Canada’s Fab Four look to the future
POSTMEDIA EXCLUSIVE: B.C.’s Sinclair and LeBlanc team up with soccer comrades for new business venture
TORONTO — They were the heart of one of the greatest and most storied Canadian teams in history and now they’ve formed a proper company — iS4 — to better teach the joys and rewards of teamwork to the nation.
Burnaby’s Christine Sinclair, Diana Matheson, Rhian Wilkinson and goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc, a product of Maple Ridge, are iS4, which stands for I Strive Four.
Sinclair, Matheson and Wilkinson led the Canadian soccer women to a second consecutive Olympic bronze medal last summer in Rio; LeBlanc retired last year.
But it was their first bronze — at the 2012 London Games — that captured the Canadian imagination in a way that probably only hockey had before. It marked them as part of the generation that brought the women’s game into the big time.
Their company, which will formally kick off Wednesday in Burnaby with a news conference and soccer camp for kids from Canadian Tire’s Jumpstart program, means “we can create something that could last for years to come,” Sinclair said in a telephone interview.
Since that 2012 bronze, the foursome has been holding development camps for youth across the country and speaking to corporations.
But that was on an ad hoc basis, when they could fit it in with their punishing pro and national team soccer schedules, and was open only to those already affiliated with a club, earning a scholarship or able to afford the price of camps.
“That’s why we’re partnering with Jumpstart,” Sinclair said. “If this (a soccer camp) was something that had been around when I was a kid, I couldn’t have gone. My parents wouldn’t have been able to send me to a one- or two-day camp.
“This will be available to everyone,” because Jumpstart will pick up the tab for low-income families.
With LeBlanc already retired and Wilkinson expected to officially pack it in soon, it means when the national team schedule gets intense, those two can do the lion’s share of work while Sinclair and Matheson get busy on the pitch.
The unique thing about their corporate presentations, where they preach the transferability of teamwork from sports to the boardroom, is that when a company books iS4, ideally they get all four women.
“We realized pretty early on that’s what separates us from other athletes,” Matheson said in an interview from her parents’ Oakville, Ont., home.
“Instead of one person speaking for 45 minutes or something, as soon as you get the four of us together, you get that team dynamic.”
When they first began doing this sort of work, Matheson said, each woman would speak for 15 minutes or so.
“But it’s the interaction between us that makes it more fun. We enjoy each other. And you get four different types of people: Christine is quieter, Rhian is all heart.”
And they do have their own stories to tell.
Of the messages they try to give young people, Sinclair said: “Diana talks about coming back from injuries; Karina was cut from a team and talks about that; my talk is about wanting these kids to find something they’re passionate about — to this day, I don’t consider it a job.
“And with Rhian, it’s all about hard work. There’s no magic formula, it’s outworking the people you’re competing with.”
Among them, they have 63 years of national team experience, three Olympic Games under their belts, two bronze medals and an assortment of university degrees. In short, they’re a preposterously well-qualified group.
Does it ever get exhausting to demand nothing but the best effort from yourself?
“Not so far,” Matheson said. “It’s probably easier when you’re with your teammates and friends, so if you’re slacking off, the others are there to pick you up.”