Shaun Newman Podcast - #885 - Danielle Larsen & Dexter Nelson

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Dexter Nelson is a certified athletic therapist who founded the Canadian Pro Rodeo Sport Medicine Program, the Alberta Athletic Therapists Association, and the Sport Medicine Council of Alberta.Danielle Larsen is a certified athletic therapist and volunteer for the Lakeland Region Winter Games Society.We discuss the 2026 Alberta Winter Games and the importance of having certified athletic therapists at the games. To watch the Full Cornerstone Forum: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionWebsite: www.BowValleycu.comEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail]

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That'd be why. um, um, yeah, we take a little bit of a break here in July and recharge the batteries and we'll be ready to roll. August 1 have no worries. I think we get back on a Tuesday or on a Tuesday on a, yeah, it's still there on a on a mashup if memory serves me correct. If you're listening or watching on Spotify, Apple, Rumble, YouTube, X, make sure to subscribe. Make sure to leave a review. Make sure to hit the retweet. Make sure to, you know, cut out your favorite parts of the podcast. I just saw a cool one where people were making commentary on some of the guests, that's cool too. You have fun with it.

If you're enjoying it, obviously text me. My numbers down on the show notes. I would love to hear your thoughts. All right, let's get on to that. Tale of the tape. The first founded the Canadian Pro Rodeo sports medicine program, the Alberta Athletic Therapist Association, and the Sports Medicine Council of Alberta.

The second is a certified athletic therapist and volunteer for the Lakeland Region Winter Game Society. I'm talking about Dexter Nelson and Daniel Larson. So buckle up, here we go. Welcome to the Shaw Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Daniel Larson and Dexter Nelson, who keeps coming and going. So I guess we'll start with Danielle.

Danielle, thanks for hopping on. Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me. Now, I assume Dexter's going to hop back in here at some point. But between here and there, maybe just tell the audience a little bit about yourself, first time on the podcast. We'd love to just, you know, let them and myself know a little bit about yourself. I'd love to hear it.

Yeah, so my name is Danielle Larson. I am in Bonneville, Alberta, more specifically summer village of Pelicaneros near Moose Lake. And I'm a certified athletic therapist and currently working with the Lakeland Region Winter Games Society for the 2026 Winter Games in the Lakeland region. I'm also a mom of two boys and my husband Matt is an industrial firefighter. Oh, wow. When you say industrial firefighter, do you mean just like, what actually do you mean by that? So he works for an industry for an oil company. Oh, okay, okay. Thank you for clarifying that.

Yeah, for sure. Firefighter. I'm like, wait a second. Yeah, industry, like private, private kind of, I guess, industry. Was he a silly question, maybe not silly? Was he just a firefighter before and then decide to go private? Or how did he get into just private? Yep, that was kind of basically the path.

He's also an electrician and kind of worked his way through a volunteer department, actually in Rocky View County near Calgary, and then had an opportunity to work for some oil companies in the north. And that's where his path took us. I know what's supposed to be about you. I'm just like industrial. I don't know if I'd ever heard. I didn't realize oil companies hired firefighters.

Now I sound silly because I should probably know that. I just thought that's a first. I didn't know that. So okay. Maybe you should meet up and you could ask him about it. Well, maybe he should join a blue color round table. That could be possible. Dexter, if you're listening, tell us a little bit. I am.

Tell the audience a little bit about yourself. Your first time guest. I like to, you know, just let the audience know who they're listening to. Sean, I taught for a number of years and Danielle was one of my students at Mount Royal College. And my background is I grew up on a farm. I went to Mount Royal in the University of Calgary, took a phys ed degree, played in sports. At UFC, I was an intercollegiate wrestler and a rugby player. On the farm, of course, it was wrestling and I'm sorry.

It was hockey and curling in the winter and baseball in the summer. But long story short, I've been busy and working as a certified athletic therapist. in Alberta for quite a number of years. And I'm currently the president of the Sport Medicine Council of Alberta. And when Danielle indicated that one of her ambitions, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, Danielle, was to try and find some resources to have certified athletic therapists and sport physios, and I'm sure you have other people,

you're interested in Danielle, if we could somehow pay them as volunteers, pay their expenses to come and look after athletes. Sean, I know that you as a hockey player had an athletic trainer working with your team. And frankly, we think that if there's risk involved in sport at whatever level, we think it would be important to have a person who understands that and can deal with it and look after the athlete's best interests. Now, all this circles around the Alberta Winter Games coming to Lakeland in 2026.

So before we get to trying to find resources and the importance of certified athletic therapy, in my brain, I keep wanting to say trainers, but I'm going to stick with the actual wording. Let's talk about the Alberta Winter Games coming in 2026. I was telling Danielle Dexter when you hopped off, you know, back as a younger man, I guess as a teenager, I got to compete in the Alberta Summer Games. And it's one of those fond memories, you know?

Like not every kid at any level of sport ever gets to compete in something like that. With the Alberta Winter Games, What drew both of you towards trying to, you know, help with that venture out or that, I don't know, that event? Yeah. I would say so locally in this area, we started a sport tourism committee that I was a part of in the area and explored the possibility of having the winter games here for next year. and then we're awarded that and was able to go on a delegation to the previous winner games in Grand Prairie, where I got to see all the sports, how they were taking care of, the polyclinics, and just saw that it's a similar region to us.

It was Grand Prairie, a little bit more rural, and saw some gaps in that medical piece with access to actual sport medicine professionals. there were some, but not every sport had access to them. So a lot of local medical professionals like our ends, first-aiders and, you know, others, paramedics, were helping, which is great. But the piece that was lacking was that actual sport medicine expertise. piece. So when I was offered this job with the local region, I immediately kind of, I guess targeted that as something that I wanted to improve for our games and then started making some calls and got connected with Dexter to see what we could do and how we can make it possible

to have actually the best people there for these athletes. And that meant bringing people in from outside of our local space, especially in this rural area. If you don't mind painting me a picture, Danielle, like when you say you're sitting there and you're in Grand Prairie and you're watching this go down and you're, you've seen all these wonderful athletes compete and I'm sure like tons of, I don't know, like it was just something about a giant athletic gathering.

that's pretty cool. But you talk about gaps in medical. So what did you, like when you were watching, what did you notice that you're like, gee, that's a whole. We should try and address that when it comes to our area. Well, I think it's just the awareness that sport medicine professionals, such as sport physio, certified athletic therapists and sport physicians,

like sport medicine and doctors, they learn, one, how to watch a sport and what to look for. Two, how to make quick decisions and make smart return to play decisions. And three, like another thing is just having that experience for the quick decision making, taping, strapping skills, all of those things that make that sport medicine piece. So I guess critical, especially in such a small short-term event that needs so much to these kids. Now, I assume, Danielle, that Dexter wasn't there with you and that when you decided to take on this role, you made a phone call to Dexter. Am I maybe piecing together part of the story? Kind of, yeah.

Kind of, it was like, who do I call? And that name definitely came up, especially knowing that he was a part of the Sport Medicine Council of Alberta, which is, it plays a piece in the Alberta Sport. I guess ministry that we are dealing with with winter games so that the the the Albert the sport ministry a Alberta sport ministry leads our organization and like the whole society to help run the games Dexter when when she made the phone call and she's talking about gaps and what she's seeing I assume and would you you know volunteer or help with it I just walk me through it because I mean you being around sports, being an athlete.

I like how you threw out wrestling on the farm first and not the other sports because I got older brothers and there was a whole lot of wrestling going on. What was your thoughts? Like what is your thoughts when it comes to winter games or, you know, amateur athletes getting together and then volunteering and then, you know, probably if I can tack one more in there, you know, gaps in medical, you know, being a part of that or making sure there are no gaps. Well, Sean, growing up again on the farm, you can see a lot of gaps at the time of what could have happened or whatever. And one of the other things I've done in my lifetime is I founded the Canadian Prododeo Sport Medicine team.

So when you go to rural communities, you'll get to see where there's opportunity for people to get hurt. You try and coach them in terms of prevention and so on. So to make a long story short, when Danielle talked to me about it, I said, well, what exactly do you need? And she said, well, we'd like to put together a budget, which would allow to pay for the expenses for people to come and spend. I think it's three days, isn't it, Danielle? Yeah, it's about three, three full days of competition. And have these people, both from a social perspective, but certainly from a professional perspective, come and apply their trade. and to raise the standard in terms of how we look after athletes,

who get hurt potentially, how to prevent it if we can. Once they are hurt, how to deal with them in an in-game or competition setting, make tough decisions around how they can return to play safely, etc. So we've, Danielle and I have been through this 100 times before. And honestly, when she said she was in Bonneville, I thought of you, Sean, because being in Lloyd Minster, you're kind of in the same part of the country. The other part is, and I'm going to pat you on the back,

you have an excellent program that a lot of people listen to, and I think some of the people you listen to might be interested in helping support this. Well, when it comes to athletics, you know, I have a soft spot in my heart for it, because as soon as you said it, I'm like, yeah, we could probably talk about that. And like I don't get to talk, you know, don't get to talk about sports near as much as I once did. but certainly when things are coming in the area, I want to help promote it. You were mentioning three days.

If anyone is curious, Alberta Winter Games, 2026, February 13th to 16th. And Daniel can fill in the blanks of exactly where it's at, but it's Lakeland. So you're looking at Bonneville, Cold Lake. I feel like there's a couple that I am spacing on. Glendon, yeah, the town or the village of Glendon.

And the municipal district of Bonneville is also a large partner as well being a big municipality around here now i i you know you you mentioned uh dexter you know like as a as a hockey player you had a trainer or i i'm going to keep saying trainer i apologize folks regardless did you have one i'm like oh yeah absolutely when i look at amateur athletes and i was an amateur athlete but sorry the younger ones right we're talking uh 14 to 16 year olds did i did i catch or is it 12 to 16 is it fair to say some of these kids have probably never had anything to do with a trainer or a certified athletic therapist? Yeah, I'd say pretty fair to say, although the provincial sporting organizations are actually

probably one of our biggest supporters as Certified ATTs and Sport Physios. They see the value of having us there. So when it comes to provincial sports or like the provincial competitions, so when you're going to like the Alberta, you know, provincials. You're trying to see them more and more. So even from the provincial sport organization perspective, it's something that they're familiar with. And they even have their people and, you know,

names that they would even, you know, throw in and suggest that they have for us. Well, I would think, you know, like all the little things make an event what it is, you know. So when you, you know, I'm not thinking of anything specifically, but having an athlete, oh man, I'm going to butcher this certified athletic therapist. I could probably say this 50 times and still not remember it, folks. But like little things like that will make it feel more professional too, right?

Like, and for a kid, 12 to 16 going there, maybe never having that experience, it's only going to bring the, the experience of Alberta Winter Games, which is already going to be an experience for all these kids a little higher. And I assume when I'm hearing, and maybe I'm wrong on this, when you're looking for resources to bring them in, it's kind of like a, not only can they benefit the kids that are there, but they can actually benefit their careers and their occupations by watching and learning and everything else. Because it's not like you're working on a kid every 10 seconds. It could be actually just monitoring, I mean, how many sports are going on in Alberta Winter Games? I assume quite a few. Yeah, 18 sports.

18 sports. So, you know, my brain immediately goes to hockey, but I'm sure, you know, like I was looking down the website, I'm like, how many, how many therapists, athletic therapist, man, I'm going to butcher this all episode long, folks. We could just say 80s also. 18s, that's better. Yeah. How many of them sit and watch a badminton game and are watching the, you know, like all the little dynamics of the quickness back and forth and having to deal with an injury like that compared to a big hit in a hockey game? I assume that adds into this for your background as well. Am I right in that? Yeah, absolutely.

Dexter, you jump in here whenever you'd like. I'd say that it's really good because for young therapists coming up, they're going to get exposure to new sports. But yeah, and also that social networking with other peers that they might not have worked with before. Yeah, well, and I got to, apologize to the audience, I can't see Dexter right now because he has no camera, so I can't pick up on social cues. Dexter, your thought. Yes. Well, so all of these kids, some of them,

and I shouldn't call them kids, but all of these young athletes, I think it may or may not have had some type of exposure. So typically in a small community, you'd have a nurse, you would have a person who's a first aid person and so on. Having someone like a certified athletic therapist, a sport physiotherapist. And if you look on the Sport Medicine Council of Alberta's website, which is SportMedalberta.com, you can see there's a number of different professions that provide service and support, injury care

for all of these athletes. I can tell you that when I worked both at the University of Calgary and then at Mount Royal College in Calgary, and when we were asked to volunteer to help, for example, a junior high wrestling tournament, what I found was these kids went 100 miles an hour. And when they got hurt, when you put a finger and said, where does it hurt? It hurt from the top of their head right to the bottom of their feet.

So in a sense, you're trying to educate these people about injuries and how to deal with them effectively. And to calm them down and have them focus on exactly where the problem might be. So I think this is actually an interesting exercise because we should have an opportunity to educate these young athletes about how to recognize and deal with injuries and then and the people that they can go to in the future should they have any issues with them. So that's kind of my idea and that's been my experience. Dexter, you said, and I don't know, I wrote down Canadian Pro rodeo something, something, you'll have to forget my something something because I couldn't rattle it off fast. am I to understand that you were watching rodeo and decided like they need some help

these guys are riding uh i assume bowls and everything else and you're like like these guys are athletes they need somebody looking at them or or what happened there walk me through this Sean I hope everybody laughs when I tell you this I rode stairs in a calgary stampede in 1964, which was probably before everybody, you or Danielle, were born. But I grew up in a community where rodeo was a big deal. And Don Johansson, who was a former Canadian bowriding championship, was a neighbor of mine. When I was at the University of Calgary, he said, you know, how come we can't do what they're doing in the States with the Justin Healer program? And I said, well, you know, there's probably not a reason that we shouldn't do that. So our first season,

We volunteered essentially to work the Calgary Stampede, to work Cloverdale in BC, to work Pinocca, and then work the Canadian finals in Edmonton. And to make a long story short, I'm quite familiar with rodeo injuries. And I worked it for 25 years, Sean. And I can tell you there's a laundry list of interesting things that happened with these people in terms of some of the injuries. And I also have to laugh because sometimes I had more injuries at the dance afterwards, Sean, than I did at the rodeo. Somehow that doesn't surprise me at all. I am kind of curious, though, like, you know, like, so you got all these, these athletes showing up for rodeo. Were you busy before, like, with them?

Or did they all just kind of look at you like, no, I'm not dealing with that guy. I'm a tough ombre. I'm going to go do what I have to do. or were they like, no, I could, I had really used some work. Could you help me out here? Like, was there, I'm just curious with that group of people, I know some rodeo boys. They're tough, tough guys. And I might add girls in there too.

Was that a welcome addition when you first started that? Sean, thank you. That's a good point. When we worked, and probably the Canadian finals, our first Canadian finals, which I think was in 1974. We had to sell ourselves. People looked at us and said, you just want a free ticket to come in or watch the rodeo or you want to do this or that.

With the help of Don Johansson and the fact that we worked with some of the high-risk events, probably bull riding and bear back bronch riding as examples, and to some extent, the timed event guys who were steer wrestlers and so on, if they'd blow out a knee or have a sprained ankle, We had to show success. And then word of mouth said, you can trust these guys, they'll help you. And actually, it's still going on.

I have former student of mine still looking after pro rodeo sport medicine. What is one of the success stories you had that spread word of mouth? Like, you know, I'm not, like, I don't know. I feel like Bull Rider gets bucked off, his shoulders out. He somehow slams it back in, shoots a, you know, I'm being a bit of a jackass here, folks. but, you know, takes a shot of whiskey and's like, let's go again. Because the cowboys I know, I'm like, I don't know, maybe they did see athletic therapists all the time. I just like, I don't recall this.

Now, I was not born back then, Dexter. So maybe you can give me a success story on how this worked with them. You know, I have to laugh, Sean, and I don't want to get into trouble either. But the typical first aid kit for a cowboy in those days, and I know I'm going to get heat for this, was a copeland. Hagen and Roy Whiskey. So I forgot the Copenhagen. That is my fault. No, no problem.

So let's say we've got a bull rider he comes off and the sprains a knee or sprains an ankle or if they have a concussion or and that's a whole separate conversation. But we would more often than not try and tape something up and that's assuming that it would would help them compete safely, then we would try and make things happen. A, give them advice and say, you know, if it stays the same or gets worse, you shouldn't do this, which doesn't come very often because, you know, Cowboys, Sean, they'll do it no matter what. And so we offered good advice. We actually helped them do certain things, and typically taping something that was to protect it was some of the things that they really liked.

So if you fast forward to the Alberta Winter Games, and you're looking at, I'm just looking at some of the different sports, alpine skiing, archery, artistic gymnastics, biathlon, cross-country skiing, curling, freestyle skiing. Oh, that, yeah, I assume there's going to be a few injuries there. I would assume you both agree like anytime you're not playing chess, sorry chess players, and you're doing something physical with the body. I even think of Bamminton and just how quick you have to be to get to the different sides of the court, how quickly you could do something with an ankle or a knee or on and on. How important is it to have somebody there immediately while it's going on? Well, I think being able to watch an injury is actually kind of,

of a it's a great great thing to watch the mechanism because then you have a really good idea of what you're dealing with so that that eyes on the injury of course you can't see everything you know sometimes you'll have someone come with an injury but just that importance of immediate care immediate eyes on the injury just helps especially because this is such a short-term competition that the quicker it gets assessed and then, you know, some solutions given the better chance that that athlete might be able to compete later on that day or in the weekend. So, yeah, time is really essential and short-term competition for sure. You said something there that it fascinates me.

Why is now I'm like, I get hurt, I walk into Danielle's office and I try and explain it. I can probably understand why it's important to see the injury, but what is the important? of seeing the injury happen like in real time? Well, it's just a bonus, I think. It just gives perspective to the forces involved, direction of, you know, injury, what all could be involved in secondary things also. So it's one of those things also where video,

like video replay is really great. It's like a technology that we can use as sports medicine professionals to see see okay like what what actually did happen here what should we be watching up for of course we have to do a full examination to really get an idea of the injury but it's just it's a piece of the puzzle that you know it saves us explaining and if we if we know what's going on dexter you've you've had many a year in this how important is seeing it happen versus trying to just have a cowboy or a hockey player or take your pick, try and be like, oh yeah, my ankle hurts. Like, I don't,

what happened? Well, I just kind of fell into the boards weird or what have you. How important is actually seeing it in real time versus, you know, having it diagnosed? You even think video replay is a new technology that has not been around, you know, forever. Sean, if communication is typically a problem. And if you ask somebody who may not have lots of experience to describe what happened. You say, well, for example, in a knee injury, you might plant your leg, rotate and push off, which might suggest that you've got an enter cruciate tear. Or in a shoulder injury, if you've got, if you've elevated your arm up, so your elbows as high as your shoulder, and then pretend you're going to throw a football. If that's where the position is, then you're

saying that's a classic position for a shoulder dislocation. So if you can see it, then they don't have to describe it to you because sometimes when the people describe it, it's not as accurate as if you can actually see the thing happening. I can see Danielle nodding as you go along and I'm like, I feel like you're both not speaking Chinese, but at the same time I'm like, uh-huh, the tear, yeah, it hurts. The shoulder hurts, Dexter. I don't know if I just got bumped into the corner.

But Sean, go ahead. I was just going to say I just because I also work for the so the pro rodeo sport medicine team and we just had an injury over the last weekend and seeing that injury helped us make a quicker call for an injury too right so eyes on it being able to activate EMS sooner because we knew the gravity of the situation so there's there's kind of a lot of reasons why being there and seeing is really important. Sean, tell us you, you've played hockey and at quite a high level. So have you ever been injured before?

Oh, yes. Yeah. So I've had my skills. So do you have any particular injury that you'd like to talk to us about? Well, they've, since then, I've gone to athletic trainers and have them worked on. But I remember being a younger guy. the best thing to do was not to tell anyone because if you told someone then you might get pulled from the game and I didn't want to get pulled from the game so I've I've torn my PCL I've had a partial

tear in one of the other in your knee anyways and I knew as soon as it happened and I I went off like yeah all right like yeah yeah I'm fine because I'm like I don't you know it was playoffs I didn't want to I didn't want to get pulled and I had this fear and my head of like if you tell them you're done for you know it's it's the hymen we just had now that was different that was a broken wrist as far as I think is from what I'd heard um but you know like there's this culture and hockey specifically and I assume cowboys as well we didn't have the Copenhagen there as much as they did but certainly um you know like you're supposed to grit through some of the pain you know and and concussions you know we've seen a huge change in

that when I played, you know, like you got a concussion. As long as you were still functioning, you, you just played through it, right? And so playing through it, that comes with repercussions down the line that I, you know, as a younger athlete, I wish I probably would understood. Because, you know, like, you know, losing your knees over one game in playoffs probably isn't the smartest choice. So I can wholeheartedly agree with what you're saying. I just chuckle at, you know, seeing it real time versus having to deal with me like, you know, a month after? When did this happen? Yeah, a month ago.

What are you been doing? Playing hockey. Are you an idiot? Yes. Yes, I am. You know? Like that's my, but that's the error I grew up in. It's changed an awful lot, Dexter.

No, it has. And it's funny you say that because some people don't, if they're hurt, let's take a rodeo athlete. If they're hurt, they know they're hurt. They don't want any help. They're angry. You have to let them settle down, sort it out, and let them come to you when they're ready so that you can actually do an assessment on them and figure out. Here's what we think your problem is.

Now, either 80% of the time, these cowboys are amazing, cowgirls also, who, if they're injured, they have an active lifestyle, usually back on the farm or wherever. 80% of the time, and I'm making numbers up, they'll go back. and they'll actually work and physically be active and rehab these things, whether they know it or not, and then come back. It's the people who, when you say to them and look them in the eye and say, listen, if this stays the same or gets worse, I think we better get somebody, we better look at this and try and recommend some future care or somehow to deal with it. So with your PCL, and I'm guessing maybe an ACL, then you're looking at some type of abrasing, a rehab program, You might be looking at surgery.

You need to have all of those things explained to you so you know what your choices are, Sean. And that's what our job is. Yeah, it's a hardest thing for an athlete to hear because when it was my PCL, they were talking about how much time was going to take to rehab and all the different things. And I was like, well, can I play hockey in two weeks? They're like, I've made a few athletic trainers truckle in their day because, you know, I want to get back playing. and sticking to a program to make you healthy again is sometimes difficult for a thick-skulled guy like myself

who just wants to play. Just do whatever you got to do. Just let me back on the ice. I don't care. I just want me back on the ice. I assume that's got to be an interesting thing for you two to have to deal with. It boils down to,

yeah, you need to have an athlete trust you and trust your advice. And once you say, well, John, if you've got to turn PCL, posterior cruciate ligament, then here's the deal. If you keep doing this, here are the potential things that are going to make it worse over time. And it's not going to get better unless we do something in a positive way. There's a lot of examples where you can keep doing things and with luck, it won't get worse. But we try to give you advice and say, you're making a good choice.

Here are your choices. Here's the one we recommend. If you do the other things, here's what might happen and then in the end if you come back and see us again now we've got a line of communication where you understand what we told you was true and now we can find some better solutions for it yeah yeah well one of the things i was talking about earlier today with a friend with uh with having young kids is trying to get the not only ourselves but them to think longer than you know maybe the day or the week ahead because you know you make choices when and with you two talking about injuries you know like There's a chance. You're like, there's a chance. It just gets better. There is a chance. Yep. But let's paint a picture of five years down the road if you don't get this the right way. Or maybe it's less than that.

And how debilitating it could be to you playing said sport long term. And, you know, that's something that every athlete has to wrestle with. And I assume that's a big chunk of what your roles are in building trust and trying to make them understand. You know, maybe we should think about this from a different angle than just trying to finish out the match. Yeah, I'd say that's very important, especially when it comes to head injuries in that awareness piece. Like, we could talk about that for ages, but just signaling that, you know, you've had a head injury, you are concussed, that ability to take yourself out of play. Just really, it's saving your one brain, right? So those big decisions are super important to take seriously. And without proper guidance and trust of the people caring for you,

then yeah, could be quite serious in the long term. Why do you guys, both to use? Oh, sorry, Dexter, fire. No. So for me, there's really two questions you have to ask. What's the accurate diagnosis and what's the accurate treatment protocol? And as you work with these people, and I know in rodeo, Danielle, we'll see the same cowboys and cowgirls over and over. And after a while, they'll come to us and say, well, what do you think of this?

So once you establish a repertoire where you say, here are your choices, they respect that. If you go out there and say, you can't do this anymore, they're going to ignore you. So you give them choices. Your choices actually turn out to be valid. They understand that. And then in the future, they'll actually trust and do what you ask them to do. And I think that's what it's all about. To see an athlete once is difficult.

To see them over and over again actually builds that relationship. So how do you build trust real fast in an event like the winner games? Well, that's difficult for sure. It's short term, right? But I would say having the right people in place that understand, you know, the sport itself. also the protocols in place and, you know, what can be done to return them to play. Just that background of the sport medicine piece, it immediately sets yourself up for success as practitioner.

And then also just kind of that communication piece with the teams coming in maybe beforehand and saying here, like, these are the people that are going to be in place. They have these credentials. please trust them with your kids. You know, like having that information to these coaches early on would be really, yeah, would really help build that trust from the beginning. Which brings me then. You know, can I just say that when you have the parents who are typically there,

when you have underage kids, kids under 18 years of age, and you're still under the parents' auspices, and you establish a relationship with the parents, then you can actually work well with the young athlete. The other part is when you start mixing different professions, certified athletic therapists, sport physios, sport physicians, and if you look at sport medicine council, there's a number of other ones.

Actually, we start to establish a relationship between ourselves so that if I need to see an orthopedic surgeon, I have a personal relationship with somebody who I can refer them to. And I think that's the other bonus of actually all of us working together. as a team and getting to know each other. Well, let's talk about resources. You know, one of the things about coming on here was to try and implore people to help support this.

So what is it exactly you need to make this possible? We talking a million dollars? We're talking $100,000? Are we talking $1,000? Like, where are we, like, how much money would it take to get the people you need? Because it's not like it's 100 sports, you know? And saying that, it's not like it's 10 teams either.

Yeah, that's correct. I did some quick calculations and we're looking at about $30,000 for the winter games to cover mileage and that's probably a good number to cover mileage, accommodations, and meals. And I just want to preface it that the officials for the winter games, those expenses are paid for you know so the refs and all that kind of stuff they're volunteering their time but you know they're they're taking care of because they want the best of the best from from their province right so they're not only using local people uh so that's kind of why we'd like to have this funding um because in the past it's trying to rely on local people and if we want other

people that actually know the sports or that are sport medicine professionals coming to rural areas they're coming from far. And that can be a barrier for those practitioners. So the expense piece is important. And I also see this, like we're starting here at the winter games, but I could see this being a perpetual thing for the summer games that are coming and the winter games that go after them, right? That this just becomes a norm that we have this high-quality medical staff at these games

to take care of these athletes. But yeah, so that's kind of our target. And I think they're there. Are the athletic therapists, are they, Alberta only? Are they coming from further than that? Like, is it? Yeah, it would be provincial.

Provincial. Yeah, so anywhere from in Alberta, the funding would help bring certified Alberta to the winter games. Yeah. And sport physios. That's another group that are, you know, they do a similar thing, very, very similar to us. And are a big piece of that.

How can, if somebody's listened to this, Daniel, and they're like, you know, can I donate to it? Can I, yeah, I don't know. How can they get involved? Let's assume somebody's listening to this. They're like, you know, I competed at the Alberta Winter Games, Alberta Summer Games. Maybe they got a fond spot in their heart for, you know, youth sports. how can they get in touch with you or find out more how can how can they go about that for sure they could probably email me i'll give you my email which is daniel d-a-n-i-l-e-l-le at 2026a-wg dot com so folks i'm going to

put that in the show notes and if sean forgets to put it in the show notes or a better possibility you can't find it because I know how this works. You can just text me and I will pass along that email as well. So down on the show notes or you can text me and I can forward that along as well. Dexter, any thoughts on that before, you know, I let you out of here. Like is there any final thoughts you want people to know about the Alberta Winter Games, certified athletic therapists, anything like that? I think it's important that the average point.

person, whether or not they know that, I'm sure they've heard of the term athletic trainer before, Sean. I suspect they have, but the more formal term would be certified athletic therapist or sport physio and so on. Anyway, the long story in that is we're trying to establish better care at all levels within the province. If people want to donate money, sometimes if you're a business, you'd like to have a tax receipt. and Sport Medicine Council is prepared to take the donation, issue a tax receipt, and then final every cent of that back to Danielle to do what she needs to do.

So if there's people out there wondering about that advantage, then it's certainly there. Okay, so if there's a business or if anyone needs a tax receipt, just so I have this clear, then they go to Dexter, correct? They'll go to SportMed, Alberta, on the website, and then they'll talk to Lindsay, who's our executive director,

and they say we would like to donate money for Danielle and what she's doing with the Alberta Winter Games, and Lindsay would explain to them how to do that. So where to put the money, how we would issue a tax receipt, and how that money would go directly to Danielle. Yeah. What I'm going to say to all the lovely listeners, because they're going to want simple.

You just text me and I'll harass Dexter and we'll get you that tax receipt so that that that I can see questions coming and that's all right. Okay. Any other final thoughts before I let you two out of here, whether it's anything we've covered today. If you have any final thoughts for the listeners, please fire away. Well, I just say thank you for providing me of this platform. for Dexter and I.

And if you're not in the position to donate, that's great. I just love that you heard this podcast and that you, you know, like are interested in knowing a bit more about what we do as, you know, sport medicine professionals. And I think that education piece is just about as valuable as, uh, as this project that we're working on. So, uh, yeah, thanks. Dexter. Sean, your podcast.

And the reason that I talked to you or texted you about this is the fact that I've listened to your podcast for quite a long time now. And I want to thank you, as Danielle did, for what you're doing, not only in sport, but for some of the other people you have to educate the listener. And the fact that we could actually do this with you today, I think was a blessing in disguise. And I want to thank you for that. Well, hey, I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you reaching out. You know, as I said before, I don't get to talk about sports near or not. enough anymore. And, you know, it was a big chunk of my life for a long time. So I have a,

you know, I got a ton of time for amateur athletes as much as I do the pros. And I think it's super cool when, you know, I was, like I said, I'll reiterate it. I got to play in an Alberta summer games. It's a, it's a cool experience for kids to have. And it takes a lot of different people to come together to pull that off. So to the volunteers, you two and others, obviously you're not alone. My hat's off to them. Because volunteers, volunteering is, you know, what ties a community together. And really appreciate you guys reaching out and coming on the show. I hope, you know, some of the listeners, you know, find something in this that they're like,

yeah, I would love to support that. And I hope it helps. Either way, thanks for hopping on today. And, well, good luck with Alberta Winter Games in 2026. Thank you. Thank you.