#ICYMI - Winter Paralympics, with Medalists Mike Shea and Taylor Lipsett

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… Get ready for the 2018 Winter Paralympics as hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice chat with Olympic Medalists Mike Shea, Taylor Lipsett, and author Walter Thompson about the world of Paralympic athletics. Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Please subscribe to our channels on: Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360 TuneIn: tunein.com/playingwithscience GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjq SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-science Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-science NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/winter-paralympics-with-medalists-mike-shea-and-taylor-lipsett/ Photo Credit: By popejon2 [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:10Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. The Olympics have always hogged the limelight, understandably so, but the rise in prominence of the Paralympics in recent years has been stellar, showcasing not just the para-athlete's athletic abilities, but also the magnitude of the force within them.

• 0:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and Dr Walter Thompson, a professor at Georgia State University and a world leader in sports medicine for para-athletes, and co-author of Training and Coaching: The Paralympic Athlete, will be joining us today, along with para-snowboarder and silver medalist Mike Shea, as well as ice-sledge hockey player and double gold medalist Taylor Lipsett. This is gonna be awesome.

• 0:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Isn't it just? So, once again, another Playing with Science show with more precious metal than an episode of The Crown. So, while I go and get the polish and herd the corgis, Chuck, you just introduced the first guest. I'll be back in a sec. I'll be a minute.

• 1:12Chuck Nice?

  That's right, our first guest, he is a doctor, he is a professor, he is Professor Dr Walter Thompson. Doc, how are you?

• 1:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Doing great, thanks. How are you guys? We are good, Doc. Your CV is actually 47 pages long. You are an expert, with a capital E, it would seem. What do you have, Professor of Kinesiology and Health?

• 1:38Chuck Nice?

  At Georgia State University.

• 1:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, you're the co-editor of the Bible for the Sport Training and Coaching: The Paralympic Athlete.

• 1:47Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 1:48Gary O'Reilly?

  And you serve on the Sports Science Committee of the International Paralympic Committee, to give it its full title. So, yes, you are most certainly the person...

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  You are heavily qualified to be able to have this conversation with us.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Well, thank you so much for that.

• 2:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, no, thank you, because you brought it all into one package, which is really helpful for us.

• 2:08Chuck Nice?

  So maybe you can tell us about kinesiology, the, uh, one of the things I love dearly, uh, my mom went back to school when I was a kid. She went back to college, and I'll never forget the, uh, very large book that she had, and it said kinesiology on it. And I was like, Mom, what is kinesiology? And she was just like, open the book and find out.

• 2:31Chuck Nice?

  So what is kinesiology?

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Well, I'd ask you, what did you find out?

• 2:36Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, that, but, uh, well, uh, actually what we found out is the, the, the study of kinetic motion in the body. So it's the study of how the body moves, the study of the body's musculature, the study of the body's interaction with the body. So, I mean, that's what I got out of it. I'm not sure if I'm, if I'm right, it was a long time ago.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  You are exactly right, and I just recruited you to write the introduction for my first, my next book.

• 3:02Gary O'Reilly?

  May I just say, doctor, you have asked for an awful lot of trouble.

• 3:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you may not know what you just got into.

• 3:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so let's focus on the, the power athletes themselves. There is an awful lot of classification within the Paralympic movement. Um, and it creates some friction from time to time, but what are the basic broad sweeps of the categories?

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the, the easiest way for me to explain it is to use, uh, the able-bodied sport as a model. Example, uh, we, we don't typically have men competing against women. That's a simple classification, that's a gender classification, men, women. And then in sports like boxing and wrestling and other sports, we classify people according to their body weight. So we don't have a 250-pound wrestler wrestling against someone who's 100 pounds, that just wouldn't be fair. So there's a natural weight classifications, we have gender classification and weight, uh, classification.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  In sport for folks with disabilities, it's a little bit more complicated because we have to make it a fair competition. So for example, if it was a 100-meter sprint. There is a big difference in the biomechanics and the physiology of a single leg amputee and a single arm amputee. It just simply wouldn't be fair. Presumably, the the single arm amputee would win every time because of the lower limb amputation. Similarly, it's unfair for someone who is a blind athlete to compete against somebody

• 4:44Speaker 02

  who is in a wheelchair. So in a 400 meter run, presumably, the wheelchair racer would win every time because they're in a vehicle which would allow them to be faster in a 400 meter sprint. So we classify these athletes into these various categories. It gets complicated because we we're still experimenting with how closely of the impairment can we have and still have competition. So I'll give you an example. Is it fair, and I'll just ask you this question, is it fair for someone who has a hand amputation to run 100 meters against someone with an upper arm amputation?

• 5:29Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, so if I just asked you that question, you would probably say, well, no, it's not fair because the person with the hand amputation has a longer limb and therefore it the the person that has more balance and they can control their movements much more easily.

• 5:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  So it's a very complicated system.

• 5:52Chuck Nice?

  It sounds very complicated. So who makes these decisions? Is it is it is there a governing body that says, okay, let's The International Paralympic Committee, I'm guessing is That says, look, yeah, let's make these decisions and and then make sure that everybody adheres to them.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Ultimately, it's the International Paralympic Committee for Paralympic sanctioned events. So that would be world championships. And as you guys know, March the 9th is the opening of the Pyeongchang 28th Paralympic Games.

• 6:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  Very excited, I'm gonna be there for the whole time. It's gonna be a great experience and we're gonna see some great sport. But ultimately, it's the International Paralympic Committee who has the responsibility for developing evidence-based classifications. Now, it's up to the sport to define that. So the IPC, for example, is not gonna tell snowboarding how to classify their athletes. Likewise, they're not gonna tell field athletes how to classify their athletes. We let the sports do that, but we give them the context, the infrastructure, to develop an evidence-based classification system. We're still working on it.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  It's not a perfect system, but it's as close as we've gotten in many decades.

• 7:11Gary O'Reilly?

  When you, in your book, the title is quite interesting, Training of Paralympic Athletes. They don't all come in the same sort of package. Some may be hereditary, some through birth defects, some through traumatic incidents throughout their life. How do you then work to get those athletes to a point where they can be Paralympics? And what sort of work do you do mentally and physically with these guys?

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's an excellent question, because typically what you and I want to do is feel sorry for the athlete because he or she might have had a bad accident, which then led to a spinal cord injury and now they're in a wheelchair. I got over that over 20 years ago when I first started working with Paralympic athletes in my membership on the International Paralympic Committee, because truly, these are athletes. They're not just someone who is in a wheelchair. They are wheelchair athletes. And once you get over that, "Well, you know, they're poor guys, they're in a wheelchair." Well, they don't wanna be known as the poor guys in a wheelchair, they wanna be known as Paralympic athletes.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  So when you approach a Paralympic athlete with training and/or coaching, you need to approach it as they are an athlete. And guess what? They wanna win a gold medal, just like any Olympic athlete.

• 8:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Is it amazing, I mean, how much difference is there? There's some obvious differences in terms of able-bodied and less able-bodied athletes that that you work with. Is there a great difference between the two in the sense of how the regimes are set up? I'm not talking about performance, but in the way that the regimes are set up. Game competition, is that what you're saying? No, it's the way that an athlete will prepare for a competition. Oh, their regimen, okay. Yeah.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's essentially the same as any other athlete. They approach their competition just like any other athlete. And again, their goal is to win the gold medal, just like the Olympic athletes we're seeing in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics today. Those Paralympic athletes want to do exactly the same thing. They want to win the gold medal, so they're going to train as hard as any other athlete. Now, you do have to remember that they have a special condition, depending on what kind of athlete they are. And they, some of them may be on life-saving medications, but they're on the same water rules as any other athlete.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  But they have to remember that there is an exemption for certain drugs and medications that they take every day, and they simply go through the therapeutic use exemption process like any other athlete might, so they don't fail a drug test. So it really depends on the type of athlete, and there's one condition that we're really interested in, the IPC is really interested in, and that is what we call autonomic dysreflexia. Simply put, that is artificially inducing a high blood pressure. Now, these are typically in para-athletes, in wheelchairs, and as you know, it doesn't do a lot of good for blood flow to go to the lower extremity in somebody who's doing

• 10:34Speaker 02

  upper extremity kinds of work. So what they do, not all of them, and some of this is truly autonomic, it just happens. But some of these athletes will induce this extraordinarily high blood pressure to try to get more blood flow to the upper extremity. And if they can do that, the more blood flow to the upper extremity, the better they perform, or at least they perceive they better perform. The danger is that this autonomic dysreflexia, this artificially raised blood pressure, could be as high as 240 over 140.

• 11:11Chuck Nice?

  Whoa.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  For you and I, normal blood pressure is 120 over 80, right? And even as we prepare for physical activity, the systolic blood pressure, the top number, may go up as high as 160 or so, but the lower number, the diastolic blood pressure, generally remains about 80 if it's normal. But with autonomic dysreflexia, they have this reflex mechanism, which increases their blood pressure to the number that I just said. Extraordinarily dangerous because they can have a stroke.

• 11:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Believe me, I'm a black man. I'm very familiar with that.

• 11:48Gary O'Reilly?

  So even if they do this on a temporary basis, the exposure to a stroke is high. It's high risk, high category.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Extraordinarily high.

• 12:00Chuck Nice?

  Extraordinary, yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  And the problem that we have with the IPC is that there's no real way to detect autonomic dysreflexia without taking a blood pressure.

• 12:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  So there's no way, you know, so for example, if your blood pressure was elevated, me looking at you or you looking at me.

• 12:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  There's no way to tell if you have high blood pressure until we put a cuff on their arm and take their blood pressure.

• 12:26Chuck Nice?

  That's why they call it the silent killer.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so what we've been forced to do is to actually go into the warm-up area, observe the athletes, and if we suspect that someone has artificially induced high blood pressure, we'll throw a cuff on them and we'll take their blood pressure, and if it's elevated, we'll take them out of the competition.

• 12:46Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So let me ask you this with respect to when we talk about the athletes themselves.

• 12:54Chuck Nice?

  Let's say somebody is playing a sport. They have a traumatic injury. And now they switch over to the Paralympic version of that same sport. From a, from a kinesiology standpoint. How difficult is it and what would they have to do mentally and physically to make that switch? Because I'm looking at some of the sports here. And even though it's the same sport. God, it just looks so much harder when you do it on the Paralympic side. I mean, it's, it's like, it makes the, the regular sport look easy.

• 13:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you don't have an experience with, with that, I would strongly urge your viewers to turn into, turn on to NBC. There, there's 94 hours of Paralympic coverage during the Paralympic Games, March 9th to the 18th. And tune in and, and one of those sports that you, you've mentioned is, is wheelchair or quad rugby. And, and it's amazing that the majority of the players on quad rugby, this, this rugby, played on a basketball court in a wheelchair, as violent as any rugby can be.

• 14:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Isn't it called murder ball?

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Uh, it was.

• 14:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, there's a, there'll be a reason for that, I'm sure. Yeah.

• 14:17Chuck Nice?

  Coolest name, coolest name ever.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, there, yeah, and it's a great movie. I would suggest people take a look at that. It's, it's a great movie. It's about the American rugby team. Uh, but if you, if you watch wheelchair rugby, you will be astonished at how violent it can be, under the rules, of course. But if you ask them, what, what sport did you play before you became injured? More than half of them will tell you that they played rugby.

• 14:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:46Gary O'Reilly?

  See, as, can you ima, from a, from an athletics point of view, from an athlete's perspective, if the athlete were, as Chuck was saying, able-bodied and then found themselves not able to perform like that because of a traumatic event. What boundaries have they got to have gone through physically and mentally to then come back into, to re-enter sport, knowing that they could never re-enter it the way that they exited?

• 15:15Speaker 02

  One of them is thankful that they have a sport to go to that's similar to the sport that they engaged in before they had their injury.

• 15:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Almost every athlete will tell you that same thing.

• 15:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  That they're so very thankful to the Paralympic, for the Paralympic Games, that they have a sport that they love.

• 15:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Happened to have gotten an injury, and may or may not have been related to their playing of rugby, by the way.

• 15:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, agreed.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, but if they did get, if they did have an injury, and they love to play rugby as an able-bodied athlete, now they have a place to go where they can do the same sport in a wheelchair, but it's the same sport. Now, there is a transition, anybody that has a traumatic injury like that, there's gonna be a transition between, you know, I, here I am, a well athlete, I'm a good athlete, and now, all of a sudden, I'm in a chair for life.

• 16:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  You get through that transition, then you start thinking about, okay, I'm gonna be in a chair for life, but what can I do with myself in a chair? And getting them back into athletics, getting them back into a sport that they love, for example, rugby.

• 16:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  It is, it does wonders for their psychological well-being and their physical well-being.

• 16:24Chuck Nice?

  So, when it comes to technology, I was watching some videos of like, very early Paralympic Games, and then the Games from last year.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:37Chuck Nice?

  And, God, it's, it's night and day when you look at, one, how great these athletes are, I mean, it's unbelievable.

• 16:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 16:46Chuck Nice?

  These are real athletes, people. I, I, I mean, seriously, do not confuse them with, you know, I don't even know, they're just athletes, they're not Paralympic athletes, they're athletes.

• 16:54Gary O'Reilly?

  The most inspiring thing you will ever witness in your life.

• 16:58Chuck Nice?

  It's incredible. But I also noticed that you see a lot of technology, like, increases in technology. Where does that come from? Who's spurring that technology? And is there anything new on the horizon that you see that, that may be forthcoming that's good to look out?

• 17:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Well, the answer is yes, yes, and yes.

• 17:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Every athlete wants to win the gold medal. And just like an Olympic athlete with his or her shoes or their outfit, they want to win the gold medal. They're gonna do everything they can to win the gold medal. So it's the athletes who drive, for the most part, the technology. They will contact wheelchair companies, for example, and say, "I want the lightest wheelchair you can you can develop for me. And, oh, by the way, I'll be your spokesperson, too."

• 17:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Goes a long way, right? But you're absolutely right. And and one thing that that I've been interested in is a disparity between countries and the technology.

• 17:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  So, for example, you probably saw in, oh, maybe even maybe in London, where you saw these carbon legs on some of the athletes.

• 18:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, blades.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Athletes didn't have access to that. And and so you have to ask yourself, well, is it the technology that won the gold medal for them? Or was it their athleticism? So what so what I've been interested in lately is to decrease the disparity between developing countries and developed countries.

• 18:26Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  If if you look at, you know, countries, developing countries, for example, in South America and in Africa, they don't have the same technology as the Canadians and the Europeans and the Americans. So we're working very closely with companies to say, hey, look, you know, we we really want these athletes to become part of the Paralympic family. We want it to be fair. We've developed classification systems, but now we have to look at the technology. We need to put everybody in the same kind of chair. We need to give everybody the same kinds of legs. We haven't gotten to that point yet.

• 19:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Still driven by economies of of these countries.

• 19:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  We're also finding that through the GITO's Foundation, the International Paralympic Committee, help is helping financially these developing countries and bringing in the technology for their athletes.

• 19:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow. But the the desire is there, doctor. The desire to have an egalitarian level playing field, no pun intended, really, is is there. And I think that is the true Olympic ethos, to achieve that, to allow everybody to be able to compete and let the best win and move on.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  And be fair.

• 19:43Gary O'Reilly?

  And be fair, absolutely.

• 19:44Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. So is there anything that you'd like to leave us with because we're out of time, but we'd love if you have a final punctuation that you'd like to put on this? We'd love to hear it.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. March 9th to March 18th, tune into NBC TV, 94 hours of coverage, including the opening ceremonies and the closing ceremonies. If there's one sport that I would suggest everybody watch, that is the gold medal match, it will be the US, I think. The gold medal match in sledge hockey. It's hockey on a sled.

• 20:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  And it is every bit as exciting as stand-up hockey.

• 20:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, if not, if not even more because unlike regular hockey, these guys propel themselves with the sticks that they use to shoot. It is unbelievable and they check each other. I mean, it's the same as hockey except that it's on a sled and I mean, it's fast, it's exciting, it's physical. I think you're absolutely right and I would love to see the US come home with the gold on that. So fantastic, Doc. Fantastic.

• 20:51Gary O'Reilly?

  We are going to take a break. Enough wittering from me. Fabulous to have the good doctor, Dr. Walter Thompson with us to explain so much about the Paralympic movement. When we come back, it's snowboarder Mike Shea, Paralympic silver medalist from the Olympics. And if you are interested in that ice sledge hockey.

• 21:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 21:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, how about a double Olympic champion? One of those two. Taylor Lipsett. If you want to know what it takes to be a double world champion, stick around.

• 21:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 21:29Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 21:30Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. Today we are talking about winter Paralympic sports.

• 21:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 21:36Gary O'Reilly?

  We've just heard from a world leader in the field, Dr. Walter Thompson in our previous segment. So let's get straight to the business end, shall we? And joining us now is Team USA Paras snowboarder Mike Shea. Mike, welcome to the show.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  Hey, how's it going? Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

• 21:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, you're welcome. I'll just to give Mike his props.

• 21:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, gotta give him his due, man.

• 21:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Silver at the Paralympics in Sochi.

• 22:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Snowboard cross, which, as we've seen, is a bit like NASCAR on snow.

• 22:04Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh, world championship gold in 2015, bank slalom, world championship bronze in 2017, snowboard cross, and in 2012 in snowboard cross. So, pretty credible guest, wouldn't you say?

• 22:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I would say just a little bit, yeah. Yeah, he might know what he's doing.

• 22:19Gary O'Reilly?

  He'll do. Right.

• 22:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. We could have done much worse. Hey, Mike, uh...

• 22:24Gary O'Reilly?

  You ready for Pyeongchang?

• 22:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  I hope so, man. It's been a really incredible year, uh, prepping for things and traveling on the World Cup circuit. Had a pretty good season. Um, I came home with the World Cup overall title in bank slalom, so I couldn't be more prepared for the Games. I just have to stay healthy and make sure that I have the right mindset moving forward.

• 22:43Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I'm sure you have the right mindset, man. You know, doing the research on you, you're a beast, dude.

• 22:49Gary O'Reilly?

  So what is, what is the criteria? Okay, so the other things with the health and the mindset, so what is the criteria for a Paral snowboarder? And I've got to do this, an elite athlete like yourself.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  Well, you mean like in terms of selection criteria, like what it takes to be on, in the Games or on the US team?

• 23:08Gary O'Reilly?

  All of the above.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  So the criteria for US Paralympics to be on the US national team, which, uh, gives you the ability to have funding, uh, from the USOC and all of the perks such as training at the Olympic Training Centers and having, uh, wax technicians and, uh, personal trainers. You have to be, it's, it's pretty hard to be on the US national team. For us, you have to be top five in the world. Um, and we have three athletes who are ranked top five in the world in our division. So it's a really competitive field and, um, I'm luckily on the national team. And then to make the Paralympic team, the criteria is a little bit different. You had to, uh, have so many podiums within the last, I think, 12 months or so in order for you to make the Games team. Somewhere in there, I'm not exactly sure. I just know that, uh, I did what I took for me to make the team this year

• 23:55Speaker 03

  and, uh, tried not to pay too much attention to that stuff.

• 23:58Chuck Nice?

  See, that's a, that's a mark of a true athlete right there. I did what it took and I try not to pay too much attention to it. Hey, can you explain what adaptive snowboarding is? I saw that term keep popping up and they never explain it. They just keep saying adaptive snowboarding in all the, you know, in the videos and in the reading. Can you explain what that is?

• 24:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, so adaptive snowboarding is basically snowboarding and the adaptive before it is just explaining the differences between regular snowboarding and us, which is basically, we just use adaptive equipment. So we're snowboarders with disabilities. Some of us are below knee amputees, some of us are above knee amputees. We have disabilities such as cerebral palsy and we just use certain adaptive equipment to help us snowboard. For me, it's a prosthetic leg. Aside from that, everything is almost identical. We use the same snowboards, we use the same bindings, we use the same gear. Everything else is almost identical.

• 24:51Chuck Nice?

  Cool, cool. So I know that, and we're going to get into your story in a second because you have a really, a pretty compelling story. But one of the things that you were into before you pretty much gave up your life to do, be a Paralympic champion, you were into woodworking. And I want to know, how did that happen? Where did your love of woodworking come from? And then you gave it up to go and do this. So how did that decision come about?

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, man, it's just like everything in life. It just sort of just, you know, you all of a sudden take these different paths and you end up on these roads you never thought you'd be on. And I never thought that I'd be a woodworker, let alone a professional furniture builder. But one, you know, year after, it was after my amputation and I was really trying to find my identity and figure out what I enjoyed doing. I built a dog house for my dog in the backyard that he never used, by the way, but I really actually enjoyed building it.

• 25:51Gary O'Reilly?

  That still bites, doesn't it? Pun intended.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  It does, it does. But it looks good. So and I, and it's where I found my love for woodworking, so.

• 26:00Gary O'Reilly?

  But you had some celebrity clientele. You weren't just making unused dog houses.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  No, and I had, I was lucky enough to have worked for Rick Installation Company. Rick, his last name, Rick Anderson Installation Company. We did window coverings, motorized window coverings and things for, in these high-end homes. And so I already had a connection with that clientele and those designers. And then for me to be able to have my furniture and do jobs in those same areas, it really worked out for me.

• 26:32Chuck Nice?

  So here you are, you were, you're, you found this love of woodworking as a result of

• 26:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:38Chuck Nice?

  injury. And you were already an athlete, and you were already into, you know, you know, a love of the sport. But why don't you give us your story? I don't want to put it in my words, you can put it in your words.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  No, no, no, it has to be from you, sir.

• 26:52Chuck Nice?

  And tell us exactly what happened and how you ended up with your injury, which was, which was very traumatic. And I'd love to know the psychology of what happened to you and how you transitioned.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, man, I, you know, at that time in my life, I really, you know, I really wasn't in a place that I really was comfortable with. I was hanging out with the wrong people. I was drinking a whole lot and partying. And in my mind, that was a time where I should have really been focusing on school and thinking about what I was going to do for the next phase of my life. But that really all changed for me when I was at the age of 19 in 2002, and I was out wakeboarding with friends. I was sitting on the railing of the boat where I probably shouldn't have been sitting. And the wake, the boat was headed to the other side of the lake for better water. And we hit a crosswake, and all I remember was just being thrown off the edge of the boat and into the water. And it all happened so quick that I didn't really have a whole lot of time to think.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  But I remember feeling the rope wrapped around my neck and the back of my arm.

• 27:53Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  And knowing that that rope was still attached to the boat because we were just wakeboarding moments before. So I thought to myself, you know, I better get this unraveled from around my neck and my arm before it tightens up because it's not going to be pretty. I got it unraveled from my neck just as it sliced through the back of my arm, then cinched up around my ankle. And I just heard this loud noise. And I didn't really know what it was at that time because it was so quick and so sudden. You know, sometimes when you cut your finger with a knife and it's really sharp, you don't even feel it.

• 28:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  It just happened so fast. And I remember getting up to the swim deck when my friends came back around to pick me up. And I got on the back of the boat and I saw that the water around me was just red from all the Um. And I, the moment I lifted, lift my leg out of the water and saw what was left, it was pretty obvious to me that it was just, it was completely gone. It was mangled. Um. And then I, that's when I knew my life was pretty much gonna change forever. So it was chaos after that for a little while.

• 28:48Gary O'Reilly?

  So from that point, we're moving forwards, upwards, onwards, very positive. Or was there just this, what now? Or did you think, right, I've got to get to do something that achieves, or how long did it take?

• 29:01Speaker 03

  To recover from that?

• 29:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Yeah. And, and, um, and I mean, I'm sure, of course you have physical rehab, but mentally as well.

• 29:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, mentally as much as anything.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know what? What's strange is, is mentally, it was so easy for me to get back on my feet and just say, you know what? I can do this. And it's, I think that's because I had the family and the friends and the support system. Um, that I'm so grateful to have, but physically for me, it was like, I wanted to, to get over it right away. And I wanted to get back on my feet, but physically I, I couldn't keep up with my mind. Um. And so it took quite a bit of time. Luckily, I was able to get back on my feet and snowboarding within a couple of months. Um, but that's, uh, still, you know, I, I even struggled after that for quite some time. And e- even after that, was still back into prescription pain medication and masking some symptoms with, uh, the use of, of Oxycontin and Vicodin.

• 29:53Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Yeah. Which is common, uh, you know, for.

• 29:56Gary O'Reilly?

  That's it. But you, you went on a journey. You really did. So when from that point do you realize? I'm actually, I've actually got something to offer as an elite snowboarder.

• 30:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. And, and, and, and you really did give up everything and put it all into this, this sport. So how did that come about?

• 30:15Gary O'Reilly?

  That's a line. Uh, you must have stood there in front of one side of the line and thought, do I want to be on this side or the other side?

• 30:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  That's it, man. And for me, the turning point was honestly, like, I, I went years after my amputation where I really couldn't figure out where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do with my life. And it was the day that I decided to get clean and sober and I checked myself into rehabilitation. And I spent, I think, thirty days inpatient rehab. I got out. And I made that decision that from this point forward, I'm gonna live my life clean and sober, healthy, and I wanna be back to being an athlete. Um, that I started traveling the world, competing on the World Cup circuit, and having this successful career in snowboarding. It was after I made that decision that, like you said, I wanna be on this side, not on this side. And from that point forward, everything just kind of. Was was free running.

• 31:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, we're thrilled.

• 31:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man.

• 31:05Gary O'Reilly?

  The clarity of your story in telling it is superb and

• 31:09Chuck Nice?

  And I'm sure it helps.

• 31:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Congratulations to you for being able to to make that step and then put yourself in a position where you're an elite stage. And because of our show, the nature of our show, we like to focus on science. Are you conscious and we've actually done a snowboarding show with a professor of skateboarding and also Dr. Skateboard, if you don't even know him, Dr. Bill Robertson, wonderful guy, and Othello Clark, who's a professional snowboarder. They were very conscious of the physics and science involved in snowboarding. Are you of a similar ilk that you are very much aware of what is going on when you do your thing?

• 31:46Speaker 03

  Let me tell you, man, I get so sometimes in depth with technical aspect of snowboarding and what it takes. You know, maybe not like down to the specifics, but when it comes to my prosthetic equipment and my binding setup and playing with different things to get the snowboard to react a different way. I'm always up for science when it comes to that stuff. And it's like that with woodworking too, so it kind of relate to it.

• 32:10Gary O'Reilly?

  How have you found with your prosthetic that you've had to be loaded more towards one side than the other? Or have you been able to find something that is truly balanced?

• 32:22Speaker 03

  It's never truly balanced because it's not like your real body. And so you're always constantly trying to figure out a way for your prosthetic to achieve the same thing that your real foot had. Um, but you know, and for me, it was it was about putting a wedge underneath my heel so that I can kick my my knee forward and do a more natural body position that I was able to finally get where.

• 32:42Gary O'Reilly?

  See, necessity, the mother of invention.

• 32:44Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely, yeah. So, you know, it's funny, I said to Dr. Thompson earlier in the show that. It really looks like um every single Paralympic sport is harder than the regular sport. I mean, it just like when you look at what you guys are doing, it's just it's it just has to be harder. Am I are my eyes deceiving me or or is that the it just looks harder, man?

• 33:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, we've got to overcome the the public stigma of what it's like to be an adaptive athlete for one. But number two is is we're having to use adaptive equipment to to make make it work. And and every day I use science and I use prosthetic legs in order for me to achieve the same thing that a normal snowboarder would achieve every day.

• 33:32Gary O'Reilly?

  How do snow conditions affect you differently to someone with both legs?

• 33:38Speaker 03

  Snow conditions are the same as far as the way that it affects uh someone with disability and someone without a disability. Conditions are the same.

• 33:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Cool. Mention something you had uh you would have access as an elite athlete to the what did you call them wax technicians?

• 33:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:55Gary O'Reilly?

  This sounds a great idea. Having watched a little bit of the Olympics in Pyeongchang, I've begun to realize how much more important that is depending on conditions and in certain stages in the structure of the course itself, particularly on the cross.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  Big time um and and that's when you really get into the science of things. Uh we have a wax technician for the US team. Uh his name is Mark, we call him Skitty. Um he actually spends hours and hours every evening laying down a base coat of wax on our snowboards. Um after he lays down a base coat, the very next day, he takes snow temperatures at all the different parts on the race course. Cause it could be colder at the top and you know warmer at the bottom. But not only that, there's different moisture contents. And then he applies what's called the fluorocarbon wax. It's an overlay that goes on the base of your board.

• 34:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh huh.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  And so the board actually has a little they call it structure. And so there's these little microscopic lines that basically makes the snow and the water beat off the board. So when you put on these these plastic fluorocarbons in between those little those structures, when it's laid on top of the snow, it accelerates instead of slowing down.

• 35:04Chuck Nice?

  Whoa.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Nail it right, um, it can be a wax race and, and the course in Pyeongchang for the able-bodied athletes was so straight at the bottom.

• 35:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 35:14Speaker 03

  Um, it was definitely a wax race for some of those guys. You really had to have your technician nail in it. Otherwise you can win or lose a race by almost a full second or two, you know, what wax you have.

• 35:23Gary O'Reilly?

  That was the I five. Is that right? They're calling it the I five, but the, the start for me kind of freaked me out. It was like, there was a whole lot of snowboarders and the gates opened and they're on a balcony and they've got to drop nine foot. And then all of a sudden they've got these other, this technical aspect of the race right at the beginning where there was one boarder just got trapped as if gravity just went, nah.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 35:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Sucked them down, kept them there.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  The start is actually, to me, although it looks intimidating, it's, it's probably a little bit easier than some of the more, um, uh, speed parts of the course, which is down below. For, for me, every athlete, um, I've always been more of a fan of, uh, technical start sections, but man, that course definitely looked challenging for a lot of those guys.

• 36:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. So you are, um, I saw, uh, pictures of you, uh, with your blade on, uh, you're, you're running track, you, you're snowboarding, you, uh, you're clearly an athlete, you know, like just an athlete's athlete. Do you, do you plan on like branching out or is it like you just love this so much? Do, one, do you still wakeboard? I mean, I'd be interested to know that. And, and two, do you feel like you want to do any other things? Because it's clearly you can do them.

• 36:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, man. I've always loved being a part of all kinds of different sports and I've kind of always liked being a jack of all trades and, uh, just, just diving deep into different things that I've never tried before and trying to master that. So that's why I like so many different sports. I do wakeboard still occasionally. Um, I, at that time I had a lot of friends that owned boats and so it was really easy for me to be able to go out and wakeboard, but these days it's not, it's, it's much harder to come by. So I don't wakeboard as much, but, uh, I do, I wanted to do track and field for a little while on the Paralympic, uh, side, but you know, that takes years and years of training and the focus has always been on snowboarding. And so, and my thought was just, just finish, um, this year in Pyeongchang and get my snowboarding, um, finished with before I start any new endeavors

• 37:23Speaker 03

  and we'll see where that takes me. If it's summer sports, I would love to be able to do that.

• 37:27Chuck Nice?

  Cool, man. Cool.

• 37:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Whoa.

• 37:29Chuck Nice?

  We are, we are with you all the way, man.

• 37:30Gary O'Reilly?

  How about that, a summer and winter?

• 37:32Chuck Nice?

  Summer and winter.

• 37:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Paralympian. Wouldn't that be the, uh, well, you know what? I wish you the best of luck with that. That's incredible.

• 37:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 37:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Isn't it?

• 37:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Hey, man, we're out of time, but hopefully, um, you know, we can have you back to talk about, uh, your next, uh, chapter of whatever it will be. And, um, I'm pretty sure the next time we talk to you, it's gonna be a little gold happening, you know?

• 37:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, let's hope so.

• 37:54Chuck Nice?

  You know, I'm just saying, I'm not trying to dig you or nothing. I'm just, you know, I'm just saying, like, you know, probably, but you know, gold's my favorite color. That's all. I'm just letting you know.

• 38:02Speaker 04

  Me and you both, me and you both.

• 38:03Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go. Mike Shea, it's been an absolute honor, sir, and the very best of luck in Pyeongchang.

• 38:09Speaker 04

  Thank you, guys, very much. I appreciate it.

• 38:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Pleasure's ours. Take care. Uh.

• 38:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man.

• 38:14Gary O'Reilly?

  We're gonna take another break. Um.

• 38:16Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 38:16Gary O'Reilly?

  From one inspirational Paralympian, we're going to be talking to another one this time. Taylor Lipsett, an ice sled double gold champion of man who played on the US team for over a decade.

• 38:31Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 38:32Gary O'Reilly?

  It's gonna be worth listening to. Stick around.

• 38:34Chuck Nice?

  Intense.

• 38:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 38:41Chuck Nice?

  And I am Chuck Nice.

• 38:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Of course, he's still playing with science. And today, we're taking a trip to the Winter Paralympics.

• 38:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 38:50Gary O'Reilly?

  And from snowboarding to ice sledge hockey. And we're now joined by two, not one, but two-time gold medalist, Taylor Lipsett. Taylor, welcome to the show, sir. Pleasure to have you on board.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, thanks for having me today. I look forward to us talking a little about sledge hockey with you guys.

• 39:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 39:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man.

• 39:08Gary O'Reilly?

  It's a little bit of embarrassment, possibly not. You might like the idea of me telling everybody that you were on the US National Sledge Hockey Team for 11 years. You won gold in Sochi 2014, gold in Vancouver in 2010. And on your way to achieving those two magnificent feats, you got bronze in Torino, Italy in 2006. You are six-time world champion medalist.

• 39:33Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 39:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Six. That's many.

• 39:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 39:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, yeah, many. And he was try captain of the US National Sledge Hockey Team between 12 and 13. Have we done you justice, sir?

• 39:45Speaker 04

  By all means, yes.

• 39:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Fabulous, because, um.

• 39:50Chuck Nice?

  I gotta tell you this sport, Taylor. So, uh, watch, watch a couple of games. Uh, Juan, congratulations on, um, being a maniac. You guys are crazy. Okay. Let me say that. Okay. But the game looks grueling. Uh, what is, what is the toughest part? What is the toughest part of this game?

• 40:11Speaker 04

  I would say the toughest part is just that it's so dynamic. Uh, you know, you're obviously using both your hands to propel yourself in the sled to skate. You're using both your hands to pass and shoot, uh, all while someone's trying to take your head off, right? So, um, it's just a very dynamic sport, you know, having to be ambidextrous, having to use your core, uh, to balance on the blades underneath the sled. Uh, like I said, all while someone's trying to take your head off, um, you know, it's, it's a lot of fun, but it's definitely hard work.

• 40:40Gary O'Reilly?

  You're gonna have to do a lot, a lot of explaining about me losing my head in the fun bit.

• 40:47Gary O'Reilly?

  From a distance, it sounds bad. Actually, in proximity, I might not have enough time to worry about it. I don't, I don't know. So what for, I think, apart from obviously what's been listed. What really was the attraction of sled hockey for you?

• 41:02Chuck Nice?

  You personally, yeah.

• 41:03Gary O'Reilly?

  For you, your story?

• 41:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, one of the main things is that I was just a hockey fan, uh, in general. And so, you know, the Stars came to Dallas, which is where I'm from, Dallas, Texas. Uh, in the, in the nineties and they won the Stanley Cup in the late nineties when I was a kid. So, you know, hockey was kind of growing in the North Texas area and I was on board. I used to play street hockey with, uh, my brother and my friends and somehow they always put me in net and just, you know, sat me sideways. So my chair took up most of the space.

• 41:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, cruel, dude.

• 41:36Speaker 04

  And so, uh, you know, when I had the opportunity to try sled hockey for the first time, you know, I immediately fell in love with it, you know, it's, uh, you know, one of the first things that most athletes will tell you is that, uh, it got me out of my chair. It got me on a level playing surface, uh, with everyone else that was, that was playing the sport. Uh, and that was a lot of fun and, you know, really appealing to me. And then, you know, like I said, once the, the sled hit the ice for the first time, uh, I immediately fell in love with it and it kind of took over my entire life, uh, from two thousand on and, or two thousand two to today, really.

• 42:09Gary O'Reilly?

  It was actually the ability to be competitive on a par with the other athletes on the ice that really drove you into that?

• 42:19Speaker 04

  Without a doubt, yeah. When I was growing up, I never played disabled sports or anything like that, but I was a huge sports fan.

• 42:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh huh.

• 42:25Speaker 04

  I was athletic and so that kind of part of me being able to compete, especially as part of a team, was a void that was always kind of missing. And so, you know, again, getting out there with the local sled hockey team here in Dallas, you know, filled that void finally. And when I started learning more about the sport and learning more about the Paralympics and, you know, what the opportunities playing the sport really had, you know, like I said, it just started to consume me as a person and became my lifelong passion now.

• 42:54Gary O'Reilly?

  You, you, you have a brittle bone condition.

• 42:58Speaker 04

  Right.

• 42:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Which does, which again, let alone the taking the head off thing.

• 43:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:03Gary O'Reilly?

  That condition is sinking. Why? But you've, you've explained a lot of good reasons in there. The challenges that you faced in terms of your training, your conditioning, your strength, everything else that you would require. What were the big hurdles you had to clear to, to achieve the status you have?

• 43:22Speaker 04

  Really, the biggest thing was just figuring out what kind of style I wanted to, to have as a player. You know, everybody on the team has their role to play. Um, and, you know, it's figuring out where I fit in, where my best chance was to contribute to a team's success. Uh, and so I, I obviously wasn't ever going to be the most physical player. I wasn't going to be the enforcer. Um, I wasn't ever going to be the fastest because, you know, I've got both my legs and, you know, amputees for the most part hold the title for the fastest skaters. Uh, so I really just had to, to develop my skills and figure out where I could really contribute. And so, uh, I really focused on my puck handling skills and my shooting abilities.

• 44:01Speaker 04

  And, you know, luckily that provided me the opportunity for a 10, 11 year career on the Paralympic team.

• 44:08Chuck Nice?

  Hey, do me a favor because it just dawned, uh, to, dawned on me that, you know, we're talking about the, the sport and maybe people don't know what we're really talking about. Because, uh, like I said, and for those of you listening, as soon as this is over, you need to get to like a YouTube channel and just look at some of the games because.

• 44:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Prepare yourself for the Paralympics coming up on March the 9th.

• 44:31Chuck Nice?

  And, and watch that.

• 44:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Stage hockey is going to be the one thing that you're going to hear an awful lot about. Am I right, Zayla?

• 44:37Speaker 04

  Most definitely, that's without a doubt the most popular

• 44:40Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 44:40Speaker 04

  uh, winter Paralympic sport for sure, and I would go out on a limb and argue one of the more popular Paralympic sports overall.

• 44:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so can you explain to uh, the listeners what the game is and just kind of describe to them how the game goes down?

• 44:55Speaker 04

  Alright, so the game of sledge hockey at its heart is just hockey. Same rules, same playing surface, five on five skaters, goalie on each end. Um, the only difference really is how we skate, how we propel ourselves. Um, and to do that, we have custom made sledges or sleds that we call in the US.

• 45:15Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:15Speaker 04

  And you think about it, they're kind of shaped like a U-shaped dolly uh, would be, and then uh, each player has a bucket, usually they're custom made at the Paralympic level, but a a custom made bucket that we sit in that's mounted to that U-shaped frame. And then we just take the blades off of regular hockey skates and mount them on to a custom made bracket underneath the bucket. And you know, that's our skate, that's how we get around on the ice. And then instead of having one stick, uh, like stand-up hockey, we have two sticks. And on the end of those sticks are metal picks, uh, that are very, very sharp.

• 45:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 45:49Speaker 04

  And what we dig into the ice to propel ourselves, and then the opposite end is the blade, which is what we use to pass and shoot with. And like I mentioned earlier, you can use both hands to pass and shoot, you can go underneath your legs, uh, sitting in the sled. Uh, so you know, lots of opportunity to be very skillful uh, and do a lot of crazy things with the puck and the sticks and that sort of thing, and uh, like I said, it's extremely dynamic, it's tons of fun, it's extremely fast-paced, I think that's one of the the big things people are most surprised about that are seeing it for the first time.

• 46:20Chuck Nice?

  Super fast.

• 46:21Speaker 04

  It is, uh, and then second is the physicality, you know, it's, it's hockey, so it's full contact.

• 46:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 46:27Speaker 04

  Uh, and one thing I always point out to people is that in sled hockey, we're sitting down on the ice and the boards at the bottom uh, don't give when you hit them.

• 46:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  Top of the boards are made to give a little bit when stand-up hockey players are checked into them. Uh, but the bottom of the boards are not made to give and they are solid. Uh, and when you've got players skating, you know, twenty-five, thirty miles an hour. Uh, when you're getting rammed into those boards full speed, it's essentially like being in a car collision with no car.

• 46:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 04

  So you can just imagine, you know, how physical, how physically demanding it is and, uh, you know, it's a big part of the game.

• 47:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Did a show, remember we did a show on ice hockey, stand-up, as you will, as you've educated me to call it stand-up hockey.

• 47:07Chuck Nice?

  Stand-up hockey.

• 47:08Gary O'Reilly?

  It's not a contact sport, it's a collision sport.

• 47:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 47:11Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is exactly.

• 47:12Chuck Nice?

  And it's the same thing with sledge hockey, it's, it's, it's a collision sport, it's unbelievable how.

• 47:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Not for the faint-hearted like myself.

• 47:18Chuck Nice?

  I mean, it's, I, I, I watched it and I was just, I, I, and forgive me Taylor, forgive me, but I, I gotta be honest. I'm wa- I'm watching this online and I'm just like, these dudes are effing crazy. Like, oh my god, what is going?

• 47:33Gary O'Reilly?

  No, I think.

• 47:34Chuck Nice?

  What is going on?

• 47:35Gary O'Reilly?

  No, you come away with a healthy respect.

• 47:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man.

• 47:39Gary O'Reilly?

  That's, without being sycophantic, you come away with a healthy respect for the athleticism that goes into the game. Uh, well, I'll take you back to the point we talking about the sticks. Do you, are you able, like a stand-up hockey, to get kick points and to use the, the stick itself to then drag across the ice and, and give yourself an extra boost when you're shooting or is it a more rigid setup?

• 48:02Speaker 04

  So, yeah, it's definitely more rigid. So you mean like, yeah, the flex and the stand-up hockey sticks, uh, where they can really put them under load and then they kind of whip. Um, yeah, so there's not that in, uh, in sledge hockey, the sticks, no. Uh, at maximum, they can be a hundred centimeters. Most players don't have them that long, but yeah, when it's that short, you're not going to get a lot of that flexibility in the, in the shaft. Um, and so, you know, it's really all about using your shoulder, your elbow.

• 48:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:30Speaker 04

  And, you know, surprisingly, a lot of players, uh, use their, their feet or, you know, their lower extremities to help whip and get some force behind that and.

• 48:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, they create torque.

• 48:40Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 48:41Gary O'Reilly?

  The, the, the science is there.

• 48:43Speaker 04

  It's incredible.

• 48:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely.

• 48:46Speaker 04

  The top shooters in the world are definitely shooting close to 70 miles an hour with one hand.

• 48:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 48:53Speaker 04

  Which is unbelievable to me.

• 48:55Gary O'Reilly?

  So imagine you've got stand-up hockey with the kick point, you're able to employ an awful lot of science and force.

• 49:01Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:01Gary O'Reilly?

  No. Everything's got to come from the player themselves. Everything's got to be self-generated, even more impressive.

• 49:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, I always tell people in stand-up hockey, they've got, they're using both hands, they're using both legs and the flex in the stick to get those shots off. And then, yeah, in sledge hockey, you've got one hand, no flex, and if you've got, you know, legs, you can try to use those for that extra torque, but yeah, it's definitely all coming from that one, that one arm for the most part, and it's incredible to see players like Billy Bridges from Canada, who probably has one of the hardest shots in the world, to see him rip a shot off, it's just, it's unbelievable.

• 49:41Chuck Nice?

  So when you talk about your training for, and your practicing, I noticed, so you guys shoot with both hands.

• 49:48Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 49:48Chuck Nice?

  You have to train to be ambidextrous in this sport. How do you go about doing that?

• 49:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, I mean, just like what you just said, you train both hands all the time. You know, no matter what you're doing, you're always using both hands, trying to create that equality in strength and flexibility on each side. And then it's just really about practicing, you know, on the ice with the puck, using both hands, being able to stick handle and shoot, and that sort of thing, and you know, that's really what separates the good players from the great. It's those players that can stick handle with both hands, can shoot and pass with both hands. And you'll see in the Paralympics coming up here next month, you'll, you'll quickly be able to see the players on the ice that can do that, and you'll notice how much they stand out against everyone else.

• 50:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you look down at the, I've got to rephrase this. How do you look down on the stand-up hockey guys, but how, do you feel superior? There we go, that's better. Do you feel superior when you are ambidextrous? In the, in the way that you play and say, well, duh, why can't you be?

• 50:49Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah.

• 50:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's actually funny. A lot of sledge hockey players will train with stand-up hockey players or practice with them just to get, you know, additional training in. And, you know, one of the things we always hear is, you know, it's funny, they'll say, you know, that's not fair, you're using both hands. And it's like, well, that's not fair, you're using both legs. But it really throws them for a loop, you know, when they try to poke check you, you can just flip it over to the other hand, or, you know, when you're going in on the goalie and you can just switch back and forth until you find the hole that you want and just rip it off with either hand. It really throws the goalies for a loop as well.

• 51:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you get respect from the stand-up guys? Do the NHL guys turn up and look at you and go, yeah, we get this?

• 51:31Speaker 04

  Without a doubt, without a doubt. I've gotten to get on the ice with Tyler Sagan of the Dallas Stars a few times. And he's, he's said on multiple occasions that sledge hockey is the hardest workout he's ever had in his life. And that's coming from an all-star NHL player.

• 51:46Chuck Nice?

  Has anybody ever thought to, because I want to see this, to actually-

• 51:51Gary O'Reilly?

  You're warped again, aren't you?

• 51:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 51:53Gary O'Reilly?

  What's that?

• 51:54Chuck Nice?

  I know where you're going, go on. I got it. To have, you know, kind of an exhibition game where you take stand-up hockey players, and I'm talking from the NHL, and put them on the ice, on your turf, or on your ice, on your terms. Has anybody ever done that? Because I would love to see that game.

• 52:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, it's actually happened a few times. I don't know that it's necessarily happened with an entire NHL team.

• 52:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 52:16Speaker 04

  I know for a fact that NHL players have gotten out there. I know for a fact that there has been entire college teams get out there and play sled hockey programs from around the country. And so there's a lot of that going on, all the way down to, you know, little kids getting out there in sleds and playing youth sled hockey programs.

• 52:33Gary O'Reilly?

  That's pretty cool, isn't it?

• 52:34Chuck Nice?

  That is very cool.

• 52:35Gary O'Reilly?

  For the NHL guys to, to say, yeah, we'll do this.

• 52:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 52:39Gary O'Reilly?

  And-

• 52:40Chuck Nice?

  To embarrass themselves that way.

• 52:41Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, no, no.

• 52:42Chuck Nice?

  You know you're going to kick their, you know.

• 52:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Respect. I think it's, it's a kind of like, yeah, it's the brotherhood of the hockey family.

• 52:47Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 52:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, hockey is definitely-

• 52:49Gary O'Reilly?

  And the sisterhood, sorry, I will, I must add that too.

• 52:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's right. We've got, we've had professional female hockey players on this show, so we can't forget them.

• 52:58Gary O'Reilly?

  I have to ask you before we, we sadly let you go.

• 53:01Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 53:02Gary O'Reilly?

  What was it like to be crowned world champion? Not once, but twice.

• 53:06Speaker 04

  It's unbelievable. I mean, you know, you, you think about the, the entire time that it took for you to, to get to that point, all the people that supported you, all the sacrifices that you made, your teammates that you made, uh, you know, commitments and promises to, to, to work your butt off to be prepared for uh, the Paralympic Games and then, uh, you know, to, to be able to accomplish that goal twice in a lifetime is just something you can't put into words and I know it sounds cliche, but you know, the, the best feeling in the world is being on the ice, uh, you know, arm in arm with your, your brothers, your teammates out there singing the national anthem and, you know, those are two memories, uh, that I'll never be able to forget.

• 53:43Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's super cool, man. That's, that's, that's just super, super cool.

• 53:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Fabulous.

• 53:48Chuck Nice?

  Hey, I know you're, you're retiring and I, we gotta let you go, but I'd like to know what's gonna happen now for you, Taylor. Are you still gonna be involved in the sport?

• 53:56Speaker 04

  Without a doubt, yeah, 100%. So I, I help run a program here in Dallas, um, a club hockey program. Um, so that's, that's a lot of fun, but I'm also on the board of directors for USA Hockey, so staying involved on, uh, the national level as well. And something that hasn't been released to the public yet, but will be here in the next week is, I'll actually be commentating for NBC for the Paralympic Games coming up.

• 54:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Sweet. Oh, awesome. Sweet. Oh, that's fabulous news.

• 54:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:25Chuck Nice?

  Hey, man, congratulations.

• 54:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, and enjoy it.

• 54:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 54:28Gary O'Reilly?

  I don't think they could have made a better choice.

• 54:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 54:30Speaker 04

  It's gonna be a blast.

• 54:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. Well.

• 54:33Chuck Nice?

  What a pleasure, man.

• 54:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you.

• 54:36Speaker 04

  Thank you, guys.

• 54:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh, oh, no, the pleasure's out. Enjoy your travels to Pyeongchang. Have a great time and, uh, I no doubt you probably want them to come back with gold, so, uh, let's see what happens. What a pleasure.

• 54:49Speaker 04

  Thank you so much, guys.

• 54:50Chuck Nice?

  All right, buddy. Wow, that's unbelievable.

• 54:53Gary O'Reilly?

  See, you can't say Paralympic world champion, Paralympic gold medalist without world champion, gold medalist.

• 55:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 55:00Gary O'Reilly?

  So I think I'll take the other bit out and just go world champion.

• 55:03Chuck Nice?

  Champion, gold medalist. Yeah, yeah. I gotta tell you, man, for, for the listeners, you have got to get yourself to, uh, YouTube and watch some of these games. They are just, it is so.

• 55:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Make it part of your Paralympic package.

• 55:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Taylor, Taylor says they're dynamic and I, I love that word. It's like, there's a, that's, that's, that's a euphemism. You know what I mean? For, yeah, for like balls out. Okay. That's what this, cause that's what this sport is.

• 55:28Gary O'Reilly?

  It'll be cold, it's on ice, Chuck.

• 55:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Just thought I'd mention that. Probably should be moving on quickly. Yeah, quickly.

• 55:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, that's our show. Thank you so much to all of our guests. Dr Walter Thompson from the International Paralympic Committee to Mike Shea, our snowboarder, who will be joining Taylor Lipsett in Pyeongchang. Only he will be snowboarding while Taylor will be commentating. Yes. What a fabulous adventure into the para-athlete's world. That's right, yep. Hope you've enjoyed it. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm still Chuck Nice. And this has still been Playing with Science. See you all soon.