Electronic Walkabout. No one should have to walk through life alone. We share the good times, the bad times, and the best times. Everyone needs a little direction now and again. And TC and Maddog are here to show you the way. A podcast where we talk about the important things in life. Come journey with us. The Electronic Walkabout. Well, good afternoon, good morning, and good evening wherever you're listening in the world. During this episode of Electronic Walkabout, we have a special guest going to share his story of success and how dreams really do come true for those that work hard and play hard. This episode's special guest is Mark Goudie, the CEO of Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group that house such teams as the Ottawa Red Black's and the Ottawa 67's, the Red Blacks, one of Canada's Canadian Football League teams, and the Ottawa 67's, a Junior "A" hockey team. You are truly going to enjoy Mark sharing his journey to success and at the very least, inspired and motivated to find your very own dream job. We always like to share a good news story and what better story than the Grey Cup hosted in beautiful Downtown Vancouver. The 111th Grey Cup is Canada's national football championship and the city has come to life all week in anticipation of today's game where the Toronto Argonauts are going head to head with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Well, thanks for stopping by for the episode, Mark. We really do appreciate it. How are you doing today?

I'm awesome. It's Grey Cup day.

Grey Cup day. So how many Grey Cups have you been to?

I've been to a ten in a row here since we came back into the league in 2014. First one was out here in Vancouver and I've been to a couple in Ottawa back, you know, growing up as a kid and then growing up as.

A kid and you know what? And I'm going to start there a bit because I grew up in Ottawa as a kid and I always joke on this, this podcast that we do extensive research. We don't, but I did, I did happen to notice there were some similarities. Ottawa 67’s games and Ottawa Rough Riders. Yeah, What a beautiful way to grow up and watch those sports.

Well, it's crazy because my, my uncle Howard Darwin was one of the original owners of the Ottawa 67s. So I've been going to games since I was like 4 years old. My, my dad sold tickets to games for Uncle Howard, so I get dragged along to tons of 67s games. So, you know, later in my career to come back and have a, a role in something that's been so important. Ottawa is, is awesome. This is a dream job.

Dream job and I'm going to talk a little bit about it, but. So you played sports too growing up?

Yeah. Not much demand for a scrappy 5 foot 5 hockey player. Lacrosse player. So. Yeah.

You love, you played lacrosse too?

Loved lacrosse is my probably love. It's. Yeah, it was awesome. I played senior up in Orangeville and a little bit of box lacrosse kind of at the, at the end for Carleton University and for an Ottawa team. So.

Carleton University.

Yeah.

Fun fact actually where I got my first job working in the cafeteria when I was 15 years old.

Is that right?

Yeah. So every once in a while when I drive by, it brings back a little bit of a memory.

Yeah. So awesome.

Your thought, how important is it getting you involved in sports when you're growing up? And I say that because I believe that it has some influence on your success. Success in life. Your thoughts?

I think it does. You know, especially team sports. And I'm sure I was a team sport guy because I liked it. Right. I liked the, the pursuing a goal with a bunch of other brothers and you know, the social dynamic that goes along with all of that stuff. So I love team sports and you know, when I, when I finished playing sports, I really missed that. And what I found in business was kind of something that was very similar to the team sports. Right. You got to figure out the dynamic with a bunch of people, you know, figure out how you're going to get from, from here to there in terms of what you're trying to accomplish and that. So you know, it's, it's put me in a really good place to, to be in business and to be able to work as a part of a company, grow a culture of, of like minded folks and that. So no, I think it was really important. I think if you play individual sports you probably find some similarities as well in terms of dedication and passion for what you do and all of that stuff and commitment. So I think it's. Sports is great. It brings a lot of people together.

Yeah. And I just hear you mentioned the word passion. I think that is so key. But like where, where do you find your passion to get up and put, put in those hours that you do?

Yeah, I have had a kind of an eclectic career and it's just, you know, I. Schools asked me to come and talk a little about career counseling and I feel like in some ways I'm the worst one. In some ways there's a decent message and kids right now they seem so structured, right. They have a plan of what they're going to do when they're. They're 20 and 22 and 25 and what title they're going to have when they're 28. My career has been just kind of an accident. I, my dad was an accountant so I got my CA Coming out of school. Didn't super love being an accountant, so got into consulting which led to, and led to my first job in sports was at the Ottawa Senators back when they came into the, the NHL and it was coincidental. My wife worked for KPMG and they were the auditors of the Senators and they're looking for a controller. So I said that sounds fun. Went and convinced them to hire me. Spent about eight, nine years with the Senators. We built the arena there, which was. Which pretty cool. And I had kind of had my time, went into the world of high tech. Spent the next 25 years of my life in high tech, probably five or six different jobs there. And literally came back to the Ottawa Sports Entertainment Group for a couple of days. It turned into a weeks, turned into a couple of months. Now it's the longest job I've, I've ever had. All of the stops along my career where you know, something would come by that looked really fun and looked like something that could excite me and I've been really lucky. I, you know, I've never, I wouldn't say never, but mostly never hear my alarm go off in the morning because there's fun stuff to do at work and it gets me out of bed and off to, off to work. Our company with, you know, the six sports teams that we have as part of that and a stadium and an arena and a whole bunch of mixed use retail. You know, there's tons to do. So just it's, it's a lot of fun and it's, there's lots of stuff that needs done.

Wow. It's not like a kid in a candy shop just talk.

No, it's awesome. Yeah, it's right.

So that's so cool. And I know we all experience it but, and I know you, you have to too. But like on those, those times where you kind of run into some adversity, how do you overcome that? Like, how does that kind of keep you going? Because it's going to happen to everybody.

Yes. We had it, you know, most recently with the Red Blacks over the last couple of years. Right. Pretty magical start for our first five seasons. Like. Right. We couldn't do wrong. And the football went well, the, you know, we sold out a couple years in, in a row, then hit kind of the skids in 2019 and thought it would be a small blip on the radar and we'd be back at it the next year. And it was kind of a difficult four year stretch with a global pandemic kind of sandwiched in the middle of all of that. I think you just, you know, you, if you're in sports, you probably have the ability to let stuff roll off your back to some extent and you know, you just, you feel the sense of responsibility, you know how passionate people are about their sport, whether it's, you know, our hockey team or football team. And you just, you feel a sense of obligation, right, to, to figure out and figure out how you shepherd your way through it for both your, your staff and. Right. We got guys on the ticket line, the front lines, right that are hearing it from staff and hearing it from fans. You got to just keep them motivated, you know, keep them having fun like I get to have fun and knowing that, you know, people give as much. Poop. I was going to say the other but give. Well, you can give as much as shit you do, right. And that's we, we talk about in our business, you know, if you want to be part of our group, you got to have a high, give a shit factor and you got to care about what our fans care about. You got to care about our guest experience. So, you know, I think it's just we have short term memories and we know that we're, we're a smart, dedicated bunch of people and we'll get to a happy place eventually. And I, you know, for on the football side specifically, this year was a good year. It was a turnaround year. I don't think we're satisfied, but we're happy with kind of how things turned out. We got QB1 that's looks like he's going to be a star in this league for a bunch of years. So, you know, things are back to, I think, where we need them to be.

Oh, wow. Wow. And naturally sports has its ups and downs just by virtue of, you know, the players coming in and out and but to build championships, teams, that's. That's not a small undertaking for sure.

Yeah. We've got two wonderful guys with Shawn Burke, our general manager and Bob Dyce who is the players love playing for Bob and go through a wall for him. So I think we're in a decent place for the next next couple years.

Wow. Do you have any openings maybe. That sounds like a Great place to work.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah. So. And I always, I always say I have a 20 year old son, trying to get him to find his way in the world. But I say to him many times, I said, you cannot do this by yourself. You need to go to people and get advice from them. There are a couple key people and you kind of tap on the shoulder when you're saying, hey, which way should I zig or zag? This is a little challenging.

Yeah. Not when we get new co-op students or new students in. Usually in the first month I try to meet with everybody and just, you know, understand who they are and where they're going. And that's one of my, my pieces of advice is we have a great group of people here who take what they do seriously and take the personal development of the folks that we have in our group seriously. Go and schedule 20 minutes with a bunch of people that seem interesting to you from a bunch of different functions in our organization and just ask them some questions, ask them about their path, ask them about mistakes they've made, things they've done right. And get a whole view from a whole bunch of different folks. And some you don't know when, but one of these days you're, it's gonna, your memory is gonna get twigged to it and maybe you find a different road that's the right one to be on.

Oh, wow, that's. That's fantastic advice. Just switching gears a little bit and knowing that you work six, I'll say 60 hours, give or take. Life, work, balance. How, how do you manage that? Because you, you know, it's, it's not about work all the time. And at one point you got to put the brakes on and say, hey, there's a world out there. Yeah. Able to like pick up the pieces and move on and enjoy life. Right.

Yeah. It's a problem in our industry. It's a problem in our company specifically. We do about 185 events a year. Right. So we've got the two teams that we own, the Ottawa Red Blacks and the Ottawa 67s and we've got four other tenant teams. Concerts, we run 360,000 square feet of mixed use retail shops and restaurants around Lansdowne. So there's something going on every day, every week. Our staff, when we measure and take seriously engagement, our engagement scores are really, really good through the roof. The problem with that is, it burns people out, right? They, they like what they're doing, they want to be there. They don't want to miss out on Anything. So we have to convince people they got to throttle back. Everybody doesn't need to be at every event. They got to take some time and kind of push them away from, from work a little bit, which isn't easy. But that's, you know, it's, it's one of the, it's one of the biggest challenge we, we face in terms of our staffing is just, it's just burnout with people spending too much time and not having the work life balance. They've got a day off and they'll come to work or there's something cool going on that they don't want to miss. Right. So it's something we kind of fight continually.

You know, it's kind of crazy. I'm just sitting here thinking, because at one point I'm listening to you say that you've, you've created this, this culture where everybody wants to work hard, play hard and that kind of stuff. But on the other hand, the flip side is you got to know when to.

Yeah.

When to turn that off. That's not easy.

It's not easy. Well, if you love what you do too, it's not easy. It becomes. But your word world becomes very small too. So, you know, I think it is. I'm flipping gears here to the other side, but it's cool. We got a lot, a lot of young kids. Yeah, I can call them kids now. I'm old and that old. And they like being with each other as well. So, you know, a lot of their, their social network is, you know, being part of the auto, sports and entertainment group and getting to hang with people at their stage of life and they enjoy each other's company. So.

Oh, yeah.

If you like sports, you like. So being part of a social group, it's, it's, it's good. It's a good, good place particularly to start your career.

It does sound like a paradise to me.

For sure.

If I was like, like 20 years old, 20 years old all over again, I think I'd be all over that.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, sure. Now I'm just going to throw some things at you. I'm kind of calling, a potpourrit.

Right.

What are your thoughts on an expansion team in the Maritimes? Is it going to happen? They were talking about a few years back, I believe, that the team's name was going to be the Schooners.

Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't see them here. There's usually an Atlantic schooner. I'm sure they're here somewhere. For the last couple decades, there have been Atlantic Schooner presence out here at the Grey Cup. I don't know, it feels like a story that's kind of getting long in the tooth right now. And I feel like if it would have happened, it would have happened by now. So I'm not super optimistic. I'm not close enough to it to have a super informed point of view on it. But getting a 10th team, I think will be awesome for the league for a whole bunch of reasons. I don't know that it'll be out in the East.

Yeah. And if it's not in the east, where would. Where would you peg it, do you think? Because if you look at the, the demographics where they could actually handle another team, how many places could actually do that?

Yeah, and that's. I mean, you see what happens with the Rue J'adore in Quebec City and that I know people have talked about down in the Windsor kind of area, with draws kind of coming from Detroit, I don't know. And I think, you know, you don't need to be drawing 35,000 people. You need to be drawing 20,20 plus to make this work over the next while. So I think there's places in Canada that can support that. You hear talk of US expansion popping up from time to time, but that' that's challenging. There's a lot of issues just in terms of ratio and all of that stuff. So smarter people are smarter than me will figure it out. But I bet there will be a 10th team, you know, in the next decade.

Well, you know, the expansion of the States, I know that CFL did it once. I really wasn't a fan of it. And I mean, it let the Grade cup go out of Canada, which is kind of, kind of hurt a little bit too. Right.

Right.

But that's okay if it happens in a sense. Flag Football, 2028 LA Olympics, your thoughts on. Well, I'll just say thoughts on what's that going to do to football here in Canada more than. Because it's. It's flag to start with. Right?

Yeah, I think. I think it's. It's awesome. And what I. Speaking to people this week when I've been out here, shocked at how big the flag football scene in, in Toronto is right now. Both guys that I was talking to had daughters that played flag football. I love it. And talk about, you know, how poor the quality of play is with girls that had never thrown a football and how they progressed over the course of the year and loved, loved being again part of a group of people working on something together. And so I think that's, you know, that's a really important part of what happens to football in Canada. And I understand that a lot of people don't want their kids to be playing football, particularly at a young age with concussions and that. Right. So to be able to introduce them to the game through flag football is, I think is awesome. And then they can figure out kind of later on if they stay in that or they move to tackle. But yeah, I'm really excited to see what happens with that. It's growing a ton right now in the Ottawa market. I think have a role in helping kind of gestate that over the next while. But I think it's a big important part of the particularly Canadian football story over the next decade.

Oh, I think so too. And I think it's so cool. I really do. And I. And. And I'm. I'd love to see Canada put.

Yeah.

Best foot forward and maybe come back with a couple of medals themselves.

Yeah.

So.

And it's cheap, right. So you can get kids. Pair of cleats and off they go. So it's a cheap sport to get into.

Simon Fraser University and had a football program for tons and tons of years. And I had. I'll tell you a personal story about it, but. So my son graduated high school in 2022, got a scholarship to Simon Fraser University for football. Decided I don't. I don't want to play football anymore. Comes back to life, says I want to play football. Call up the coaches. They're all excited to have him back. The next day the program's done. Is it coming back, do you think?

I don't know. But it's. It's got to. Right. Like. And I'm. And I'm too on the.

Yeah.

On the wrong coast. I'm far away from that. But I think it's got to at some point. I'd lived that experience. Carleton University lost their football team for. For a bunch of years as well. And I guess. But 12 years got it back as well. So, you know, that's got to be such a storied school. That's got to be part of its, you know, next chapter, I hope.

Yeah. And I don't see it going back to NCAA, but if it.

I hope it doesn't. I hope it can be here and, you know, part of the. The U Sports experience as well.

That's my thought. That's where I should go. I think it belongs to the U Sport arena for sure. Predictions for the Red Blacks back to the Grey Cup and you kind of talked about it a little bit, but I'm actually not. Not asking for me. I'm asking for a friend. A good friend of yours. Yeah, he wants to know.

Yeah, I would. I think next year and the year after that and every year after that. Sounds good to me. I think we've laid the foundation this year. So, you know, perpetually competitive is where we want to live forever. Like you saying with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers right now, they're always there, right. So we want to build that the team's capable of being that. There's some key pieces that we need and quarterback is one of them that we think we have. It was really important for us to win home games and even in the successful years we had early on, we didn't have great home records, led the league this year. So that was a big deal. And getting back to the playoffs was a big deal. I think when you look at great cup luck comes into that a little bit, both in terms of the games, but also in terms of injury and staying injury free. And we, our first five years, we were so lucky. Like just guys didn't get hurt, you know, we didn't understand why our six game injury reserve was so much lower than everybody else's. We thought we must be doing something right here and that's kind of caught up with Wes. In the last five years we've had lots of injuries and injuries to key positions as well. So hopefully the scales are balanced out with the football gods here and we can say they stay relatively injury free. But I think we've got a great nucleus of guys and leaders now. They got to grow in terms of being a team. Things can change quickly in the CFL as you know, as well. So I think we're right there and really excited to see kind of what happens and the step forward that we can take next year. Our first Grey Cup was in Winnipeg, So it'll be 10 years after that next year. So that sounds like a good 10th year anniversary.

We always kind of think about that 1976, 2016. So it's got to be a six.

Well, there you go.

There we go.

That's done.

It's done.

Yeah. Right.

So that's, that's cool. I'd be looking forward to that.

Yeah. Right.

So I know my, my brother Chris die hard red blocks and he gets mad at me because I say BC Lions, but that's because we landed here how many years ago? But I do have a place for the Red Blacks or the Ottawa Rough Riders in my heart.

Yeah, it's will Right. You see it here this week, though, eh? Right. Everybody's a football fan. It's. The spirit between teams is really, really cool. And if, unless you've been to a Grey Cup, you don't really understand how, how wonderful and weird it is. Right? Oh, yeah. I know you've got a big group of people down here, Right. It's a, it's a, it's a really fun, special kind of time.

Predictions on today's game, who you. Who you put your money on.

Oh, I, I hope they both lose. I. I don't like anybody other than us. Right.

Oh, good for you.

So what, I'll cheer for a competitive game, which they always seem to. To be. You know, I got to know Nick Arbuckle a little bit when he was with the, with the Red Blacks through Covid. Good dude. So I hope he comes out. You know, he's had a kind of a bouncy career the last little while. I hope he comes out and has a really good game and, you know, keeps the team close and we can kind of have one of those awesome Grey Cup finishes.

Oh, wow. That's a brilliant answer. I love it.

I love it.

So, Mark, unfortunately, there's that music again playing in the background. And thank you so much for joining us today. It's been really, really special. Just a few things I want to kind of share with our listeners. It always begins with a dream. It will always be up to you to take the first step. That first step is always so important. We can never meet the challenges to seeing a dream become a reality without help, be alive to those mentors who walk into your life and take as much as you can from them. Be prepared to be tomorrow's mentor. Youth sports really can be a catalyst for tomorrow's success. It's never too late to get involved. And remember to take advantage of the moment before the moment takes advantage of you. To learn more about E-walkabout, please visit us at ewalkabout.ca