Hello and welcome to Where Parents Talk tv.

My name is Leanne Castellino.

Our guest today is a mom of one.

She has three Olympic medals and five world championships in her fast and impressive resume as an athlete.

In September of 2020, she published her first book entitled the Role I Canada's Greatest Olympic Hockey Team.

We're delighted to welcome Sammy Jo Small.

Thank you so much for having me, Leanne.

I appreciate it, Sami.

I wanted to start, first of all with what is the impetus or what was the impetus for your book?

So, initially, to be honest, I work as a professional speaker, and most speakers have a back of the room book.

I just kind of thought that that was going to be the next step in my speaking career.

So I set about writing a book to simply sell at the back of the room.

But in writing it, I realized that the stories were bigger than me.

It was.

It included more than just me.

And it was about these amazing women that were strong and resilient and had gone through so much adversity to just be able to play the game.

And I really wanted to take my time with the stories and get them right because this is really a segment in history that I think has been forgotten.

And while people might know our big names like Cassie Campbell or Haley Wickenheiser, people don't really know the actual characters and the players that played on that team, let alone the people that narrowly missed out on that team.

So, yeah, it morphed into, I think, a much bigger project for me and in the end took me 10 years.

I mean, I started.

And then you get pregnant, you have kids, and your world turns upside down.

And it wasn't really until she started kindergarten that I had this manuscript on my shelf.

And I thought maybe now's the time.

And any parent can attest to, suddenly you have a day free like that just hadn't happened.

And so that's when I sort of got back into it about it.

She's now in senior kindergarten, and, yeah, it's given me some time to be able to do this.

And it has been definitely an interesting 10 years as the book has kind of morphed into what I am now really truly proud to with people and share these amazing women that I'm so grateful to call my friends.

That is an amazing journey.

10 years of having this kind of on your mind and then, you know, going through the process of putting it together in fits and starts.

I'm assuming.

What did you learn about yourself as you reflected back on all these experiences that you've had and There were so many of them.

I mean, how did you.

How did you go about starting this, even?

For sure.

So it was certainly cathartic.

Experience when I first started was basically just a brain dump.

Get it out on paper in a chronological way.

It.

You know, the first writing, the first draft was terrible writing.

I realized I wasn't a very good writer.

I was an engineer by trade, and I.

You know, I didn't really have much expertise in this area.

So I went back, I took some classes and learned how to put myself in the story, learned how to make the reader be there with me so that it could evoke emotion for them.

And that's really what I wanted.

But when I started that process and started to really get into each story, I felt it all over again.

So my poor husband.

I go to bed mad or angry that I'd just been pulled from a game or I had a terrible game, and he's like, you know, that's 15 years ago.

Like, you need to get over it at some point.

And so it was certainly a roller coaster of emotion.

Once my daughter, we put her in daycare the year before kindergarten just to kind of get ready for school.

And once she went to preschool, I tried to sort of carve out two hours every day just to be able to write or edit or sort of go through it.

So I tried to get a little bit more of a semblance of a pattern.

And that really helped, too, because I could write a bad story, and then I could write a good story or a sad story and then an exciting story so that I would end on a high note and not be mad and bitter for the rest of the day.

It is a process, isn't it?

Let me ask you, have you always wanted to be a mom?

Yeah, I mean, I.

For sure.

I mean, I've always.

I grew up in a really amazing family, and it.

It was something that was always in the back of my mind.

But as athletes, as female athletes, it's hard when you're within the national team program, your spot is very volatile.

You miss a training camp and somebody else takes your spot, and if they're better, they take your spot forever.

So it's certainly something that I've always wanted.

But this career path that I chose also meant that I couldn't really do it until later.

We've had some amazing women, notably Becky Keller, who played on the team, gave birth twice, and came back to be a star defenseman, having won four straight Olympic gold medals.

She's just absolutely incredible.

But it's A rarity.

And in fact, some of the women got cut while they are pregnant without even getting a tryout coming back.

So, you know, we see that, we saw that from the outside and things have changed certainly within Hockey Canada.

And I think the women now have voices and have written it into their contract that pregnancy is not the same as an injury.

But that certainly didn't feel like the case back then.

So we, I think we saw it and we realized, you know, you, you have your career and then you have your, your family, and now that's changing.

And people like Megan Mickelson, Megan Augusta, Shannon Zavatos just had a baby.

They can do it and continue to play hockey.

And it's not unheard of or this big story that the athlete has come back from giving birth.

In fact, after I gave birth to my daughter, I continued to play in the women's professional league.

And that was the story.

And while I see it as a huge accomplishment for sure physically, I think so many women go back to work.

That's just a normal, everyday occurrence and they're not celebrated or heralded and it's just as hard for them.

And so I'm hoping, while I'm proud of that accomplishment, I'm hoping that that will just be the norm and not something that has to be talked about anymore.

But little kids can be running around the hockey rink and their moms are on the ice.

Well, it's so interesting.

Not only are they just expected to go back to where they were, but they're expected to pick up where they left off.

Not understanding that you've been through a physical trauma, you've given birth.

However, it is the emot piece that comes with it as well.

And it's, it just has to be that much more complicated for a high level athlete.

Well, for me, I really, I wanted to go back to practicing, to have some time to myself.

You know, that hour that I would go to the rink was a nice solace.

My husband is also a Olympic athlete, so he's a Paralympic athlete and he's vying for a sixth Paralympic game.

So he's quite accomplished and incredibly supportive of understanding that balance is super important in anybody's life, let alone a mother's.

And I mean, he was in such a different situation as a father.

A week after our daughter was born, he had a tournament in Italy that he couldn't miss that just, you know, you miss it and somebody else takes your spot.

And so I felt terrible for him because here is this amazing child that we've brought into the world and he has to take off.

And I think not enough is said about fathers in that situation.

And I'm glad that during the Stanley cup final you see some of the videos of the kids reuniting with their dads and just how exciting that is.

And you know, it's something that's really tough on the, on the fathers because as mothers I think we are given much more leeway in those instances.

But they are not.

It's, you know, well, they've already given birth, so you can come.

That was sort of the expectation, so that was hard on him.

But yeah, I think both of us have been incredibly supportive of each other in our endeavors.

And the great thing about being a professional athlete is that you have time.

You have time to actually spend with your family and be there.

And so he can be a full time dad while I'm a full time mom, while we still do these other things as well.

It's so interesting.

Two parents, high performance, elite level athletes.

What would you describe as your collective approach to parenting?

Is it similar or do you come at it from radically different viewpoints?

I think we do come at it from radically different viewpoints, not because of our athletic background, but because of our parenting background ourselves.

My husband grew up in a family where his dad had 15 siblings and his mom had 16 siblings.

They themselves had their first child who ended up passing away from a disease.

And then they had my husband Billy with spina bifida and they were forced to move from their home province of Prince Edward island to Toronto to go to sick kids hospital.

And just the incredible resilience and determination that goes along with all of that.

To have their only child brings about a different style of parenting for sure, that he went through.

I was very fortunate to have parents, a loving family and a brother.

I mean, we all got along and it was a very different upbringing, I think.

And so because of that, and I think everybody experiences different upbringings in their lives compared to their spouse.

And we tend to come at it from very different angles, parenting our daughter.

But I think what's really great about it is you collect, meet in the middle and you bring the best of both sides and, you know, attempt maybe one approach that doesn't work and you try the other approach.

But we try to have those conversations behind closed doors so that our daughter feels like we are coming at it from the same approach.

And I think that's one thing that I would share with other parents, is it's okay to not have the same opinion as your spouse, but it's not okay to not talk about it.

The conversation is really important.

And meeting in the middle and maybe trying one approach one time and another approach another time and maybe a completely radically different approach the next time if that doesn't work.

So we've all been through it and it's not easy and every kid's gonna respond to different things.

So, yeah, for sure.

I think we are different styles of parents, but I think complement each other.

And what's.

Well, what's really interesting about that, being a mom of three and mine are a bit older than yours, that's a constantly evolving space.

Right.

You figured it out on Monday morning at 9am by noon that day, you're like, oh, my goodness, I got to change strategies.

Like, it's got to be so different.

Yeah.

So now Your daughter is 4 years old.

I'm curious.

And I've had this conversation with other athletes as well.

You know, expectations, motivation, the drive, the mental toughness, all of those things that go into what you've done and what you're.

You're good at when you become a parent, how do you go about managing that in your child?

In other words, you know, are you going to be supportive?

Are you going to be more or less, you know, let her figure it out on her own.

Let her look at that adversity in the eye and.

And, you know, I'm going to stand on the sidelines and watch and just support when needed.

There's different approaches here, for sure.

For sure.

And it's hard to know what is the right approach.

And I have a lot of peers that have gone through it and have done the whole gamut.

I think for us, I mean, obviously we love hockey.

Our daughter already hates hockey.

Well, that makes it easy for you then.

Yeah, Hockey takes Mom and dad away a lot of the times.

And so what we tried to do when she was about two and a half or three is say that we were going to work and not going to hockey.

So we kind of changed the language a little bit around what that meant because she had never seen it.

We don't really watch much tv, so she had never really seen much of it.

When my husband now competes internationally, it's not local, so we can't always go.

But she has been to some tournaments.

She's watching me play now, and I think she's starting to understand a little bit more.

My husband took her to Chapters the other day just to see my book and to see it in a store, and she didn't understand why my book would be In a store.

Like, that's weird.

So she's not really.

I mean, doesn't have a full comprehension of what we've done or who we are by any means, which is good.

And I'd rather it be that way, I think, when we.

We already have her involved in.

In sports and activities in.

And with the pandemic.

My husband's very musical, so he's taught her a bunch of different things.

And we try to have a gym class every day, and we try to have a music class, and then we try to do some schoolwork.

And so we try to really expose her to different things.

And the thing with my parents, and really all I know is what I went through as a child and, you know, hearing other stories.

But for myself as a child, my parents were not hockey people.

I think they would have chosen a different sport if they had imposed their will on me, but they never did that.

All they wanted to do was expose us to a bunch of different things.

And so that's what we want to do with our daughter, is that, you know, even if she hates hockey, we'll probably put her in it just so that she sees what it is.

And we have her in a little tennis lesson over at the community center, which is really fun and exciting for her to see.

We got her into karate last year because we convinced her that the little gi that you wear is actually a little tutu.

All she really wants to do is dance.

All she wants to do.

She loves gymnastics, those kind of things.

And all the things that I am not really so knowledgeable about.

So it's a whole new path for me.

And I've talked to a lot of women that are in the arts and that are in dance and in various different aspects, and asking them, you know, how do you support a young child that is this way?

And the answer.

The best answer I got was that you just.

You just encourage it.

You just encourage and ask for more and show me more and do another routine, and I love it.

And really, that's all we try to do.

We, you know, have no idea what's going on most of the time as she's playing Unicorn Ballet mermaid for the 50th time.

But, you know, that's what my mom would have probably loved, to have a little daughter like this.

And she got me.

So it kind of comes full circle, you know, my mom, who knew nothing about hockey, when I played street hockey with the boys on the street, she, like, sewed me a little pair of goalie pads out of her old corduroys when I was like 5 years old so that I could fit in with the boys.

And so she did everything she could.

And so, you know, I just hope that I can provide a space where my daughter finds her own passion.

We have time.

You know, I want to be involved in her life, but I want her to find out for herself what she really loves.

And that's not always easy to do.

And it might not happen until she's 34 years age, but as long as she's exposed to a bunch of different things, I think every activity, every endeavor that you pursue, whether it's in the arts or in the sports, teaches you something about yourself and teaches you about the people around you.

And that's really.

That's what you're.

You're trying to get out of it.

So whether she sits on the soccer field and picks the flowers, that's okay because she's around friends and making new friends.

And I just have to remember that it's okay if she doesn't want to go score the goals.

And sometimes in the back of my head, I know I want her to want that.

Just like I was so competitive, you know, that's okay.

Well, and it's interesting.

That's why I asked the question, right?

Because of what you've done and how high you've.

You've gotten it.

It's just human nature to kind of have those thoughts roll through your mind.

But then having what you want for.

Your children, that's exactly human nature.

But I think being an older parent, I'm now 44, so I didn't have her till I was 39.

I think that that gives me a little bit more perspective than had I been this way at 21, I might have been way more pushy and way more.

Had way more expectations.

But I think with age comes little bit of wisdom to know that that's really not what makes people happy.

Let me ask you, what would you say has surprised you the most about becoming a parent?

You absolutely didn't expect it.

I didn't expect to see a little best friend right away.

I mean, that's really corny to say, but like somebody that knew you so well.

I didn't expect really that.

You know, everybody talks about the love for their child and how that just is transformative and for sure that that is the case, but I think it's really that.

That instant friend that I didn't really.

And I don't say friend in a peer sort of way, but somebody that just sort of intuitively knows you that was.

Has really been interesting to, you know, get to know as she grows.

And then other than that, I think the time, you know, the time, not only the time that it takes, but the time that you are just fully engrossed in the moment.

The days seem endless, but that the time passes so quickly.

And, you know, everybody says that to you, but you really are fully immersed in that moment and that you can make yourself into whatever they want to be.

You know, I didn't think I would be very good at playing mermaid, unicorn, princess, invisible for the 50th time, but, you know, you become good at what?

At that play.

And you become sort of immersed in the moment with them.

And that's been really great for me.

It's almost meditative because you're just in the moment.

You're not thinking about anything else or work or the rest of the world.

So that's been really fun.

Well, and it's interesting because I think sometimes we forget what children teach us.

Right.

We're so focused on being the adult and being the educator for them, but the reverse.

I mean, I think about my own parenting journey and the things that I never thought that my kids would teach me.

And it's constantly happening, and sometimes it's subconscious, too.

Right.

But it's happening.

How old are your kids now?

23.

20 and 16.

Oh, so they're like real people now?

Yes, they are grown adults for sure, too.

How they're able to pass judgment.

I think that's the one that I'm scared of, is when she can actually pass judgment.

Judgment.

She already tells me that I don't dress pretty because I wear a black or red, and I don't.

You need to go put something pretty on.

Gotta find that.

Sammy Jo, let me ask you.

It sounds like you had a wonderful upbringing and clearly very understanding parents who, if you're saying they didn't know much about hockey, watch their daughter get to the highest level in that sport in this country and in the world.

Would you do anything differently in terms of how your parents raised you and how you're going to raise your daughter?

I don't think I would do anything differently.

I think the tough thing that, you know, I think my mom, she had to move from Toronto to Winnipeg to marry my dad, and I've moved from Winnipeg to Toronto to get married.

So we're away from them.

So that's been tough part of the journey, but we've made it work because I run a hockey school in Winnipeg.

They're out here for birthdays and Celebrations.

But now with the pandemic, it's meant almost a year away.

And that, you know, well, it's.

It's tough on my daughter.

I know it's really tough on them to not see that.

And my brother and his family are still there.

So the closeness and proximity to parent, to the next generation is something that I think is hard to recreate.

My husband's mother just passed away, so that's something that is obviously tough on the family.

But his dad and stepmom are still in Guelph.

And with the pandemic is the same thing.

It's just been connecting to that next generation.

And I've been taking a Indigenous class through the University of Alberta.

And what I've really learned about the Indigenous communities in our country is just that, that learning and teaching that happens between the generations.

And I wasn't really privy to that growing up.

So, you know, I saw my grandparents, my dad's grandparents lived in Winnipeg, but I didn't really know as much about them.

That, you know, that's the one thing that I want to instill in our daughter is that intergenerational learning that I think happens for many cultures around the world.

But in Canada, I think we as settlers have sort of missed out on that, perhaps that leaving mentality, you know, you're moving forward, you're here, you're in a new place.

And so I want to try to recreate that as best we can, given the circumstances.

But that means a lot of face time.

It means that I have my daughter drawing a lot of pictures for them and trying to have that communication go back and forth.

It's so true and very interesting.

And I think the pandemic actually, in many ways is going to have a say in that, in terms of how Canadians view how we treat our seniors.

Right, We've seen that being sort of analyzed in very different ways.

But yes, European countries, Asian countries have a very different take on that.

And it's very powerful, the learning that goes on between those generations.

So thank goodness for FaceTime, right?

I know.

I mean, that's probably the reason why I didn't know my grandparents as well.

We didn't have that yet.

You know, my mother's parents lived in Toronto, so you have to visit them in the summer.

That's when you can see them, you know.

So it is amazing the difference that we are living in today.

Before we let you go, Sammy Jo, just wanted to ask you a couple of quick questions.

What do you want people to leave with after reading this book?

Well, I think the book is not just for hockey fans, but really for any fan of women pursuing excellence.

And the biggest message in the book is, you know, the title is the Role I Played, but that really is morphed from I work as a professional speaker and from the stage.

My mantra is that you don't always get.

We don't always get to choose the role we play, but we always get to choose how we play it.

And I think parenthood goes part and parcel with that.

That we are often put in situations that we don't want to be in.

We are often relegated to the back and not acknowledged for our efforts and the rewards and not given that pat on the shoulder, but that ultimately what we do each and every day should be our best that we can do that day and be very forgiving if that isn't your best and just try again the next day.

And that ultimately it's about being proud of what you do.

And that's what I tried to get across in the book, is that you're not always going to get the reward, you're not always going to get the pat on the shoulder, but just do your best that you can that day and that's enough.

And it'll be enough to find the joy in other people's successes and see our children grow and morph into these amazing human beings.

I'm sure you've already gone through that, but as I watch her grow, I just think of these amazing lessons that I learned through through sport.

And I'm cognizant to know that sport is not life.

But it certainly did teach me a lot about how to be a parent and how to be patient and how to be fully in the moment.

And so I hope that people do pick up the book and can see themselves in it as well.

Well, I look forward to reading it.

On a personal note, as somebody who keenly followed the teams that you played on all those years and still continues to follow, follow sport at all levels.

And my kids are obviously also involved in sport.

We're kind of like sports freaks in our house.

What do they play?

What are their sports?

Well, they all play hockey.

Ball hockey, soccer, what else do they play?

They also coach the boys.

My two older ones coach as well.

What do you play?

Do you play sports still?

I play ball hockey.

I wanted to be a professional tennis player as a kid.

And so, you know, if I could, I would have done that.

But they put me on skates too late.

But I've just.

My entire life has revolved around sports in Some way, whether it's my career or my personal life, we don't watch much tv.

We watch sports or we're at a sporting event.

But I wish you all the best.

And you're, you know, one of the things I wanted to ask you in conclusion is what else is next for you?

Because you've done so much in, not just as an athlete, but in the world of sport, whether it's, you know, co founding the Canadian Women's Hockey League, you know, being an instructor, all these different things.

Is there something that you haven't done that you'd like to do?

Well, thank you for those kind words.

I don't know.

I mean, I think that opportunities in life presents itself.

I love working as a professional speaker.

I mean, I love being in front of different audiences.

So I do hope that that that aspect of our speaking world comes back.

Obviously, I do virtual presentations now.

It's just not the same as you podcast or being with somebody is very different.

So, you know, what's next for us?

I guess it's raising this amazing little girl.

My husband would love if she became a tennis player.

He plays a ton of wheelchair tennis, so he's a wheelchair.

He loves it.

And we're members of the Ontario Racquet Club, and he just.

He would love it if she became a little tennis player.

And she so far loves the little outfits, so we'll see if we get one.

Back to those outfits and the fashion.

Right.

I love that.

I know.

I don't know where she got all of that from, but that's funny.

Her own little person.

So that's our next journey, and we're excited for it.

Well, we wish you all the best in everything that you do.

All the best with your book as well.

Sammy Jo Small, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks so much for having me, Leanne.

I really appreciate it.