Concordia at the Turin Olympics
Julie Healy, former Stinger, went to Turin as Director of Women’s Hockey for Hockey Canada. Photo courtesy of Hockey Canada.
Most Canadians watched freestyle moguls skier Jennifer Heil win our first gold medal of the Turin Olympics on their TVs. Dave Campbell had a slopeside seat in the Italian Alps.
The Exercise Science alumnus is part of the team that has spent years preparing the Alberta native for her gold medal moment. She invited him to Turin to help cheer her on.
Campbell (BSc 78), a Montreal-based athletic trainer and osteopath, said the atmosphere as the day unfolded seemed relaxed, “but we were probably pacing back and forth, with our stomachs growling the entire time.
“When her results came up, there were about 15 of us, all her friends and family: It was just mayhem. It would be one of my all-time top sporting moments.”
Heil, known to her teammates as Little Pepper, was first recommended to Campbell five years ago by a mutual acquaintance. “We’ve spent a lot of time together ever since,” Campbell said.
When he first met her, she was in far from peak form. “She couldn’t ski without excruciating shin pain, and she had a lot of back problems. She was only 17 and her body was already getting beat up.”
Heil moved to Montreal three years ago to work with Campbell and fellow Exercise Science alumnus and athletic trainer Scott Livingston (BSc 87). She is also a management student at McGill University.
“She had a lot of confidence in Scott and me that if she came here, we would get her body back into the condition it needed to be in to compete at a high level.”
Indeed, 22-year-old Heil is at the top of her game. She was the reigning World Cup Champion two years in a row, and has been the world’s top-ranked female moguls skier for the last three.
This is not Campbell’s first Olympic experience. He was head athletic therapist for the Canadian Medical Team at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.
One of Campbell’s classmates and member of the Concordia Sports Hall of Fame also packed his bags for Turin recently. Ken Lowe (BSc 78) is one of two athletic therapists on the Canadian men’s hockey roster.
He held several posts before joining the Edmonton Oilers in 1989, including that of Head Athletic Therapist for the Concordia Stingers.
On the women’s side of the sport, Concordia’s own Cecilia Anderson was the backup goalie for her home country of Sweden. She will have a silver medal stowed in her luggage when she returns to Montreal.
Meanwhile, Julie Healy (BSc 1983) kept a close watch on the gold medal winning Canadian women’s squad. The former Stingers’ player and assistant-coach is Director of Women’s Hockey at Hockey Canada, which oversees the sport from the minor leagues up to the national level.
She gave Recreation and Athletics an official jersey signed by the entire Team Canada women’s roster, which was recently auctioned on eBay for $405. All proceeds will go to support varsity sports at Concordia.