It's not about OHCanada Sports but about the athletes

I recently had an a-ha moment with regards to my website OHCanada Sports.

I love OHCanada Sports, every time I see an amazing article and post it, I'm so happy with the content.

I didn't feel comfortable that I was sharing amazing articles on OHCanada Sports. They weren't my articles. I was mostly an aggregator website and although I credited the original source of the articles, I didn't feel that it was right for me to direct someone to the specific articles on my website.

This is when my a-ha moment arrived. Why did I found OHCanada Sports? Was it so I could get multiple clicks on my website? Was it for the number of views it would get?

No, it was to share the athletes' stories and articles written about them.

I want the athletes to be supported. I want the media's articles on Olympic sports and the sports organizations to be supported. How can I best help that? The answer is by linking the articles directly to the source instead of reproducing them on OHCanada Sports.

I don't care about clicks and views but the athletes, sports organizations and media maybe do. Let them get the views for their work.

Why hadn't I thought of this sooner?

Most website owners will tell you that views and traffic are the most important thing, that's how many of them get paid. The fact is that I'm not your typical website owner. I'm not doing this for me to be recognized with website traffic. I'm doing this so that athletes are recognized and so that events where they're competing at are watched.

So this morning, I revamped OHCanada Sports.

The first section highlights "Must See Upcoming Events" that will feature where we can see Canada's athletes compete whether in person or on television. Those thumbnails don't link directly to the source, because often times, there are multiple sources for information so I will summarize the information like television listings, ticket information and schedule as well as link to original sources.

I also decided that rather than try to include all events in a calendar like I used to, I would focus on events held in Canada, World Championships, World Cups and events that are televised or livestreamed. There will be less content but higher quality content.

The second section offer thumbnails to original OHCanada Sports content and specific topics.

The third section is now simplified with all articles together in a "Most Recent Articles" section. The articles can also be viewed by category like it used to be (athlete posts, media articles, sports organizations) in the navigation bar but by visiting OHCanada Sports' homepage, you immediately see if there are new articles no matter what category they fall in.

As the changes are complete, I see that CBC Sports have revamped their website today as well. You can read their launch article here. Coincidence?

How exciting to see them have an even greater focus on Olympic Sports with their new Road To The Olympics website and weekly television program (previously named CBC Sports Weekend).

With the announcement that CBC/Radio-Canada will have the broadcast rights for the Olympics up to 2024, plus be broadcast partners for the IOC's new global digital Olympic Channel, coverage for our Olympic athletes will be greater than ever in the years to come.

This is adding excitement for me to continue the work I am doing with OHCanada Sports. I love that I share from various websites and sources. The Heartbeat includes television listings from all channels and various livestreams.

I will continue to share my favourite articles from various sites like the Canadian Olympic Committee, CBC, sports organizations, newspapers, other media and most importantly, the athletes.

Because in the end, it's all about the athletes.

Win Canada Win!

[This article was originally written in September. October edits are italicized.]



Recently I have been remembering a blog post I wrote back in 2009 entitled "Lose Canada Lose". You can read the post here.

At the time, the media was being especially harsh on our athletes who were not performing up to par at World Championship competitions.

At the time, I thought no problem. Here's what I wrote:

For me, I remember too many teams and athletes arriving at the Olympics as World Champions only to lose at the Olympics. Brian Orser won the Worlds in 1987...and won silver at the Olympics in 1988. Kurt Browning won the Worlds in 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1993 but did not medal at two Olympic Games in 1992 and 1994 while defending champion. Elvis Stojko won the Worlds in 1997 and did not win the Olympics in 1998. Adam van Koeverden although well decorated, inexplicably faded in the 1000m in 2008. Perdita Felicien hit the first hurdle and fell in 2004. Jeremy Wotherspoon fell at the start of his race in 2002.

"Earlier in the winter, it seemed like our athletes could do no wrong. The "Own the Podium" funding seemed to have given us many great results (exceeding our expectations) going into the Olympics, but secretly I was worried about the expectations on our athletes would be too much for them."

Looking back at these memories, I wasn't following athletes year round like I am now. I didn't see athletes winning World Cups and then not winning at the World Championships. All I was seeing, which was what mainstream media was showing me were athletes who were World Champions not winning at the Olympics.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Watching World Championships, World Cups and even National Championships nowadays (televised or more often livestreamed), I appreciate those World Championships a lot more than I did then.

How many people can win a World Championship who doesn't and then also don't win the Olympics? Wouldn't they love to be known at least as World Champion?

I was SO excited to see Derek Drouin and Shawn Barber win the World Championships in high jump and pole vault. No Canadian had achieved those feats. In my mind at the time, Olympic glory is not guaranteed so how cool is it that they are World Champions?

The other side of the coin are World Championships recently where Olympic qualifying was on the line. A top 6 or 8 at the Canoe Kayak Worlds guaranteed the country a spot in Rio 2016. Canada qualified one spot in the K1 200m with Mark De Jonge winning gold at the World Championships. Mark Oldershaw inexplicably (sorry haven't seen media article to explain it) wasn't in the top 6 to qualify a spot. I imagine he was ill. There is no way that was a regular race for him.

[edit: this article explains Mark's performance at Worlds which was a few weeks after his baby was born 3 months premature]

Adam van Koeverden didn't race the 1000m. Again, regular media/Canoe Kayak Canada (in my opinion) should be explaining his absence and whether missing this early Olympic qualifying is normal.

Another example is the rowing qualifying. Many of our teams qualified (4 women and 2 men), but there were some disappointments and I'm hoping those Olympic spots are earned in 2016.

The media and Basketball Canada were very hopeful for Canada's basketball team making it to the Rio Olympics. Two teams would qualify at the Olympic qualifying tournament. They looked poised to get one spot going into the semi final against a team they had beaten by 20 points the previous week but the team did not play the way they did in previous games. They will get one more chance in July to qualify but this tournament had been their best chance.

With all these disappointments recently, I remembered my previous post and felt the need to amend or at least better explain. Lose Canada Lose was only meant for athletes and teams who would not live up to expectations once they arrived at the Olympics. It wasn't meant to prevent athletes from actually qualifying for the Olympics.

Win Canada Win!