#TeamKidSportMB Ambassador Q&A with Colin Hodgson

What sports did you play growing up?

 

Baseball, Curling, Volleyball, Golf, Track & Field, Badminton, Basketball

 

What is your favourite sport moment from your career?

 

Being able to participate in my first Grand Slam of Curling event. Sharing a locker room with some of the greatest players to ever take to the ice. Kevin Martin, Jeff Stoughton, Niklas Edin, David Murdoch and many of the other great athletes I grew up idolizing and trying to mimic. I found myself competing against them and my drive to be on their level has never receded.

 

How has sport shaped your life?

 

Every aspect of my life has been shaped by sport. I’ve lived a fairly nomadic lifestyle travelling to where the opportunities arose and that has really shaped who I am as a person. Travel breeds perspective and I’m grateful for the opportunities to see the world from many different angles. Where I live, who my friends and colleagues are, to who I am about to marry has all directly been influenced by my passion for sport and the opportunities I have been so fortunate to have received.

 

If you weren’t currently playing your sport what would you have done/be doing?

 

I would have worked with my dad as an electrician. I thoroughly enjoy spending time with my father and that would have been a very fulfilling life.

 

What is something you would tell your younger self before you got into your sport?

 

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. Physically and most important, mentally. Self awareness is one of the greatest tools anyone can possess. People aren’t strong or weak, everyone has moments of strength and weakness. Leaning on other people can take so much weight off of your shoulders and there is no shame in that. Quite the opposite. Happiness is the key in my mind to truly winning.

 

What advice would you give to kids who are new to your sport?

 

Play for fun and to make acquaintances. There is not a single person in the world who was good at curling when they first started. Perseverance and sheer stubbornness is what lengthy and enjoyable careers are about whatever your goals may be.

 

What is the biggest goal you have achieved in your career?

 

Being selected for the Ross Harstone Sportsmanship Award at the 2020 Tim Horton’s Brier was genuinely the most satisfying and fulfilling moment in my career. To be selected by my peers as someone who distributes those types of qualities was very humbling as I’m fighting tears of what that Brier meant to me. When I was younger I thought it was all about winning trophies and my attitude was representative of that. Life has so many different momentum swings and you realize that trophies don’t fill voids. The experiences and how you react to situations can be everything.

 

How did your amateur career prepare you for your professional career?

 

In our sport we have a very fine margin between the elite and the secondary tier of athletes. Fortunately that means we have ample opportunity to play against the greats. What other sport can you just sign up to an event and play the #1 ranked team in the world? Having opportunities to see and learn with my own eyes was a catalyst in development.

 

Who has inspired you throughout your career?

 

This is a tough one to narrow down because I have had so many different influences at very varying times of my life. Back to a kid it has to be my parents, I don’t remember ever hearing no to participating in sport. My parents found a way to either take me or get me to where I needed to be whether it was baseball, curling, volleyball you name it, they got me there. I remember specifically one time my dad had me at the curling rink when I was about 12 years old until I could get rid of my “toe slide”. Couldn’t leave until we did it. After about 1.5 hours of complaining I did it and that probably saved my knees for life.

 

Obviously more inspiration came from the greats I grew up watching on old VHS tapes. Martin, Howard, Ferbey, Burtnyk, Stoughton, I used to pretend I was them with golf balls and a mini hockey stick on the floor with some twine I stole from my moms craft supplies to tape down rings on the carpet. Every player was quirky, unique, and were my heroes.

 

Why did you get involved with KidSport?

 

I was fortunate to be asked after the Brier this past season to join as a KidSport ambassador. I had a great experience during the semi final watching with a big group of junior stars in the crowd and it was a very special moment going back to my roots in the stands watching big game curling.

 

Why is KidSport so valuable to Canadian communities?

 

Supporting our youth and giving them a place where they can be their own genuine selves is so important to the development of not only the kids that are directly involved with KidSport but everyone they come in contact with for the rest of their lives. Sport has improved my quality of life and I want to have so many more kids experience that as well.