HALIFAX — For anyone who happens to be curious about what the living room of a two-time Olympic hero looks like, Fabian Joseph is happy to offer a sneak peek of his most treasured sports memories.
Joseph loves showing off his Olympic medals and pictures and said, it never gets old.
How could it?
At the 1992 Olympics he played for Canada’s men’s hockey team and said the moment feels like it was just yesterday.
“It’s kind of surreal to be obvious," said Joseph from his home in Moncton. "Ihadthe opening ceremonies on this morning and I was getting emails from the '92 players.”
In Lillehammer, Norway in 1994, Joseph was back on the Canadian team, this time as a captain. He loves his twosilver medals but he's most proud of being a Nova Scotian who twice reached the Olympic stage.
“It was obviously an honour," said Joseph. "It was an honour for me personally, for my family, the city of Sydney and the province.”
Like the recent summer Olympics, these games are being held with strict COVID-19 protocols in place. Canada's women’s softball head coach Mark Smith said the pandemic brings added pressure and restrictions for the athletes, coaches and organizers.
"What Ido think was, it created a heightened sense of accountability among all of us to make sure that we were masking," said Smith who helped lead his team to a bronze medal finish in Tokyo. "We were extremely hyper-sensitive to not put ourselves at risk in any way shape or form and that helped us form a team culture in a sense of togetherness.”
Smith saidashe watches these winter games, starting with the opening ceremony and combines that with memories of his own Olympic experience, it helps give him an added level of appreciation for the opportunities he's had in life.
“The average Canadian probably hasn’t had the good fortune of travelling the world enough to realize how lucky we are to be Canadian," said Smith. "I am one of them, and when you have dealt with some of the challenges we had to deal with in other countries and where we’ve gone to participate. We recognize for so many people in those countries outside of sport, every day life is a struggle and you appreciate the freedoms that we have in Canada.”
Smith said that appreciation of being Canadian is what will fuel him to watch these games with a mix of national pride and passion for sports.
