guiding his brother Brian—and they are among the most decorated Paralympic athletes in history. Brian qualified for the Olympics this year, and so Robin must also maintain Olympic shape to stay in front of his brother.

It’s very heartening to see how many family members, at least in the initial stages of a career, take on the role of guide. I met Dustin Walsh, two-time, 800-metre, visually-impaired Paralympian, and his parents at a CAN Fund event the other evening, and it was Dustin’s father who first trained daily with his son, holding his shirt, laying a hand on his back, even holding his hand as they ran the track for hours each day, until Dustin’s talents took him farther than his father was able to go (he would have had to quit his job to train properly with his son, and the twenty-year age difference wasn’t helping either). Now Dustin and his guide, who use a short tether between them as they run—I’m told the hardest part is synchronizing stride, as to be most efficient they should look like one person running—have been working together for the last six years, and are hoping to qualify for London. It won’t be easy. I’ve been told the Canadian standard for Paralympians is ridiculously high. Dustin must meet a 52-second standard for London. Only three athletes ran this time in Beijing.

The guides are involved in the competition as much as the athletes themselves—although, again, try to put yourself in the visually-impaired athlete’s shoes or skis and imagine what it must be like to rely nearly exclusively on the vocal commands of your guide to instruct your body to get through a challenging or dangerous course in the quickest time possible.

Here is how it works: guides can ski in front or behind (I have yet to witness a pairing where the guide skis behind the athlete, but Courtney Knight’s guide, Andrea Bundon, tells me that because Courtney is heavier than she is, Courtney frequently passes her and then Andrea guides from the behind position). Guides can be either gender, and I’ve seen women guide male skiers and men guide female skiers. The guides communicate with their athletes by radio microphone. In cross-country races, you can actually see and hear the guide talking, calling to, and encouraging the athlete. In biathlon, laser rifles are used and a tone indicates when the athlete is aiming at a target. Guides are also continually glancing behind to ensure their athlete is not too close or too far—again, a real challenge in downhill where the speeds are blistering and where spills can be life-threatening. If the athlete is too close, a collision can occur. I saw one race where the guide fell, and the athlete could not go on without the guide, although technically, if the athlete is able to ski to the finish without the guide, that’s fine—the guide need not finish the race, only the athlete.

In fact, it’s downhill where the guide-athlete relationship, from a spectator point of view, is at its most intense. Yesterday, nearly every single visually impaired female athlete wiped out after crossing the finish line (if she made it to the finish line). These athletes skied the same downhill course that caused chaos for the Olympic athletes, where acceleration increases at a mind-blowing rate at the bottom of the hill. On top of this, although the audience is instructed to be as quiet as possible for the visually impaired races, so they can hear their guides, applause is difficult to deaden, especially once the athlete has crossed the finish line. The course caused havoc for the men skiers too. And athletes in all categories. Over the course of the day, one athlete was lifted out by helicopter. A Canadian skier was taken off the bottom of the hill in a stretcher.

The first person to congratulate or console the competing athlete is their guide. And in winter Paralympics, medals are awarded to both athletes and guides. For some reason, which no one has been able to explain to me yet, guides do not receive medals for the summer Paralympics. The acknowledgement of training, dedication, and accomplishment that a medal offers is a motivating factor for guides. Summer Paralympics guide medals would encourage more elite athletes to perform this crucial role in a visually impaired athlete’s life. It would also help to continue to build a lot of important relationships inside and outside of sport.

To read this poem, look for Priscila Uppal’s collection, Winter Sport: Poems, forthcoming from Mansfield Press.