Mikkelson’s vision includes third gold
Juggling motherhood and training no easy task for veteran
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA— It is, Meaghan Mikkelson said, “the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
The 33-year-old veteran of Canada’s national women’s hockey team wasn’t talking about navigating the path to either of the two gold medals she and her teammates have won at the previous two Olympics, although those surely were anything but easy to come by. And she wasn’t talking about her star turn, alongside teammate Natalie Spooner, on TV’s The Amazing Race Canada: Season 2, even though competing in that reality-travel show came with its challenges.
No, Mikkelson was talking about the past 21⁄ years, because they’ve
2 been a rare whirlwind. Over that span she gave birth to her son, Calder. Then, as soon as she could get clearance from a doctor to return to training— which turned out to be a matter of three months — she promptly resumed her quest for a third Olympic gold.
Along the way there’ve been no end of highs, Mikkelson said. Winning hockey games has always brought her incredible joy.
“But having a child,” she said, “is the greatest thing in the world.”
There’ve been lows, too, the postpartum kind that Mikkelson, who has a background as a motivational speaker, has said women don’t talk about enough. Life as a hockey mom has also introduced her to the realities of rediscovering one’s athleticism while juggling the early days of parenthood.
“When I first came back it was tough to get my body back to where it needed to be,” she said. “I was pulling groins left and right, and throwing my back out. Then I had bursitis in my shoulder and tendinitis in my wrist from carrying him around so much.”
That Mikkelson has weathered those achy moments to arrive here — playing defence for Canada in Monday’s Olympic semifinal against Russia for the right to face the winner of the United States and Finland for gold — doesn’t seem to surprise the members of Team Canada.
“I think she came back even stronger, she has mom power now,” Spooner said.
Mikkelson doesn’t dispute the idea that motherhood, along with pro- viding her with improved recuperative powers, has also somehow helped her increase her strength in the weight room beyond levels she’d achieved before pregnancy.
“I don’t know if she ever was out of shape,” said Canada’s head coach, Laura Schuler. “Her fitness level is exceptional.”
As the oldest player on a team stocked with nine rookies, mind you, keeping up hasn’t been without its struggles. While the world of elite sports has embraced the merits of sleep science — the principle that optimizing rest and recovery is a competitive weapon — Mikkelson has spent her share of nights in which rest is non-existent, or at least insufficient.
“There were definitely times when I’d be up nursing in the middle of the night. My groins would be sore. I’d wake up after three hours of sleep and I’d have to go do what everyone else was doing,” she said. “But having that challenge of coming back after having him is something that fuelled me. It made me want to continue to play and get better.”
Through all the slogging, all the 10and 12-hour days at the rink during Hockey Canada’s gruelling preOlympic centralization year, Mikkelson said she was sustained by many things. She was aided by a support system that includes her husband, Scott Reid, a former minor-pro goaltender who has been her coach with the Canadian Women’s Hockey League’s Calgary Inferno; by her parents and Scott’s parents; by her sister who came home from England this year to take on the role of Calder’s nanny; and by teammates who always ask ques- tions about Calder, even though none of them are mothers.
“I’m so lucky I have all that support. And my teammates are great. Talking about him, when I’m away from him, is sort of therapeutic as well,” she said.
She was driven, ultimately, by an Olympic vision: The one in which she saw herself, more than two years ago, looking up into the stands in Pyeongchang to see her husband and her son smiling and waving. In the 21⁄ years since she became a
2 mother, that vision had helped motivate her to train on sub-optimal rest and push herself to regain her form.
That vision, pre-lived by former national team members such as Cheryl Pounder and Becky Kellar, who both returned to win gold after becoming mothers, convinced her it was worth forgoing a social life in its pursuit.
This past week at the Olympics, it became a reality in the wake of Thursday’s 2-1 win over the United States in the final game of groupstage play. Her husband and son, who are staying in Seoul, a few hours by train to the west, came to the game and spent time with her at Canada Olympic House after it was over.
And in those moments, here 21⁄ 2- year plan finally looked as though it was coming together.
“Everything we’ve sacrificed as a family the past 21⁄ years, to look up
2 in the stands after that game against the U.S. — Calder had the biggest smile on his face. And my husband had tears in his eyes,” Mikkelson said.
“It just makes it all worth it. Being at the Olympics, being away from (Calder), it’s definitely not easy. But at the end of the day the stories I’m going to be able to tell him when he’s older and understands what he did — that he went to the Olympics to watch his mom play hockey — it’s a pretty cool story.”