You never know who you're going to meet—just ask Saskatchewan Roughriders running back AJ Ouellette. During the Riders' bye week, Ouellette attended an event where he had the opportunity to rub elbows with figure skating great Elvis Stojko.
So what did Ouellette talk about with Stojko?
“A little bit of everything—how to get into the zone, like how to manage your emotions if you're too high or too low before competition, and how similar we have to be emotionally and mindset-wise when it comes to competition,” he said. “Even though our sports are kind of very different, like physical versus just technical and all that stuff, it was cool to kind of pick his brain. As a younger athlete myself, I like to think of learning the stuff that he said he wished he would have known younger in his career and all that stuff.”
Ouellette is already planning for another meeting with Stojko.
“We might set up if I get approval—I don't know if I'll in the offseason if I get approval by coaches or whatever—but set up a skating thing where he teaches me how to skate because I've never been on ice. And he said, ‘Yeah, as long as you teach me how to throw a football.’ So I'm going to have to have one of these quarterbacks teach me how to throw a football first.”
And how will Ouellette do on the ice?
“Stojko said,I would pick up on it pretty quick. He said at first I might be a little too flexy and try to manage it all. He goes, but once the core kind of realizes you let the ice move under you and you not move so much, he said I'd pick up on it.”
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