Athletes struggle to find purpose, after the cheering stops

On one scoresheet, the tally for Hayley Wickenheiser reads like this: Six-time Olympian, five-time medallist, four-time gold medallist.

Another accounting — a traditional work resumé — yields a less impressive sounding result: paper route, Shaunavon, Sask.

“The last job I had outside of sport was my paper route,” the Canadian women’s hockey star said, laughing at the memory of being a 12-year-old dropping newspapers on doorsteps.

A lack of regular life experiences, including what many consider to be “real” jobs, is why retirement from sport can be so scary for elite athletes who seem scared of nothing when it comes to physical pain, high-stress competition and testing their limits in sport.

“I see it a lot where athletes retire and they’re sort of dust in the wind, not sure where to go,” Wickenheiser said.

The 37-year-old, who hopes to play in 2018 Winter Olympics, is far better placed than many athletes for retirement, when it eventually does come.

She persevered through an undergrad degree that took 16 years to earn — sandwiched as it was between hockey and raising her son — and is finishing her master’s degree with a view to becoming a doctor. Playing the nationally beloved sport for two decades has also opened a lot of doors.

Many athletes aren’t nearly so well prepared to leave sport behind and that’s why the Canadian Olympic Committee and Deloitte have launched a new athlete health and transition program.

“Game Plan” covers five areas — career management, mental health, networking, education and skill development — bringing together existing programs in a web-based portal and expanding elements with private sector partners.

“It’s going to be a world leading program and, hopefully, other sports and pro sport bodies might look at it as the platform to work from,” Wickenheiser said.

“It’s something that’s been much needed for sometime.”

She’s thinking of her good friend Steve Montador, the former NHL player who died earlier this year at just 35 years of age.

“He struggled so much after he retired,” she said. “It’s too tragic, we can’t let athletes go down this path, it’s the responsibility of sport in general to step up and help people when they struggle.”

The Canadian Olympic Committee agrees with her.

“We have a moral duty of care to try to assist our athletes with these challenges, to aid in their development as people as much as in their progression as athletes,” said Chris Overholt, its chief executive.

Change is part of the human condition and life transitions aren’t easy for anyone but elite athletes can be in a particularly tough spot, he said.

“The sacrifice, focus and commitment that is required to be the best does not always allow them to gather the wisdom and experience they require to adapt,” Overholt added. “For many of our athletes, life after sport is a challenge.”

The program’s mental health support will be offered by Morneau Shepell, a founding partner of the Game Plan. But other program elements — education and jobs — need private sector involvement to succeed on a broad scale.

Education institutions, for example, need to be willing to allow flexible classes (so it doesn’t take the next Wickenheiser 16 years to complete a degree) and companies have to want to hire athletes who can’t turn up in the office for long stretches at a time.

“As an athlete you feel so light when you wake up every morning because you know why you’re there,” said Kyle Shewfelt, Canada’s gold medal-winning gymnast from the 2004 Athens Games.

“You know why you exist.”

When Shewfelt retired in 2009, he lost that.

“There were days I would spend the whole day in bed waiting for that magical email to come through saying, ‘Here’s what’s happening in your life next.’ It never came,” he said.

He tried lots of different things — yoga instructor training, public speaking engagements — and always put on a happy face, but things weren’t OK, he said.

It wasn’t until 2013 that he finally found his way again and opened a gymnastics centre in Calgary.

Athletes hear so much about how tough retirement from sport can be — and see it with their friends and teammates long before they experience it — that just thinking about it can be stressful.

“Ever since Beijing, I’ve wondered when is the right time and will I know when the right time to transition is,” said Rosie MacLennan, Canada’s only gold medallist from the London Olympics.

“You are constantly making a choice about whether you get work experience in the traditional sense or keep pursuing your athletic career,” said the trampoline athlete known for routines packed with the hardest elements in the sport.

Between now and the 2016 Rio Games — where she hopes to defend her gold medal — she knows exactly what she’ll do pretty much every hour of every day.

After Rio, it’s a big question mark.

“At times, I do get anxious about it.”