Spirit on Ice with Skeleton Racing

The regret, says Mike Douglas, ate insidiously away at his competitive psyche like acid leaking on a damaged battery casing. It fed him, fuelled him, pushed him for a way to make up for lost opportunity.

“If I’d stuck with football, if I’d played in that game, I honestly don’t know if I’d be here today,’’ admitted the 38-year-old, standing at the skeleton finish line at Canada Olympic Park late Sunday afternoon as darkness began to gather.

“If I had, I might’ve felt my athletic career had come to an end.’’

Instead, the 5-foot-8, 160-pound cornerback played just one year of football at the University of Toronto. Miffed at being used in a backup capacity, he switched to track.

“Bad choice,’’ says Douglas all these years later.

“The U of T went on to win the 1993 Vanier Cup, 37-34, on a last-second field goal block. Against Calgary. A lot of guys who were behind me on the depth chart three years before played in that game and won a national championship. That stuck with me for a long time. Still bothers me, to be honest.’’

He felt unfulfilled. As if something had been left undone, unfinished.

So he searched for an outlet and in 2004 turned to sliding.

On Sunday, the X-ray technologist at Foothills Hospital qualified for his second Canadian world cup team, finishing behind John Montgomery and Jeff Pain in the three-event selection process conducted last weekend at Whistler and here at COP on Saturday-Sunday.

Two of the three women’s world cup spots have been determined: Mellisa Hollingsworth and Amy Gough.

Douglas also placed third at the two-run, one-day Canadian championships in a combined time of 1:53.35. Montgomery, as expected, took the men’s title at 1:53.45 and Hollingsworth the women’s at 1:55.66.

Last season, Douglas missed cracking the world cup top three by 2/100ths of a second.

“The difference in me last year to now? Physically, I’m pretty much at par. But upstairs . . . I’m in much better shape. Great shape. I also read a lot of books on the subject’’ — his favourite being The Power of Now, A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, a self-help treatise by Eckhart Tolle.

Heading into the most significant season of his sliding career, Mike Douglas isn’t delving back into the recent past.

“Last season? That’s in the past. I don’t think about it anymore. I’m only worried about going forward.”
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