Jack Wallace Interview
Excited to bring you another epic interview today as we speak to our second ever Paralympian in Gold Medal winning American Sledge Hockey player Jack Wallace! Jack goes into detail about why he fell in love with the sport of hockey and the challenges involved from switching to stand up hockey to sledge hockey. He also goes over just why the sport is so amazing to watch, and just how skilled of a player you have to be. Added to this Jack talks about the journey that took him to the 2018 PyeongChang games and what it was like to leave with a Gold Medal around his neck, especially after having beaten traditional rivals Canada in the final. It’s another insightful and entertaining chat that you simply have to listen to!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
COLIN HILDING: Welcome back to Off The Podium, as we are talking to yet another American Olympian here, and yet another, for the first time in a while, another hockey player, as we are talking to Jack Wallace, sledge hockey gold medallist for Team USA from 2018 Pyeongchang, which is really exciting because it's a sport we haven't been able to touch on before, and Ben's joining me as well, and Ben, you and I talked I think before the last Paralympics before Pyeongchang, but what a fascinating sport this was to watch, that it was almost in some ways more entertaining than watching as Jack first was stand up hockey here. I mean, it's just an insane sport to watch, let alone be able to talk to Jack and get some of the details on how it's played and how you have to train for it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I have nothing but admiration for any Paralympian, and I mean, this is one of those sports which I watch and go, wow, this is just absolutely crazy. I mean, I can't skate when it comes to stand up hockey. I can't even remotely stand on there. I couldn't imagine kind of the skills and everything involved when it comes to having to adapt to this. So it's a great chat with Jack, kind of learning about that and kind of the skills involved and some unique aspects to it. But yes, one of the most entertaining sports to watch, you know, summer, winter Olympics, no matter what it is. And I actually love the fact that in this interview, because obviously the US beat you guys in Pyeongchang, you know, over time as we discover, and you're just such a Canadian, Colin. It's like, if this was Australia losing to New Zealand in overtime and anything, we're like, we're not getting him on the show. You know, screw that. We're still sulking. This is, oh yeah, I'm Canadian, absolutely. Well played, Chaps, good job. So I applaud you for your niceness throughout this interview.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, hey, Canada has suffered worst defeats in hockey at the Olympics, so it wasn't too bad to go home with a silver. I would do talk about it a little bit in here, because you did mention the Canada-US rivalry, which was really fun, so make sure to listen for that. But let's get into it here, and then we'll come back on the end and tease what else we have coming. Sledge hockey, Gold Medallist, Jack Wallace. We're continuing today in our long string of interviews with American Olympians. And we're actually very happy because today we get to speak to, I believe, only the second Paralympian we've ever had on the show. And I believe also only the second hockey player we've had on the show, which of course, being the national sport of my country, it doesn't matter to me that he beat my country a couple of years ago. It's thrilling to be able to talk to somebody from the great sport of sledge hockey, 2018 Pyeongchang gold medallist, Jack Wallace. Jack, thanks for joining us on Off The Podium today.
JACK WALLACE: Absolutely, thanks for having me.
COLIN HILDING: Now, we always like to start off these interviews by finding out how somebody actually got into the sport in the first place. I mean, did you grow up a hockey fan and how did you actually get into sledge hockey?
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, so grew up a huge hockey fan. Devils are my team, I'm from New Jersey, and I played roller hockey and ice hockey both as a kid, but I got into it with my older brother. You know, he played hockey as well, roller hockey. So as a kid, he threw me a net, you know, put some pads on me and just shot pucks on me. And you know, whether or not I enjoyed it, that part of it, we'll leave in the air. But the rest of it, no, I fell in love with the sport. Always been a hockey fan. I played a bunch of sports as a kid too, but hockey was always by far my favourite. But then when I was 10 years old, I ended up getting in a boating accident and losing my right leg above the knee. And then I wanted to keep playing sports. So as soon as I got my first prosthetic, I tried to throw on a pair of my old roller blades and that didn't really work for me. Obviously I fell over a bunch of times and realised that that's when it finally hit me that I wasn't gonna be playing competitive standup hockey for the rest of my life. I probably wasn't gonna get to play in the NHL like I'd always dreamed. But then that following summer, I found out about the sport of sled hockey and then started playing and fell in love all over again.
BEN WATERWORTH: I liked that notion that we said, I probably wouldn't end up in the NHL. So it was never just, you didn't close it off completely, right?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, always a chance.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, never say never. But the one thing I love finding out about, particularly people in America who get into hockey, because obviously, Canada, you're basically born with skates on your feet, right? There you go. Whereas it's a bit more stacked when it comes to, I guess, the options when it comes to sports in the US. Was there something particularly you remember as a kid that sort of drew you to hockey? You said you played a lot of sports, but was there one thing about hockey that it was that you kind of took it above all the other sports?
JACK WALLACE: Well, my older brother, he played a bunch of hockey, but at the same time, he also played football, he also played baseball. I did a little bit of lacrosse. So we did all that stuff, but it really just the speed of the game, watching how fast it was at the highest level on TV, like being able to watch NHL players skate around at 20 miles an hour, and then shoot a puck at a hundred miles an hour, but then absolutely light someone up at full speed into the glass, into the boards, or an open ice hit. You know, the ferocity and speed of sled hockey, or stand up hockey, just ice hockey in general, really. It just, I think it goes above and beyond what a bunch of other sports show.
COLIN HILDING: And when you're at that age, I mean, obviously you're not quite at the point where, there's national teams and everything you could try out for. Were there regional leagues that you were able to play in?
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, so when I started playing sled hockey, I joined a local recreational team and there was a youth league throughout the East Coast. Obviously, as most disabled sports and adaptive sports are concerned, there's a lot less participants. So the teams and funding are kind of far and few between. So we'd have to drive a little bit further. You know, when I played stand up hockey, you know, we'd have a tournament at, you know, one of the five rinks within 20 minutes of me. But when we wanted to play sled hockey, we'd have to drive either an hour and a half to the rink that was in New Jersey that our team was based out of, or we'd have to drive to New Hampshire or Maryland or Delaware or, you know, a bunch of other places, Pennsylvania. So it's a little bit more of a commitment. But yeah, there are local leagues and teams and stuff like that, all the same.
BEN WATERWORTH: You sort of mentioned about how obviously the participation numbers aren't as big as a standup hockey. But I mean, sort of what, when you got started into it, kind of what were the numbers like in regards to that, particularly maybe on the East Coast of the US? And was that sort of the hub of sled hockey? Was that kind of where most of the players were, or was there another part of the country where maybe that was the hub of the sport?
JACK WALLACE: Definitely not the hub. As far as the East Coast or New Jersey is concerned, there are basically two main concentration of players. It's really divided between two top tier leagues, the NES, well, formerly known the NESHL and the Midwest Sled Hockey League, the Northeast Sled Hockey League and Midwest. Basically, those are the two large leagues with the most high level adult teams that participate in them. Now, once you get to nationals and events that USA Hockey throws on, there are all sorts of tiers and levels, and age groups that go into it because you can get a lot more players and participation when you have everyone centralized for one big event like that. But as far as travelling around and playing consistently, those were the two leagues and kind of still are to this day. It's changed a little bit. But when I was growing up through the game, that was the basis.
COLIN HILDING: What's the training like for as far as the transition goes for, you know, obviously hockey players, I mean, you gotta be conditioned all around, but there's so much work that will be done on, okay, speed on the legs and everything. For sled hockey, I mean, it looks like it's all in the arms. And I can tell by looking at you, it's all in the arms. I mean, but when you're first starting out, like you said, you're trying to put on rollerblades and everything like that. So how long did it take before you got to the point where, you know, you weren't experiencing the discomfort? Cause I could imagine that it must be quite the transition to have to be using your arms as much as you do on the sled.
JACK WALLACE: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think we've had a bunch of NHL players and a bunch of other people try out sled hockey. And the first thing they say, or not the first thing they say, they say a lot of things, but usually when you hear about it after the fact, they say, I've never been more sore in my life using a lot of muscles that you don't normally use, even with guys that are constantly doing weight training and all those sorts of things. So it was definitely a decent transition because in the sport of sled hockey, your arms are your legs as well as your arms, right? Cause you have to skate with your arms, propel yourself across the ice, as well as stick handle and shoot with your arms and hands at the same time. So as far as your grip strength, your upper body endurance, your speed, your strength, all those things, it was definitely a decent transition. But luckily I was a young kid. So I mean, I was 11 years old when I first started. So it was a lot more fun than really training. I wasn't lifting weights or anything like that. Like most youth sports kids aren't, well, who knows today, now parents have kids doing crazy stuff in the gym. But when I was a kid, I didn't really do any of that stuff. I waited till I got into high school to start that.
COLIN HILDING: Is there a little bit of a learning curve too about just that coordination of, you're doing two things at once, because especially if you grew up playing hockey, you're probably just conditioned to, okay, I need to focus on shooting. But now you got to worry about, okay, when am I gonna have a chance to sort of switch that stick in there and get it in?
JACK WALLACE: No, absolutely. Great, great question. That's the one biggest difference with sled hockey is you need to pick when you're stick handling and when you're stick handling and shooting and when you're skating, when you're accelerating, when you're trying to reach your top speed. Stand up players never have to worry about that they're always able to pivot, turn, manoeuvre with their lower body while controlling the puck at all times with their upper body. In sled hockey, it's a whole different world of decision making and skills that you need to learn. And it was definitely very difficult to get good at that. And still to this day, I mean, I'm trying to progress those skills just as much as I was when I first started.
BEN WATERWORTH: When I was living in Canada, I think one of the things that I never really appreciated about the sport of hockey is the expense involved when it comes to the equipment and getting involved and kind of everything along those lines. And when you add, I can imagine the sled to it, I can imagine that probably costs a little bit more than a pair of skates, Jack. I mean, what is a sled worth? And sort of how much are you able to, I guess, tinker and work on that to kind of help it when it comes to your performance out there on the ice?
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, great question. So most sleds, basic sleds that you see, recreational players using, there's really only two or three different kinds that are the base sled. And they're right around $1,000. I think that one's like, it's between 600 to $1,000. But then when you get to the higher end ones, like guys on the national team, we actually all have custom built sleds. So what they do for that is they mold the, basically mold the part that you're sitting in to form fit to your body. And then the rest are all your measurements and all your decisions as far as going into that. The basic sleds, they're all adjustable and you can kind of tinker and change. They make them like that. So a team, let's say a team gets a big check for the, for a youth team or something like that. They can buy a bunch of sleds, but then adjust them for each player as they come in. And maybe one player tries it out, doesn't like it. And then they go back. They don't have to buy a whole new sled for them. Just kind of like if a player has the same size pair of skates, you can just use them over and over again. For different people, you can adjust those sleds for each person as they go. But then as you progress your skill level, and if coaches see any potential in you, then they do recommend that you get a sled that's built for you. Because instead of having all those adjustment pieces that are maybe more fragile or weigh you down and along all those lines, it's better to just have one that's set up for you constantly, which is what we all have on the national team.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just saying, you know, they say more expensive than some cars I've owned in my life. So that's good to know when I'm watching the Olympics as that. But I can imagine then they've got to be built incredibly tough because obviously the physicality in hockey is immense. So, I mean, how long does a sled usually last you for?
JACK WALLACE: It really depends. I mean, you brought up a car, you know, sometimes you can buy a brand new car and you get in a bad wreck and it breaks immediately. Or you can use one and you kind of get lucky and it lasts, you know, years. I've had the frame. The frame, I've had one last two games before. I've had one last two years before. So it really depends on A, your play style and really just how you're getting hit and if those collisions break anything. Because, you know, you can use a sled, your whole, basically your whole career, as long as it fits you the whole time, if you never really get into a bad situation or someone T-bones you really hard or you have any of those issues. But at the same time, you know, I've had a brand new frame, you know, play two games with it and then get one really bad hit and it breaks. So it varies.
COLIN HILDING: As you progressed, you know, growing up and getting more and more into the sport competitively, once you reach the national team, how does that happen? Were you playing in leagues and they had scouts out recruiting or is there some type of open tryout?
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, so basically, as I progressed, I played two years on a youth team, the team that I started off for, and then I quickly progressed. Luckily, because I had been playing hockey my whole life, I didn't need to learn the sport, I just needed to learn the skills a little bit. But then I switched playing to, into the adult league, the NESHL, when I was about 13. And that same year, they recommended me to go to the US. Development Camp, as well as tryouts. So going to tryouts, there is an open tryout every year for the US. National Team. And with that, they select the US. National Team and the US. Developmental Team. Think of that as like the minor league team that's associated with the national team. So I played three seasons on the development team, and then eventually made the national team.
BEN WATERWORTH: One thing I absolutely love about the US is that there always seems to be a crowd at no matter what sporting event you have. It can be a five-year-old game of, you know, little league versus obviously, you know, the Stanley Cup finals, something along those lines. I mean, what are sort of the crowds like when it comes to the leagues that you're playing in there and kind of just the participation when it comes to that? Because again, I can't picture an American sport just having nobody showing up there. There still must be crowds and excitement and everything going on there.
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, so for the most part, we're not really playing in arenas or stadiums or anything like that where there is big capacity or they're selling tickets. We're mostly playing in public or local rinks, but we definitely do catch the eye of any other teams or people that are in the rink on that weekend. We try and advertise it a little bit, like, hey, this team is playing, you know, there's this big sled dog tournament this weekend, and we do get people to show up for that. But for the most part, it's a lot of family and friends and then other hockey players that were in the rink that day that saw it or heard about it that are sticking around to watch. So there is, it's very rare that we do play a game in a completely empty, you know, rink, but it's not as big as you may think. But once you get to the national level and you are playing in international tournaments, I mean, in 2019, we played the biggest crowd I'd ever seen. We played the host nation of the Czech Republic in the Czech Republic at one of their biggest arenas, and we had over 8,000 people in there. And to this day, I think I have permanent hearing damage because of that game, because that crowd was the loudest I have ever heard, ever experienced, and I've been to NHL playoff games as a fan, and that arena was 10 times louder. It was insane.
COLIN HILDING: Ben used to do commentary in the Tasmanian Hockey League, and I can tell you right now, there's no small crowd unless you're in the Tasmanian Hockey League.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, that's a whole other kettle of his, that one. I took those skills to commentary in Canada. Colin, don't talk down on it too much.
COLIN HILDING: I know. Unfortunately, because of COVID, there was no crowd, so it could be Ben's the problem.
BEN WATERWORTH: Maybe I'm the problem. The crowd says, don't ever invite me to one of your games, Jack. You'll lose that 8,000 crowd.
JACK WALLACE: We'd love to have you.
COLIN HILDING: Now, the last time we talked to a hockey player was Sammy Jo Small from the Canadian Women's Hockey Team. She mentioned when she first knew she made the Olympic Team, it was kind of a last-minute call and everything. Do you remember that moment? Can you tell us a little bit, carry us through what it was like finding out I'm going to be on the Olympic Team? Did you have a heads-up going in? Did you know?
JACK WALLACE: So my moment that's similar to that was actually when I made the national team in the end of 2016. So I had just come off my third season on the development team, and I really didn't know. There was so many good players at that tryout, and I had been expecting to make the national team for the year prior, and then I didn't make it, and then I didn't make it again. So I really didn't know what was going on, and I didn't have any confirmation from anybody how my tryouts went or anything like that. But then when I did get that call to the national team, I broke down. It was unbelievable. I called my parents. I was actually working at an ice rink coaching a summer camp, and pretty much I just ran out and text my boss, like, I'm leaving for the day. But he knew what was on stake, and he's helped me along the process throughout. So he was fine with it. No issues there. But no, and then that next season, I was still pretty much at the bottom of the roster. But halfway through that season, I kind of exploded and found my game and found my kind of secure spot on the team where I belong, the role I play on the team. So coming into that 2018 year, I was pretty confident that I was going to be on the roster for the Paralympics.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I can imagine then when you get on that roster and you go into a games where the US are obviously the two-time reigning champs. I mean, you know, a bit of pressure, but at the same time, it must be good going in with that confidence level that, hey, we've done this at the last two Olympics, you know, three out of the last four Olympics. I mean, this is something where clearly the US are doing right. I mean, kind of what was the confidence levels amongst the team going into Pyeongchang, and was it a case of, we've got this, we can come away with a gold medal again?
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, so our expectation is nothing short of being the best in the world at every tournament we go into. That is our expectation of ourselves, and that's how we work, and that's how we train all the time, is to know that we're the best, but also to make sure that everyone else knows and to perform like the best at all times. So going into Pyeongchang, we knew we had potential to win gold. We had actually just lost in the 2017 World Championships, so we had a little blood in our mouth from the past season, and we wanted it, maybe a little more than some other years, but we went in there ready to take gold.
COLIN HILDING: You know, we haven't had a chance to talk to a lot of hockey players on here, and one thing that fascinates me, I rewatched the game, the gold medal game this afternoon, and I completely forgot that it had gone to overtime as well. And I have to wonder about overtime, when you're going into that, how much more amped up do your nerves get, knowing that, okay, we don't have a full 20 minutes to sort this out? I mean, one goal and you're done.
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, so that game was extremely stressful, obviously. They scored early in the first period. We actually had a roster turnover right before the game. As far as how it affected me, I was playing forward the entire year. I actually switched between forward and defence pretty consistently, but that whole year they had had me as a forward. But then the morning of the Gold Medal game, they put me on D because two of our players couldn't participate. But then that kind of flipped everyone, you know, into a whole new thing. So we were not performing at our best, the majority of that game. But as far as the third period goes, we were pretty much dominating, but we just couldn't score. But in that game, we scored with about 30 seconds left in the third period. And, you know, that was just, you know, it was a magical moment. But that energy and that momentum carried us into overtime. I think every single guy going into that overtime period knew that we were going to win. I mean, there was just no way after coming from behind and tying it up that we were going to let them even get a shot on net. I think they did get one. Canada did get one shot on net in the overtime period. But other than that, we had so much energy and, you know, we knew we were going to bring it home.
BEN WATERWORTH: I have to ask this question, because I know Colin won't, but what's it like being in Canada?
COLIN HILDING: I was going to ask that! You were?
BEN WATERWORTH: I've got to find this out, because, you know, when we talk to Sammy, obviously the heated rivalry between the two nations, we've got the Canadian perspective there. But does it make it a little bit extra sweeter that you knocked off this great hockey nation of Canada in overtime and to bring home the gold?
JACK WALLACE: No, absolutely. And I think it's even a little sweeter in sled hockey, because in men's and women's hockey, there's a bunch of other nations that are very prominent and very good and very competitive. But as we've seen in the past few years, it's been pretty much US and Canada constantly battling it out for the championships in sled hockey. So we're always seeing them in high-level games and, you know, high-stakes games at the same time. So we, you know, we have a huge rivalry with them. There have been plenty of fights with the players on this roster and their roster that are still playing. So there's plenty of stuff that carries over tournament to tournament, because we see them over and over and over again. But it is pretty nice being able to consistently beat them. It's a great feeling.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just wanted to add, I'm just seeing here that the day of the gold medal win was my birthday. So you're welcome to have the luck of the day that I was born to win that gold, Jack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Around then. So, no, you are absolutely welcome. You can take that luck and ride.
JACK WALLACE: Thank you so much.
COLIN HILDING: It's not going to fall on St. Patrick's Day this year, though, is it?
JACK WALLACE: It might. Honestly, we're not sure. The Paralympics start on March 4th. The Winter Paralympics start on March 4th next year. So it's a decent chance that it might do it again. It might happen again. But probably not. It might be a little later in March.
COLIN HILDING: And I'm guessing you probably are already, you know that you're on the team, but are there any change ups that could still happen? Or do you know at this point, okay, you're going to Beijing?
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, no. So the roster was selected for this season, but it's a 20-man roster, and we have to cut down to 17. So I was looking at, well, not lucky enough, but I injured my wrist in the World Championships back in June, and I did not participate in tryouts, but the coaches, they had no issue giving me a waiver and waving me into the roster for this season, because everyone on the team only has a one-year contract, and you have to try out, and you need to be able to be at that high level to make the team the next year. So hopefully by the time October rolls around, when we have our first training camp, it's basically the tryouts round two, where we have a week training camp, and then they cut three players. Hopefully I'm not one of those players. I don't think I'm going to be one of those players. I've played a lot of minutes for this team in the past few tournaments, and I'm confident that I won't be. But I mean, you never know. Things change, so you always got to be training like you're one of those guys on the outside.
BEN WATERWORTH: One thing that I always love when it comes to any sort of Paralympic sport, and particularly, you know, they've had some documentaries in the past about sports, say, like, like murder ball, and, you know, kind of like, you know, the wheelchair rugby, the wheelchair basketball was just, it's the attitude of the athletes where it's, it's so ruck and tumble because it's basically, look, hey, you know, we're obviously in this unique situation, we're playing this type of sport, but hey, I've gone through worse, you know, let's go out there and kind of give it their all. I mean, does that make sled hockey even more crazy and physical than standing hockey? And I mean, is this a sport that kind of, when it comes to the Winter Olympics, that people should really be just be paying more attention because it is just such a, I mean, I've seen it, it is such an entertaining sport to watch, but is that how you would sell it to somebody who maybe has never watched sled hockey? You like stand-up hockey, take this on board and see how much more fun and better it is.
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, so I mean, sled hockey is just as fast and just as physical as all these other sports, especially stand-up hockey. I mean, it brings the same level of intensity to stand-up ice hockey. But no, you're right. I mean, there's a huge aspect to it that a lot of people might miss that, you know, every single guy on every team has something that they can connect with each other and, you know, went through a really dark period in their life, whether or not that was a disease, whether or not that was getting injured in the service of their country, or just a traumatic accident like I had. You know, all those things, it, you know, it can be a fuel for a lot of people. And as far as anyone on this team, it definitely is. So it brings just another level of intensity. You're absolutely right.
COLIN HILDING: I think that's one of the things that always fascinates me, you know, watching the Paralympics is when you get to see those bios on TV, the personal stories behind the athletes, because, I mean, let's be honest, you know, regular Olympians, maybe they have, you know, something going on. But I mean, every single athlete out there on your team has, like you said, some traumatic experience they went through. Something that brought them and said, I'm going to keep going. I'm going to be an Olympian. I'm going to keep playing a sport no matter what it takes.
JACK WALLACE: Absolutely.
COLIN HILDING: And before we get, we have a final series of questions that we ask, which is fun. But before we get there, I have to really quickly ask you, because I found your bio on, I think this is the Team ESA website, and I just have to applaud you, because it says, you can confirm if this is the case or not. Your favourite hockey player of all time is Martin Brodeur, is that right?
JACK WALLACE: That is right, yep.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, that was like, you know, growing up outside of the Canadian teams, the two teams that I would root for would be the Avalanche and the Devils. Both was because of the goalies, and Brodeur, I'll still say to this day, I don't care who plays, there's probably never been a player, whether they are forward defence or a goalie. No player like Martin Brodeur. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a human being perform the acts he performed. It's unnatural to watch that man play.
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, no, absolutely. And when I grew up playing stand-up hockey, I switched between goaltender and defence. So my two favourite were Scotty Stevens and Marty Brodeur. Watching, you know, Brodeur shut out after shut out, making these ridiculous saves, or Scotty Stevens, you know, murdering someone on the ice and then getting an assist the next play. You know, that's kind of who I wanted to model my game after, you know, being this, being a big defenseman, but at the same time, you know, get some points every now and again. But yeah, Marty Brodeur growing up, he was definitely my role model. I loved watching him play. And actually, last year, I did an event with the Devils, and he works, I'm pretty sure he works with the Devils front office at this point, and they actually put me in a room with him. They surprised me getting to meet him. It was unreal. He gave me a jersey. We talked for a little bit, and it was great because I had my medal with me, and I pulled it out. And so nonchalantly, you know, obviously being a goat, you know, he just goes, oh, I have a couple of those.
COLIN HILDING: I was going to say, did he welcome you to the club?
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, yeah, he just, you know, he checked it out for a second, but you know, wasn't even phased by it. I mean, he's won more things than most people ever even watch. So yeah, loved him, loved watching him growing up.
BEN WATERWORTH: I was going to say, I'm sorry, I was going to say, I saw the picture on your Instagram there, and like just the photo there, you just looked like a kid in a candy store, and this is the image of you kind of talking to him. You almost got this like half like, hey, and then you kind of like, oh my God, oh my God, he's right in front of me. What do I say?
JACK WALLACE: No, I was, they totally surprised me. I had no idea it was coming. I thought we were just walking into a green room to like sit down while someone was setting something up or something or an interview or whatever. And then he's just standing there. And I was like, I didn't know what to do at first, but he was a super nice guy. Came up, shook my hand, introduced himself, took a little pressure off, but no, it was amazing.
COLIN HILDING: It's probably better that you didn't have the heads up, because then you just would have been like, what am I going to say like 10 minutes beforehand, stumbling over your words.
JACK WALLACE: Definitely would have been in my head, for sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: One thing, quick, I was just going to add, before we get into the final questions, I believe you tried your hand at going towards a Summer Olympics as well, sort of had tried some, was it para canoe? Was that sort of what you had tried a bit of a hand at? And sort of what was that like, to try your hand at that?
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, absolutely. I've been exploring in the past few years, my athleticism and my journey as an athlete with some other summer sports, and I really enjoyed para canoe, sprint kayak, also as it's known. I love being outside. I love being on the water. I loved kayaking as a kid, but sprint kayak, if you haven't seen it, it's a single-person kayak, and it's a 200-metre drag race, essentially. And you're racing right next to everyone else, just kind of like swimming, like the 500 free or something like that, or the 50 free. It's very fast, very intense, addicting, to be honest. And I wanted to do a sport that challenged me athletically and also was a good training tool for sled hockey, so that upper body strength and endurance. It lends itself well to that. But unfortunately, I ended up getting injured training, well, really during a scrimmage in sled hockey, right as I had moved down to Tennessee, I tore my UCL and needed to get Tommy John surgery. So that put me out for a good amount of time. And that coupled with, that happened right after the peak of the pandemic. So being out of the boat that long, as well as a lengthy recovery process, essentially gave way of any hopes of qualifying for Tokyo. The scheduling didn't really work out anyway with the, with sled hockey, having the world championships get delayed into the summer. So it might not have even worked out even if I did qualify, who knows if I even could have gone to some of the races or anything like that. But at the same time, I'm still going to be training and competing in that sport going forward. And the goal now is to get to the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.
BEN WATERWORTH: I was going to ask if that is still the goal, because as we've constantly heard over the last several weeks, they're only three years away now, Jack. So I mean, it must be then sort of a cool little bucket list achievement, not only to kind of go to another Olympics, but I mean, kind of be in that rare club where you can tick off both the summer and the winter, and maybe, who knows, add to that rare, even rarer club of meddling at both a summer and a winter Olympics.
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, so that's the goal. As far as Tokyo was concerned, I was pretty much at the bottom of the totem pole, so I was looking to just qualify. But with now a three-year run up to it, I'm looking for a podium spot. That's for sure. That's where I'm setting my sights at this point.
COLIN HILDING: And there's no way that we'd be talking to you right now if you were in Tokyo, so I mean, we're glad that you're waiting an extra couple of years.
BEN WATERWORTH: What are you saying? We're in so demand that the athletes take breaks in between there, even in the middle of an Olympic Games. Just for a race. Hang on a minute, guys. Hold the start. We're going to talk off the podium.
COLIN HILDING: Pause the national anthem for a second. I got an interview to do. I'll just explain our final set of questions here to you. So we actually borrowed this. We've been doing it since we started the show. The Team Canada website, what they do is they have a set of questions, which is a combination of some sports-related questions and some just fun, random questions. And the athletes fill it out in their own handwriting. We will make you do it in your own handwriting. We don't have that long with you. But there are some pictures that are involved. We've had at least one athlete who submitted pictures after the fact, so feel free to do that if you're artistically inclined. But I'll kind of just alternate these back and forth. But the first question, this is just across the board, doesn't even have to be your own, but what is your favourite Olympic moment?
JACK WALLACE: That's tough. Watching, probably watching Michael Phelps win his final medal, that was a really cool moment, winning his final gold medal. I mean, I was, I really wanted to, obviously, medal, but watching him do all that and grow up watching him, I mean, even when I was in the hospital in 2008, the Beijing Olympics were on. So I was watching him win medal after medal after medal. So watching the goat go out like that and just continue his dominance, I'm a huge fan of that.
BEN WATERWORTH: So we're saying that if you all of a sudden end up in an event, Michael Phelps just walks into the room, too, we're going to have that similar facial expression. And if you have the medal, it's kind of going to be even more so of him going, yeah, I've got a few of those. And just on that quickly, I always like to ask what our athletes on the show who have won medals do with the medals. Where's your medal, Jack? Is it on display? Like, kind of is it in a drawer? Like, what do you like to do with your medal?
JACK WALLACE: I think it's sitting on my bed right now. Every once in a while, you've got to pull it out for an event and do some stuff with it. But for the most part, it sits in a safe. Other than that, you know, I don't, you know, sleep with it or hang it on the wall or anything like that. Maybe I'll do that after I retire or something like that. But for right now, it's just, I usually just keep it in a safe, nice and secure. Don't have to worry about it because by far and away, it's my most prized possession, so I don't want anything to happen to it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm always that weird person. I think that if I ever won a medal, yeah, I would never take it off. It would be everywhere, just going all that sort of stuff.
COLIN HILDING: Your neck gets pretty sore.
JACK WALLACE: They're pretty heavy.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. Good training, though. Maybe you can do this. You already pretty much answered this question. As a kid, your favourite sports team was?
JACK WALLACE: The New Jersey Devils and the New York Giants, for sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ah, nice.
COLIN HILDING: How about this one? If I could be any superhero, I would be. This would be for you, not me. You don't have to pick mine.
JACK WALLACE: Uh, probably. I mean, Superman. I mean, it's kind of a...
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes.
JACK WALLACE: He can fly. He has laser eyes. He's super strong. He can do whatever he wants. So, yeah, probably Superman.
BEN WATERWORTH: To add to that, too, that everybody needs to remember, it's Henry Cavill as well. I mean, is that the most attractive man on the planet? Like, I mean, come on. Like, sticking all the boxes there.
JACK WALLACE: I'm not trying to compare myself to him, but my first... Well, still to this day, I had a little shorter hair when I first started playing, and sometimes my hair would fall out of my helmet and make a little curl right here. And I'm a tall, you know, dark-haired man, and everyone on the North... on the South Korean team, anytime they'd see me in a hallway at a tournament or anything like that, they'd all would... they'd nickname me Superman.
COLIN HILDING: Wow. We're going to look for the... we're going to look for the curl during Beijing.
JACK WALLACE: I'll keep the hair long, so maybe it won't happen.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. I like this. Who knows? Well, I mean, if that's the case, Henry Cavill's often touted as being the next James Bond, Jack. I mean, hey, you know, if you've got those looks and, you know, Superman, who knows, Bond, they might need you. They might call you up. How's your acting?
JACK WALLACE: I don't think I could compare my acting skills to him.
BEN WATERWORTH: Anything's workable. You can work on that. You can do it. You can go win gold in Beijing, gold in Paris, and then play James Bond. Hey, it's never, you know, never been done before until you. Who are your favourite music artists?
JACK WALLACE: Oh, that's a really good question. I love country music, but I also love rap and hip hop and stuff like that. So right now, at the moment, it would have to be John Bellion, Chris Stapleton, and either Chance the Rapper or Logic.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's not usually genres that I still see overlapping, although when I discovered that country rap was a thing, my mind was blown. Yeah, I don't listen to that. We don't do the country in Australia too much. It's almost like a taboo. You would be a dyslexic thing. But when you're in North America, my goodness, it's everywhere. You can't turn on a radio without hearing it. I was like, wow, this is a thing.
COLIN HILDING: It's not a question on this one, but it's on some of the other surveys. Do you have a pump up song? Any of those artists that use it as a pump up song before you play?
JACK WALLACE: Well, funny enough, we actually had Chris Stapleton playing one of his songs during the warm up at our last tournament. But no, I don't really have a specific song that I use. Usually I'll DJ for the team or just throw on a random playlist to get Zen. But definitely a lot of rap and hip hop stuff like that pregame to get you amped up, but no really specific song.
BEN WATERWORTH: And is it a case of that each sort of player gets a turn at putting on the tunes before in the locker room, or is it kind of like a team decision?
JACK WALLACE: No, that is not the case at all.
COLIN HILDING: No, definitely not.
JACK WALLACE: Because if some guys got to play their music, I think everyone would be upset.
COLIN HILDING: There's no more Team USA guys.
JACK WALLACE: We need someone who's going to play a good mix of songs to kind of suit everybody.
BEN WATERWORTH: Diplomatic DJ. There's a superhero.
COLIN HILDING: Here's an interesting one. If you could eat one food for the rest of your life, it would be?
JACK WALLACE: Buffalo chicken pizza.
BEN WATERWORTH: No hesitation.
JACK WALLACE: It is my favourite food, far and away.
BEN WATERWORTH: I have to say, buffalo chicken, again, this part of the world, not a thing, but there, I discovered it's a great food. It should be more of a thing around the world.
JACK WALLACE: My teammates make fun of me because I meal prep and pretty much every single day, I eat a buffalo chicken wrap for lunch or in between workouts or something like that. I pretty much probably consume a bottle of buffalo sauce every week or something like that.
BEN WATERWORTH: There's got to be some spokesperson opportunities here, Jack. Why hasn't somebody called you up to be the face of a buffalo chicken sauce campaign? Come on, I'm not the gold medallist.
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, I've got my agent on it, for sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, geez. I mean, it took us a while to get you on, because you're a very busy man, Jack, so I mean, come on, the sponsorship opportunity. Henry Cavill lookalike, you know, come on. This is a marketing dream. Where is your favourite place to compete?
JACK WALLACE: Like the favourite place I've been to compete?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah.
JACK WALLACE: I mean, it's a tough mix between Italy and the Czech Republic, only because in Italy, you get, we got to go, get on a train ride and go to Milan for the day, which is just a beautiful city. But in the same scope, when we went to the Czech Republic, we got to get on a train and go to Prague for the day, which Prague and Milan, I mean, I don't know which one's better. They were both absolutely amazing.
COLIN HILDING: In a couple years, you might be getting a medal hung over your neck in Italy.
JACK WALLACE: I hope so. That's the goal.
COLIN HILDING: Here's one. One thing you've always wanted to do is literally anything.
JACK WALLACE: Go to space. I mean, I would love to do that.
COLIN HILDING: Half of these are like, this is what I would do, and then it comes out of your mouth.
BEN WATERWORTH: You're channeling the answers there. What is your favourite thing to do in the summer?
JACK WALLACE: I mean, travelling is a lot of fun, but I guess more specifically just time on a lake, being out on a lake, being out on a boat, all those activities, drinking, having a good time, listening to music, all that stuff, next to a body of water, really, beach, lake. I'm more of a lake guy, but any of those.
COLIN HILDING: How about, what is your favourite movie?
JACK WALLACE: That's even harder. I really, I don't even know if I have an answer to that. I mean, I loved Napoleon Dynamite as a kid. Oh, Tommy Boy with the classic. A good suspense one or horror, you know, Prisoners or Get Out. Those are both, you know, both those movies. But yeah, I mean, so many classics. Braveheart, William Wallace. Obviously, I'm Irish and Scottish, so that's another good one. Saving Private Ryan, you know. There's too many in my, you know, top 100, whatever. I watch a lot of movies, so it's a hard pick.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, go, Colin, please.
COLIN HILDING: I was just going to say with Napoleon Dynamite, I mean, my kids will eat tater tots, and I swear every single time my wife serves them, I just say to her, you squished my tots.
BEN WATERWORTH: I was going to do a shameless plug for another show that we host. If you like movies and TV shows, you might like a show that we're associated with. It's not very funny, but neither is this show. Now, I'm going to slightly change this question up because the original question, unless you want to answer this one, of course, Jack, but the original question is, my favourite place to visit in Canada is, but I'll switch that up. Your favourite place to visit in the US is?
JACK WALLACE: Hmm. Favourite place in the US. That's hard. Um... God, there's so many good spots. I don't know. Probably just... I'll throw it as like Tupper Lake, any big lake in the Adirondacks, like in upstate New York. They're just amazing. Great weather, fun to swim, lots of activities. Beautiful.
COLIN HILDING: What about your favourite cartoon to watch growing up?
JACK WALLACE: Oh, that's also tough. Favourite cartoon... as in, like, at what age here?
COLIN HILDING: Well, let's go as young. Let's go, like, fives.
JACK WALLACE: Probably the classic, Spongebob Squarepants.
COLIN HILDING: I picked my son's age, and he would have answered the same thing.
BEN WATERWORTH: See, I would have just gone with what's your favourite one to watch now, if you sneakily get up on a Saturday morning and maybe put it on.
JACK WALLACE: Now it would probably be Avatar, The Last Airbender.
COLIN HILDING: Seriously, our other podcast, I've been looking for somebody to cover Avatar, The Last Airbender with me for six or seven years now. So feel free anytime to let us know what your availability is, and we will cover Avatar, The Last Airbender with you.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, the Olympics can wait. If you had to do karaoke, what would your karaoke song be?
JACK WALLACE: These are some really good questions. What's one that I know every word to?
BEN WATERWORTH: And you have to sing it?
JACK WALLACE: Colder Weather by Zac Brown.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, nice.
BEN WATERWORTH: Nice, nice.
COLIN HILDING: Now, Ben, you have to sing it.
JACK WALLACE: But I know every word. I've played it a few times.
BEN WATERWORTH: If I told you my Zac Brown knowledge, I've heard that song, but could I tell you when you're like, no, there's maybe one song I could maybe sing any lyrics from. So again, country music. You guarantee you here in Australia, if you mention the word Zac Brown, no one's going to look at you and go, who the hell's that? It's kind of, you've got to be in a certain area of the country to know who Zac Brown is. So if he ever wants to get away from the States, away from all the fame, Australia is the place to go.
COLIN HILDING: Have you ever seen the Zac Brown band live? I've heard they're like an amazing live band.
JACK WALLACE: I might actually be going in a month or two. They're coming down to Nashville, so hopefully I can take a weekend off or something like that and get to see them. He's one of the top on my bucket list to see live, for sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: Great city. Can I just say, I had thoroughly enjoyed my time when I went to Nashville, and I actually went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and that's where I learned a lot about Zac Brown, funnily enough, there. But can I say, Pred's Game, one of the best atmosphere of an NHL game I've ever been to. They know how to put on a game of hockey.
JACK WALLACE: Absolutely.
COLIN HILDING: So this will be the final question here, because the last two are drawings, which, again, feel free to submit them later if you want.
BEN WATERWORTH: I love the drawings on this one you've used here, Colin. Somebody's drawn, like, literally two sticks and what look like skates? I don't know what they are.
JACK WALLACE: I'm not an artist, that's for sure.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, well, neither were they. One of the pictures is, draw a picture of one of your teammates, and it's just the legs of a stick figure, and it says, Laura Stacey, too tall for photo. So they didn't even, they did half a picture here, but we'll give you a proper final question here. If you could be an Olympian in any sport other than your own, which sport would you choose?
JACK WALLACE: Hmm, I mean, there's a lot of really interesting ones. Probably the one I'm most jealous of is swimming. I mean, and A, you get to win a bunch of medals if you're really good at it. But I mean, it's so cool. They go so fast in water, it's unbelievable.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's fascinating to think that there's a sport where somebody can win like eight gold medals in one Olympics. You know, hockey players, look at that.
JACK WALLACE: I mean, you'd be surprised. It actually happens a lot in the Paralympics. There's a lot of repeat medallists in the Paralympics, especially in the winter games for downhill skiing and Nordic and cross-country skiing because they can only bring so many athletes. You basically have to be good enough to do a bunch of events. So it's not like you have a different runner for the 100, the 400, the 800, you know, it's the same athletes going. And I've met them a few times. I actually just did a call the other day with them. Dan Knassen, you know, I think he came home with six medals from Pyeongchang. It's pretty unbelievable that they get to go and do that. It's amazing. Same with Oxana Masters. She won a bunch too. She's a really high-profile Paralympian, and she's actually another dual-sport athlete. She'll be competing in Tokyo coming up.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I've just got to say then that, yeah, you know, canoe looking good for Paris, but add swimming to the calendar. Instead of winning multiple, be like Estelle Ledeca just winning all these medals in multiple sports at one Olympics, you know, like add athletics in there, you know, get into wheelchair rugby, just kind of do all these extra sports, Jack.
COLIN HILDING: Rhythmic gymnastics, you know?
BEN WATERWORTH: Ring out Michael Phelps in your face. It would kind of work that way. Jack, before we let you go, where can people follow your journey, kind of stay up to date with what you're doing? Social media, any other sort of websites or anything else you'd like to plug before we let you go?
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, so just across all social media, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, all that good stuff.
COLIN HILDING: TikTok, yes.
JACK WALLACE: Yeah, jwallis.us, that's me.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm going to jump on. I've never used TikTok in my life, but I mean, you know, I think you're our first athlete to say you're on TikTok.
JACK WALLACE: So pretty bored, pretty bored during the pandemic. So over here, so I had to do something. So I started doing TikTok.
COLIN HILDING: Jack, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on here and great hearing about a sport that we've never actually been able to talk about before. And Ben can vouch for me on this. When my team loses, I end up rooting for the team that beats me. Technically, you beat my team Canada in the last Olympics. So going into Beijing, I mean, we'll be looking for you. We'll be rooting for you. We'll be hoping you bring home another gold, and we'll be looking for the Superman curl.
JACK WALLACE: Absolutely, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
COLIN HILDING: And thank you again to Jack. And I think we just were a little bit removed from the Tokyo Paralympics here, but I'm already getting excited, forget about just Beijing, you know, regular standup hockey. I'm already getting excited for sledge hockey, especially after rewatching that game earlier today. Like, and I'll just say this, I mean, you're only listening to the audio of this, but you look at this guy, and I mean, he looks like he could be Superman. I want to just talk about the curl and everything like that. This guy's built like Superman. We keep interviewing these people, and I finished the interview, I'm like, what have I done with my life? These people are so much better than me.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I was going to say, lucky Jamie didn't walk in the room because I think you would have been screwed there. But you know, I was just thinking that it's like, you know, we often get all our guests on the show, and we always have that bit of a, oh, you know, look, what are we doing with our lives? We're interviewing Olympians, we've had amazing lives, but then you've kind of got this incredibly attractive Olympic gold medallist staring at us in the face, and we're like, okay, yeah, so just sitting in our bedrooms, you know, interviewing Olympians, and he's about to go to a second Olympics, possibly a third in Paris, you know, meeting NHL players, going to concerts, just being referred to as Superman by people. We said, yeah, cool, all right, well, we hope we get one listener, so that's where we're feeling today. So, yeah, wow.
COLIN HILDING: But yeah, I mean, that was great. And I know we got a whole bunch of interviews. We've ramped up our interviews. We are doubling down. We don't know, maybe even tripling down at this point. We probably don't even have a calendar for what's coming up. But if people have been listening, they know that, well, there's lots coming out right now. We're going to continue to have more. We easily have enough to get us to Beijing and some other episodes in the middle there as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, which is exciting because, you know, all the interviews that we've had so far, all the ones that are still to come, you know, they're all equally as great and got some great content. We're learning a lot about the sports, so many sports that we haven't covered before. Obviously, it's a goal of ours to get somebody on from every single Olympic sport. And also the behind the scenes ones too, that we've had recently as well, kind of very fascinating into all angles of the Olympics. So we're always open to ideas from people out there who maybe want to shoot us through an idea for an interview, a style of episode, anything along those lines. I mean, we've talked a lot about a variety of different episodes when it comes to say, obviously we did a Paralympics episode, a sports episode talking about the sports, but we've got one coming up by the end of this year, which I teased with Jarrod at one point, sort of a ranking the medals, which I mean, it sounds so geeky and ridiculous. I mean, again, we just spoken to Jack Wallace, this guy who, you know, just everything at his feet. And here we are about to rank Olympic medal designs. So that sums up our life. But things like that, that will be coming up and plenty of content to keep everyone entertained or both our listeners until Beijing. So yeah, watch this space, Colin. Watch it, literally. I want you to sit there and just keep watching it. Don't move your eyes.
COLIN HILDING: I am watching, okay? Just get off my back. But yeah, there'll be lots more to come. And I will give a little peek behind the curtain here as well. I don't know if it's aired at this point. Chloe Esposito, is that one gone up yet?
BEN WATERWORTH: That has aired. That was, you told me how good you loved it, Colin.
COLIN HILDING: I was saying I'm watching, I'm watching, I'm watching, but clearly I'm not.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, clearly. But yeah, maybe the greatest, no disrespect to Jack or anyone else, maybe the one royalty we've had on this show, and you're like, oh, has that aired yet? Like, wow, left an impact on you.
COLIN HILDING: I was just gonna say, when you did the Chloe Esposito interview, and you sent us a nice little screenshot there that included a notebook that said ranking the medals, I kind of joked, I'm like, so she gets to rank it. So we've been cut out of the picture here, Jerry. Chloe's gonna, Jack's gonna come back and rank the Supermans, and I'm out.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I mean, that's legitimately what we got on. We're like, Chloe, cool, you want a gold medal, great. So what do you think of the Sydney 2000 medal design? Do you like the blue ribbon? Do you like how it works? I mean, that's the only reason we get these athletes on. It's not to talk about their careers. It's a, let's rank the IOC presidents. Yeah. There's an episode to do.
COLIN HILDING: What was your favourite fly in a closing ceremony?
BEN WATERWORTH: Which country that boycotted in 1980 would have topped the medal tally?
COLIN HILDING: But yeah, as you've been hearing, there's going to be plenty to come. So just keep an eye on our Facebook, keep an eye on our Twitter, keep an eye on our Instagram. You can even hear little excerpts from the interview I was on Instagram. So if you're not sure you want to hear somebody speak, and then you hear that excerpt and you're like, wow, that sounds like the greatest interview ever. I'm totally going to listen to Chloe Esposito rank the medals. Then you know you can listen to Chloe Esposito rank the medals.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm going to listen to Chloe Esposito rank the Chloe Espositos. That's my episode.
COLIN HILDING: Coming soon to Off The Podium. Make sure to subscribe to us wherever you can find us and continue watching for all the upcoming episodes as we go all the way up to Beijing, Olympics and Paralympics. So it's coming up very soon. It's creeping up much quicker than I thought it would be. Only a six month layoff. So that happens. Ben, thank you very much for joining me to talk to Superman here today.
BEN WATERWORTH: And thank you, Colin, for letting me to talk to Superman.
COLIN HILDING: Let's send it there. We don't have my name. Look, we don't have my name is, so.
BEN WATERWORTH: Just, here's a tip for you, kind of on a trend from recent episodes. Say, my name is Colin Hilding and go left. You'll get the joke one day.
COLIN HILDING: My name is Colin Hilding, and go left.
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