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like Nanaimo had been particularly hard hit. The chamber of commerce decided to put on a forum for local business in an attempt to get people inspired about meeting the challenge the recession was posing. The chamber approached me, of all people, to be emcee and a keynote speaker. They asked me to talk about “what it took to be a winner.”
    I was petrified. I had never given a major speech in my life. The night before I had stomach pains I was so nervous. I jotted down some thoughts on little cue cards, and before I knew it I was walking onstage to face 600 people, many of whom I knew were skeptical about my ability to say anything remotely motivating. After three minutes I noticed something—the place was completely silent. I took this as a good sign. They were listening. I told them that as a group we had to stop thinking we were all doomed because the economy was bad. It meant only that we had to work harder and be more creative. No one was going to drive up and dump a load of money on our lawns. We were going to have to find ways to create that money ourselves.
    Forty minutes later, I was done and found myself awed by the reaction of the audience. I received a standing ovation. It was a big moment for me. Looking back, I have no doubt that listening to Trudeau speak had helped me immensely. The lessons derived from his speech were universal. Speak about what you know. Speak from the heart. Speak with passion. Little did I know that my talk in Nanaimo would be the first of thousands I would give over the coming years.
    Outside of work, I was pursuing the sport of squash with the kind of focus and enthusiasm I had brought to Gaelic football, basketball and handball back in Ireland. I kind of stumbled upon squash. While working in Prince George, I decided to give the game a try, and it had grown on me to the point of addiction.
    By the time I got to Nanaimo with more losses than wins under my belt, I had set a goal of becoming Canada’s national squash champion for my age category. I went at my training hard, often playing six or seven hours a day. I would go to the local club and play the top five guys one after another. On May 2, 1986, the day Expo 86 opened in Vancouver, I took the court in the men’s final of the national squash championship in Vancouver. As was often the case, I wasn’t the most talented or naturally gifted player in the tournament, but I wouldn’t allow anyone to work harder. As usual, that well-worn philosophy paid off.
    My involvement in the Northern Games, plus connections I made through squash, helped to get my name known in amateur sport circles. Shortly after arriving in Nanaimo, I got a call from the provincial government asking me if I’d consider taking on a role with the B.C. delegation for the Canada Games, which were being held that year in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The position was assistant chef de mission. My job was to help the chef de mission, doing a lot of his grunt work so that he could concentrate on overall strategies. It wouldn’t exactly turn out that way.
    The chef that year began exhibiting some rather odd behaviour and suffered nervous exhaustion. It became clear to many of us with the B.C. delegation that he was in trouble, and it was agreed that he should return home. This meant I was now the chef de mission, whose job it was to ensure that our B.C. team had what it needed to perform at its best and that the many needs of the athletes were being met. I had never done anything remotely close to this in my life.
    I relied on instinct. It ended up being an incredible learning experience on many levels. Ontario and Quebec edged British Columbia out by a hair to win the Games.
    In a nutshell, I had been thrown into heading up an athletic delegation with no previous wisdom to draw upon. On the positive side, I did learn a lot about the Canadian amateur sports system: how it was structured, who made key decisions. I would end up being part of the B.C. delegation at the next