HI. I'M HERE TODAY WITH KEVIN REMPEL, AN RBC OLYMPAIN AND MEMBER OF THE CANADIAN SLEDGE HOCKEY TEAM. KEVIN HAS A VERY INSPIRATION STORY. THANKS FOR BEING HERE KEVIN. WHY DON'T YOU START BY TELLING US ABOUT YOURSELF.

KEVIN: Well I'm on like you said the national sledge hockey team which is the hockey version of the sport of hockey with people who have a disability or an injury and in my case I broke my back six years ago riding my motorcycle and I became an incomplete paraplegic and so in that process I spent ten months in a wheel chair and two more months on canes and actually learned how to walk again one year to the day I got back on my motorcycle again.
Not only was I injured in 2006. Four years earlier, in 2002, my dad and I were out deer hunting and while he was up in a tree building a tree stand he fell about two stories and broke his back and he was also a paraplegic. In his case he was a complete paraplegic which meant he never had the ability to even how to regain movement so dad was injured and then shortly after I was and in the same period of time my mom left my dad and seven weeks later my dad committed suicide. He wasn't able to deal with it, being in a wheel chair and felt like there wasn't much to live for and so since then I've discovered the sport of sledge hockey and now get to represent the country and I'm looking towards being in the Olympics in 2014.

THAT'S QUITE A STORY. SO HOW DID YOU FIND SLEDGE HOCKEY?

KEVIN: I found out about sledge hockey a couple of years after I was injured just; I was volunteering with some wheelchair basketball at a university and one of the guys at the event there was just; I decided this was cool playing basketball. He said oh you should try sledge hockey and I'm like, kidding, I didn't even know there was hockey for people with injuries like this so after that I just like first time I got on the ice I was like this is something I want to do forever.

SO IS THAT HOW YOU CONNECTED WITH RBC?

KEVIN: After playing for a couple of years and then making it a national team, there's a few other team mates of mine that are already RBC Olympians and when I found out about the programme, it just took some time to wait for the opportunity like to put an application in, but yeah it was just something I wanted to be a part of. RBC's given me a great avenue to work on being a public speaker, something I want to do for a long period of time and get to be an ambassador for you guys now.

SO HOW DO YOU STAY MOTIVATED? IT'S GOT TO BE HARD WITH ALL THE CHALLENGES YOU GOT. HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY YOU KNOW GET UP AND GET MOTIVATED AND GET GOING EVERY DAY?

KEVIN: Just staying motivated as from an injury perspective after spending time in the hospital and after seeing my dad go through his injury and how he essentially let his injury defeat him, I use that as motivation because I didn't want to; I seen how destructive that was to him in his life and the family and all of his friends that were around him and like once I saw that I was like I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to; that's not going to be me.
So from an injury perspective like getting up to have a better life every day it's like I just want to use whatever I got left and like soak up as much as I can out of life and keep moving forward and make a great life regardless of my circumstances and from a hockey perspective, it's like just wanting to be the best in sport and hockey; we're Canadian and it's in our blood and I couldn't play the sport and not want to be on the best team and be the best player I can.

SO HOW DOES; IN TERMS OF BALANCE IN LIFE. HOW DO YOU BALANCE THE SLEDGE HOCKEY AND YOU KNOW HAVING A LIFE AND DOING A JOB AND IT'S NOT A BIG CHALLENGE?

KEVIN: Yeah it's an every day challenge for sure. Balancing training and sport and paying the bills and doing everything else like hanging out with friends, every single week I set goals and in those goals it's included time for like spiritual reflection, house renovation sort of things, my training regimen. Everything revolves around training number one and then I fill in all these other areas and just spending time with friends is something that I like; have to force myself to do because I get caught up so much in the focus of training and the nutrition part and the sleep part is so big it's not just like an hour or two at a gym a day. It's like all these other things factor around it, but I try and just remember to like; it's part of my goal setting to just focus and keep these things in here and it's just like maintaining a balance in life.