She is the all-time leading scorer in International Soccer. She is also a proudly private person. We learn some home truths about Christine Sinclair today. For one thing, shy does not mean unfriendly. Sinclair tells Anastasia Bucsis that she allows the public to glimpse 10% of her life. Sinclair reveals surprising backstories behind the unwanted fame that followed on her playing with a badly broken nose during World Cup 2011. And the reasons behind Janine Beckie taking that penalty shot vs Sweden in last year's world cup...and she goes deep on the relentless attention that came as she neared the goal scoring record. Did she celebrate that moment?...Umm. not really. She was busy. And exactly how does an introvert wear a C? With pride of course!

Player's Own Voice podcast records a carefully- distanced check in with Canadian soccer star Diana Matheson, who is thinking about the big picture role of sports during the COVID-19 upheaval.

When the COC came knocking- asking Anastasia Bucsis about running a live podcast for an audience of Canadian Olympians heading to Tokyo, the first question was: what is it we want to help athletes understand?

The answer was 'Flow'. That quicksilver, dialed-in state where an athlete enters a focused zone of excellence. Flow is relaxed and alert, fast and unhurried. Steady amid the chaos. Very zen. For Anastasia, it was obvious who to call to work through the idea.

Kristina Groves has four Olympic medals and a million world championship titles tucked somewhere under her spandex speed suits. She is one of the most consistent athletes Canada has even known. If anyone, by virtue of practice and habit, can summon that flow state of mind, Long Track Speed Skating phenom Kristina Groves' the one to do it.

This edition of the Player's Own Voice podcast was a bit of an experiment. We liked the live feedback. We may try it again if we come across another captive audience. Meanwhile, we are still recharging the batteries and lining up our ducks for season three. We'll be back in full swing in a couple of months.

As the NHL undergoes the long process of helping coaches and players figure out how to communicate without intimidation or prejudice, the league could do a lot worse than to listen and learn from Canada's reigning world champion beach volleyball duo of Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes.

The two-woman team and their coaches have managed to dominate the world's best in large part by working long and purposefully at learning how to respect one another, how to communicate properly in the heat of competition, how to allow junior voices to be heard without fear of senior reprisal, and most of all, how to generate a team environment in which the will to win eclipses the fear of making mistakes.

The Canadians share the secrets of their quiet confidence with host Anastasia Bucsis, who concludes season two of the Podcast series with this story of a team which has every prospect and possibility of reaching the top of the podium in Tokyo.

Stu Grimson's new autobiography is aptly called The Grim Reaper, but the book's subtitle – The life and career of a reluctant warrior – rounds out the picture of the infamous NHL enforcer.

Grimson was a serious handful, a heavyweight who knew exactly how to flatten a foe in as few punches as necessary. But he is conflicted about that role - and much more proud of his leadership in the locker room and on the bench.

The fact that Grimson liked using his noggin more than his knuckles became obvious once he got his law degree and started negotiating in NHL labour disputes.

Host Anastasia Bucsis gets the NHL veteran talking about the main preoccupations of a heavyweight during the height of the enforcer years.

Manny Osborne-Paradis has been a mainstay of Canada's Downhill and Super G teams since way back in 2005. For an Alpine skier, that's an eternity. So it's kind of amazing to see how hungry Manny still is, 14 years later. Having a no-compromise drive to win at 35 years old is even more rare when we also consider that Manny is also a full year into recovery from an injury that almost cost him his left leg.

A blunt assessment would be: he's old and he's banged up. But you still won't find anyone betting against a podium for the irrepressible Osborne-Paradis on any given day. There's a silver lining in all that rehab too, which is that instead of a year in competition, with all the nagging bumps, scrapes, tweaks and wear & tear on a skier's body, Osborne-Paradis has actually had twelve long months of rest and recovery. Athletes hate to admit it, but there's nothing quite like rest on the road to hitting new performance highs.

In the great Canadian conversation about sports and culture, hockey always elbows its way to the microphone. But if we want fresh insights about how this nation is wired…Player's Own Voice podcast thinks that the CFL has lots to teach us about ourselves.

No better time to think about it than around Grey Cup week.

And no one better to help us mull it over than one of the greatest players in the history of professional ball, Damon Allen. The American born prodigy left San Diego of all comfy home towns, for Edmonton…in March 1985 no less, and stayed with the CFL for 23 record shattering years.

Host Anastasia Bucsis and the legendary quarterback kick around some ideas: Canada has cooked up a beautiful game with its CFL rules. Canadian football has deep history, hometown teams and athletes who locals can actually get to know and care about. Heck, if you are willing to pay the person who comes along to make sure you don't damage the thing, you can bring the actual Grey Cup to your next house party. But our game has long suffered in financial and media comparison to the NFL. Why should a Toronto football fan look to Buffalo?

There's a million ways to try to understand the Canadian-American mindset. Or you could just settle in for one smart CFL – NFL conversation with the remarkable Mr. Allen.

Reigning Olympic Ski Cross Champion and multiple X-game and world cup medallist, Brady Leman is not one to cut corners in the gym. The man is a conditioned brick of muscle. But for such a physical specimen - Leman is a surprisingly devoted student of the mental game.

Against the mayhem and injury of competition, Leman works at mindfulness, visualization, and meditation, and he is more convinced all the time that psychological training is what's driving his world-beating results. The literal calm amid the storm is what it's all about.

Host Anastasia Bucsis gives Leman the conversational room to expand on his thinking about best mental practises for competitors. After that, she reminisces with her fellow Calgarian, about all the ways their home city supported developing winter athletes.

When she was fifteen years old, Keely Shaw had it all figured out.

Hockey would be the through line on a life plan consisting of high performance competition, scouting, scholarships, Olympics…sky's the limit.

So when the grade nine girl was thrown from her beloved horse while she was out on the prairies, sustaining brain injuries and partial paralysis, Shaw's first reaction was furious resentment at the sport that was suddenly denied to her.

It took a few years, a tonne of discipline, and working through significant psychological setbacks, but Shaw has found high performance sport again.

Shaw is a world class road and track paralympian cyclist now. And when she isn't pounding the pedals, she's also chasing her Ph.D. Believe it or not, Shaw is studying the performance benefits of dark chocolate at high altitude!

The plan always was to be competing at Tokyo 2020, but Shaw just never imagined this particular path would be the one to take her there.

Host Anastasia Bucsis meets the Canadian paralympian as she sets her sights on the next world championship races in Milton, Ont.

Pierce LePage does not waste a lot of time second-guessing himself. Fresh off a strong debut at the IAAF World Championships in Decathlon in Doha, the young track and field star figures his fifth finish is a pretty good place to be at this stage in a career and Olympic cycle. The way he sees it, with some work on his throwing, he's got a path to a podium in Tokyo 2020.

It's not the ambition that surprises with this phenomenal athlete. It's the chill attitude. So when LePage says his javelin and shotput are sub par, he says it with a chuckle, and he figures that with his height and wingspan…he's got the levers to be a throwing great eventually. It'll come when it comes. In the meantime, he's laying down 10.3 second 100 m dashes. At 6'7" that blazing speed looks surprisingly unhurried. Unhurried and unworried isn't such a bad way to go through a career, and with a long season of competition drawing to a close, LePage tells host Ansastasia Bucsis that it's time to take on a serious challenge anyway: The decathlete is a former pro video gamer... and he's fixing to spend the off season thumbs deep in League of Legends.