New money could reduce staff layoffs at Canadian Sport Centre Calgary, says president

CALGARY - Physiotherapists, massage therapists, strength trainers and doctors at Calgary's Canadian Sport Centre laid their hands on nearly half of Canada's medallists at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

New money announced in last week's federal budget has the centre's president Dale Henwood hoping he can eventually re-hire some of those experts, who will be out of a job at the end of the month.

"I'm optimistic some of it is coming this way based on the performances of the athletes and the teams we've worked with," Henwood said Wednesday. "Seventeen of the 26 medals were from athletes who we deal with on a daily basis."

Skeleton racer Jon Montgomery, the women's hockey team, ski cross racer Ashleigh McIvor and speedskater Christine Nesbitt are among the gold medallists who walked through the CSC doors in need of care prior to stepping on the top of the podium.

In all, the centre dealt with 36 of Canada's 86 individual and team medallists at the Games.

The Calgary CSC told 37 staff in December their contracts would not be renewed as of March 31 because of an anticipated reduction in the centre's funding.

Own The Podium, which provided $2.1 million annually to the centre's budget, was expecting its own federal funding to be cut in half to $11 million.

But the federal budget topped up OTP's coffers to $22 million. One of the priorities of OTP, which was a $117-million, five-year plan designed to get Canada's athletes on the podium in 2010, was to enhance medical teams around athletes to prevent injury and treat injuries quickly.

The CSC provided medical, nutritional and psychological care to 108 of Canada's 206 athletes in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., Henwood said.

"With the announcement in the budget last week, I'm going to say I'm pretty positive some of that's going to come our way, but we don't know that yet," he added.

Since staff were notified of pending layoffs, the CSC received a commitment of $650,000 from OTP just prior to the Olympics. While much less than the previous $2.1 million, it allowed the CSC to retain 12 staff originally slated to be released.

A few professionals at the centre were ready to move onto other projects, Henwood said, but he's anxious to retain as many as he can. He doesn't expect to know how many he can hire back until June.

They've built relationships with athletes who are continuing on to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, and continuity of care is important, he added.

"Our experience is it takes a couple of years for a person to get embedded in the sport and get a real good understanding of what it takes to have an impact on performance and how to work with other members of their support team," Henwood explained.

"The experience and expertise they bring, we can't afford to lose that either. In the last three or four years, we've been able to have these people almost full time with these teams."

An example of an athlete who benefitted from his medical team is short-track speedskater Francois-Louis Tremblay, a gold medallist in the relay and bronze winner in the 500 metres. He sprained his ankle running in Montreal last spring.

"I had good doctors, good physios and good psychologists to bring me back on track," he said Wednesday in Montreal. "Without that, who knows, maybe I wouldn't have been on the team this year? You just want to keep your best athletes on track so they can win if they're supposed to win."

Roger Jackson, who will leave his post as head of OTP in April, said the health of athletes can't be skimped on heading into the next Winter Olympics.

"Clearly you just can't," he said. "You've got to keep the kids healthy so they can continue to train at intensity."

There are seven Canadian Sports Centres across Canada. The Calgary centre deals primarily with winter sport athletes.

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Bill Beacon in Montreal contributed to this report.