Reviving Olympic Hearts

Let me re-introduce myself. I'm Suzanne Sewell, life-long Olympic fan, and founder of the Olympic Hearts blog and OHCanada Sports website (Olympic Hearts Canada Sports - that I have since shut down).

After publishing over 300 posts on this blog, I haven't written here for almost eight years. I used to follow Olympic sports year-round when I began this blog. For a couple of years, I contributed on the SportCafé website where I created The Heartbeat newsletter that highlighted who and where Canadian athletes were competing on a weekly basis. When SportCafé closed, I launched my website OHCanada Sports to continue my writing and The Heartbeat newsletter.

Eventually, following Olympic sports felt like an obligation and I was no longer following my heart. I didn't really want to follow every Olympic sport or every Canadian athlete. Trying to follow it all meant that I didn't have as much time for my favourite athletes, some of whom were not Canadian. As my favourite athletes retired, I didn't automatically love the next generation. Some of the sports I started loving because of the athletes I loved, weren't as interesting to follow once they retired.

It also became too much, especially because I have many passions, not only the Olympics. I love my Toronto professional sports teams, my favourite English Premier League team, my favourite musical bands and artists, travelling, art (galleries/museums), seasons (spring blossoms, fall colours), nature (full moons, eclipses, northern lights), etc.

I also love (need) to sleep and Olympic sports year-round are often held when I am sleeping. I prefer to watch sports live, so I often would get up in the night to watch my favourites or I would record programs and watch them when I woke up, before finding out the results. I'm not as interested in watching a competition when I know the result. This became more difficult to do when watching videos that had been livestreamed. The results were often posted on the website where the videos appeared. That is also understandable. The majority of people would watch a winning performance who may not have watched it otherwise.

It may be fair to say that I burned myself out, but my reason for writing and The Heartbeat was to share with people where to follow Canadian athletes, and CBC really upped their game. I didn't need to do it myself anymore. I could just follow them. I was happy that the information was out there, no matter who put it out. So I became a follower and consumer rather than a creator and sharer.

I enjoyed the Games when they happened, but my year-long following fell by the wayside as I began new passion projects and wrote a book. The spark for my book was my experience of attending the 2010 Vancouver Games. This story led to many others and showed me how I wanted to live my life.

I have learned a lot in the last few years, and one of those things is to embrace and celebrate all my passions. I am what Elizabeth Gilbert calls a hummingbird or Barbara Sher calls a scanner. I have many passions, so I shouldn't act like a jackhammer (Gilbert) or diver (Sher) focusing on just one.

I have since launched my personal website where I share about all my passions and projects and will now include my Olympics-themed ones as well. If you're interested in following more than my Olympic stories, you can visit my website www.suzannesewell.com and sign up for my newsletter.

As the 2026 Olympic Winter Games are about to begin, I am embracing my love for the Olympics again and will write about what is exciting me about them, not trying to cover everything. 

If you're interested in "everything" with a Team Canada focus, the CBC Sports website has you covered (and they have a great email newsletter: The Buzzer, you can subscribe to).