Used sleds, crumbling venues, crushing costs, Canada's path back to bobsled success is an uphill climb

The braintrust at Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton chose a frigid Friday morning in late January to visit Olympic Heights Elementary School in Calgary with a select group of athletes for the official Milano-Cortina squad unveiling, and midway through the 50-minute presentation, the grade-schoolers remain riveted.

When principal Trevor Barkley asks for silence, they sit cross-legged on the gym floor and oblige him. No fidgeting, no horseplay, none of the stray chatter that could get a kid sent back to class. 

But the audience erupts each time a new team member emerges from the change rooms at the back of the gym and strolls to the front of the room to receive their black and red Team Canada jacket. 

The group comprises young veterans such as Dawn Richardson-Wilson, a world-class brakeman with serious footspeed. In 2023 she was an all-Canadian sprinter at the University of Calgary, and her 7.34-second 60-metre dash ranked fourth nationwide, just behind future Olympians Jaqueline Madogo and Audrey Leduc.

It also includes newcomer Luka Stoikos, a former standout football player at the University of Toronto who’s built like a Brinks truck but accelerates like a dragster. In 2022 he led OUA in kickoff return average (25.3 yds) and touchdowns (2) as a 240-pound fullback.

And it features Kelsey Mitchell, the gold-medal-winning sprint cyclist from the 2020 Summer Games who crossed over to bobsled and made the Olympic team in her first season on the circuit.

Each new Olympian receives the same cheer — sudden, joyous, and loud enough to drown out the arena rock blaring from a pair of speakers near the gym entrance. In pro wrestling, they call that kind of goosebump-raising ovation a “Pop.”

And much like a WWE pay-per-view event, this