Ida & Julie’s podcast offers insight into hockey families
When Ida Bjornstad first approached Julie Turris about starting a podcast to discuss the lives of hockey families outside the rink, Turris was apprehensive.
The wife of Nashville Predators centre Kyle Turris considered herself a private person and didn’t have the comfort level required for sharing personal stories on a public platform.
But once the podcast — Off Ice with Ida & Julie — debuted last month, she knew that she and Bjornstad, the fiancee of Preds defenceman Mattias Ekholm, were on to something.
“I try to refrain from calling it a hockey wife show. Obviously Ida and I are hockey wives, and we’re the ones doing the podcast, but it’s not centred on what it’s like to be a hockey wife,” Turris said. “It’s more, ‘Here’s an interesting story from a family ’s perspective of winning the Stanley Cup, or moving here from Finland and not knowing anyone.’
“The guys deal with media all the time, and their stories are more to the point, so it’s nice to get the other side of the coin and talk about how crazy it is to pick up everything and move to a new city after a trade. It’s an inside look into the families as a whole, not just the hockey wife.” Bjornstad, a former sports broadcaster in her native Sweden, had the idea for the podcast back in October, and set up meetings with the Predators and their media team to make it happen.
The weekly show, which can be heard on iHeartRadio, iTunes, Spotify and other platforms, comes out every Wednesday. Bjornstad and Turris are joined each week by a guest who talks about her experience in the hockey community over the course of 30-45 minutes. Guests are also asked to bring in items that are later auctioned off, with the proceeds benefiting a food bank in Nashville.
For Turris, who moved to Nashville when her husband was traded from the Ottawa Senators in November 2017, the podcast brings together a community that helped make her own transition to a new city much easier.
“It’s an interesting life. It has its ups and downs, but if you can find women who understand that and can gather around and support each other, it makes a huge difference,” she said. “In Ottawa I had a really good group of girls . ... And moving to Nashville, it was so overwhelming, but the second I came here, I found girls I immediately clicked with and that was such a weight off my shoulders.” The podcast also discusses themes outside the hockey family dynamic. In Week 2, guest Melanie Collins, an NFL sideline reporter who is the girlfriend of Calgary Flames forward James Neal, talked about the challenges of sustaining a career when your spouse is a professional athlete. Turris, a teacher by trade, could relate. She struggled to harmonize her own identity with being a “hockey wife” when she and her husband moved to Ottawa in 2012. Teaching jobs in the Canadian capital were hard to come by, and having earned her degree at an American school — the University of Wisconsin, where she and Kyle met — Turris needed to upgrade her credits to teach in a new country. “There was a bit of a time in Ottawa where I felt like I was just following him. I definitely felt a bit lost,” Turris said. “And it wasn’t a pity party. I chose that life — moving and giving things up is what you have to do — but I had to find other things to fulfil me, so I started volunteering at a school and working with kids and it did really help.” Turris said the feedback from the podcast has been mostly positive, but she and Bjornstad were prepared for negative comments. “We’re putting ourselves out there, going out of our comfort zone, and you can’t stop someone saying whatever they want about you behind a computer,” said Turris.