From Durham, USA
(May 25, 2022) – For our third athlete profile of 2022 (and the 37th in the “Getting to Know…” series) we chat with Canadian bobsled pilot Pat Norton. Pat has been competing on the North American Cup circuit since 2018, first as a brakeman for Taylor Austin and Nick Poloniato before moving up to the front, where he’s been since the 2019/2020 season. His career-best finish is third in two-man behind teammate Austin and USA’s Geoffrey Gadbois in Lake Placid during the 2019/2020 NAC season.
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Slider: Pat Norton
Team: Bobsleigh Canada
Home Track: Whistler
Hometown: Ottawa, Canada
Sponsors: Can-Am Strength & Conditioning, Ottawa area Harley-Davidson
So we’ll kick things off as always: What’s your favorite track on the schedule?
Seeing North American back on tour is amazing to see. I’m hoping I get the opportunity to slide on World Cup, and the first three all play to my advantage. Whistler of course is home ice, Park City is just a blast. But I really love Lake Placid. I feel like I love it because I learned to drive there but also because so many people hate it. I’m from the eastern cold, and that bitter -35c, and I’ll take that and the suffering! It’s not a forgiving track, and I just love it!
I think you’re my second “Lake Placid” of this whole series!
You know, I was lucky enough and I went out to St. Moritz and spent some time there in February while everyone was at the Olympics to learn the track myself, and that’s a very special track for a different reason, so I have the appreciation for it. But I haven’t had a chance to race there yet, I think Lake Placid just holds that special place for me because it’s just so gnarly!
What’s the favorite town on tour you’ve visited?
Definitely not Altenberg! I spent some time in some of the European tracks during my first season as a brakeman, and I really liked Igls. We stayed up in Patsch up on the hill there and there was a church that was God-awful at 7:00 AM with the bells ringing!
But there’s something about Park City, Utah with the mountains, crisp clean air and having all of the amenities all really close. Like Whistler is a fantastic town, and many of them are, but they’re so remote that you don’t get the ability to get to do things like “go to Walmart”, and you’re in as ski-in condo…Park City really can’t be beat for that.
Where’s your favorite place to visit that’s not on the schedule, or a trip you’d love to take that you haven’t yet?
Man…I don’t even really know. I think most of my favorite adventures have been between towns, like driving from stop to stop. I’ve done some long-haul trips like Whistler to Park City. I think we did 4,000 kilometers in a sled truck, and I think some of those times are my favorite memories. I can’t really think of even a vacation…because of bobsled I haven’t really been able to take a vacation, so it’s tough.
I’m going to Hawaii in July, and that’s exciting. That’s on the bucket list, so we can count that! I’m getting married in July, so we’re going to take ten days out there. I like being able to see something and do something special aside from just being at the beach, and Hawaii has always been that bucket list…but I’ve always been pushing-pushing-pushing to advance my career so it’s going to be nice to take a little time.
We’re going to one of the western most islands, Kauai…it’s where Jurassic Park was filmed, and it’s a rainforest island, so it should be pretty neat. And there’s a CrossFit place there so I can keep training!
Everyone was doing something before they got into sliding, what did you do before bobsled?
I actually wasn’t really doing much! A lot of people were doing things before bobsled except for me. I was an athlete in my youth, I played lots of hockey and soccer, but I was really small and had a really late growth spurt. I wasn’t really super talented, but I was a dedicated athlete. Because of my size I never really got any honest shakes or looks at anything really strong.
I left sport completely, I did the adventure ski touring and stuff like that in Calgary. I was probably 24 or 25 and I started training for health reasons and started to get back in shape and I really started pushing the envelope of what I wanted to do. I’ve got a pretty decent family tree of athletes, so the speed and size started coming back pretty quickly…it wasn’t much but it was something, and I was responding well to it.
I had a personal trainer at the time, and this guy had been a CFL safety for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for a bit and had gone through the combine and scored really highly. So he put me on his program and I responded instantly and I felt like I needed to something, but I didn’t know what I really wanted to do. I did know that I didn’t want to do masters-level ski racing, I’d done some ski racing in the past. But if I was going to take a crack at something it was going to be an honest crack at it, and I literally started googling sports to do and bobsleigh came up and that’s what I settled on. I found the right coaches and put a team together to really kind of dial things in.
You were a brakeman for a season before moving up, what was that transition like?
It had always crossed my mind as something that I wanted to do and it was a matter of when it made sense for me in the sport. I’m pretty blessed in that I’ve had the opportunity to be on Justin Kripps’ team as a spare for the first season. I don’t think that without that opportunity I would have made that transition as soon as I did. You learn from the best by watching the best, and I learned from the best. From that I got the absolute crash course and did everything I could to soak it all in. In my head I respected Kripps’ four years on brakes before he made the transition, but because of my age I didn’t really have that luxury. So I’d asked Coach Hays in Igls during the 2020 World Cup race there if it would be the year or the year after, and his opinion was to switch me to the front as soon as we could.
So from there I went to a driving school and started pieces together to make the switch. I really wanted to spend more times on the brakes, but from where I come from I’m not as naturally gifted as some of the brakemen. I can pick up things quite quickly as far as pushing and cues and techniques, but I’m not the strongest or the fastest guy though I’m able to put a lot of power into the ice. So I’m pretty lucky on that level.
What was the first driving school like?
It was a blast! I remember taking my first run, and it wasn’t really what I expected. I’d been in the back already so I already knew what going down was like, but the whole experience of driving…I thought there’d be more feedback in my hands, especially without the corners. You really have to find that finesse. The driving school was a blast though! I crashed once out of Curve 18 and learned my lesson, blew my shoulder out, and kept on driving. I had one guy who came out of Quebec with me, and he did every single run for 40 runs through a driving school in the back of my sled! I don’t know how he did it! We just tossed him in the back, we started at the lower start for some of them, but we did an entire week from off the top, and it wasn’t smooth!
I moved up from Start 3 to Start 2 and that’s the first time my life started flashing before my eyes, corners started coming at me way quicker and I was thinking it was a WHOLE nother ballgame. But then we went up to the top, and the first run off the top is an unforgettable moment, it’s a real accomplishment.
The move from Start 3 to Start 2 doesn’t feel like that much?
So yeah, we didn’t move that far up, but just that 100 meters up the road was everything, things are just quicker.
What are you watching on TV/streaming right now?
Everything and anything! I ended up getting COVID about a month or so ago and I crushed The Book of Boba Fett. I was watching some random show…the people who do film clips for news reels at night, it’s called Shot in the Dark. I haven’t had a lot of time to watch a lot of TV, but every F1 race gets watched pretty religiously as well!
There’s a small window of free time at the end of the season before you all get into full swing training again, what do you do with that time?
We try to stay active. It’s tough because the athlete in you always wants to do something. We try to incorporate a little bit of change of direction, and really “play time” in a way, it’s our coach’s way to keep us active but keeping things fun. He doesn’t care if we’re doing a spin class or playing hockey with the guys or golfing or whatever, as long as we’re keeping things moving. We try to incorporate a little bit of change of direction because we’re SO linear for ten to eleven months just to give our joints a little break without overdoing it. That’s always the struggle, that balance. I didn’t get out on it much this year, but my fiancée and I have some road bikes that we like to get out on every now and then and take a recovery ride, and that’s usually incorporated into that time. If the season is still open we like to get some skiing in, it’s a shame that our season really takes over the downhill ski season, and we’re in all of these really gorgeous ski resorts and towns and we never really get the opportunity to go down the hills.
What’s in your headphones while you’re warming up before a race?
It depends on the day, and my mood and where I’m at. I’ve got a few different playlists that I keep handy. I try to keep most of my pre-race music pretty calm. So I’ve got a couple playlists handy for that. There’s one song that sticks out, “I Am the Highway”, that’s always been one of my go-tos. I’ve also got a few playlists hat are pretty hype, and those are for days where I’m not really as focused on getting the sled down as much as I am pushing fast numbers off the start.
Do you go into a race with a plan as to something you need a little extra focus on?
Of course! As a newer driver, the goal is always shifting. There’s going to be tracks where I’m going to be more competitive and there’ll be tracks where the podium is way out of the question and we need to execute different pieces. One of them is that we always need to execute a strong push with the brakemen. So I need to contribute and get the sled off the line as best as I can and that’s always a priority for me. And there’s always going to be days where the track is more to my advantage, like at a Whistler or Lake Placid. And those are the days where I’m a little more dialed in. But when it came down to the race just before Christmas with Jay (Dearborn – NAC 2-man Race 8), it was making sure we were number one on both starts and get down as cleanly as we could. The bottom was going to be what it was in such a competitive field, and that’s all you can ask for: You can’t ask to be on the podium, you can just drive as clean as you can and fix the things you need to fix.
What has been your favorite sliding sport memory?
Two memories stand out: One of them was cranking my first four-man bobsled off the top…I’d never driven a four-man in my life…and going off the top with the guys in Park City. It’s not the most challenging of tracks, but two days before that I’d never driven the track at all, so that was pretty exciting!
Then pushing that 5.14 with Jay in Lake Placid was a pretty exciting time. It shows that we’re heading in the right direction and that we just need to keep working at it. So those two things have meant a lot to me, one of them is a little more recent, but it just shows that we’re moving in the right direction and we want to keep going in that direction.
That 5.14 in Lake Placid, when you get in the sled do you already know it was a big push?
The problem with Lake Placid is that there’s a clock just above Curve 1 so you blast it off the top…you know when the sled takes off, you can feel it. So I knew we were humming, and Jay and I have a instinctive way we push and I can feel when things are just rolling right, and I knew it. I’m looking into Corner 1 staring at it the best I can, trying to accomplish “task 2” which is “drive the sled down the track” without looking at the clock and turning the track into an ice house! I was doing everything that I could, but I feel like I caught a glimpse of it as I went into the corner, but when the sled takes off that fast and you feel how quick it’s going both in two-man and four-man, you can’t help but just be excited the rest of the way down the track!
What’s been your biggest challenge as a pilot?
The challenges as a pilot are pretty tough. I feel like there’s a lot of emotional and mental battles, not necessarily with your teammates but with yourself. It’s a very demanding sport, and it’s a very challenging sport, especially on a lot of technical tracks. Even on the not so technical ones, I rolled it in Park City, which is not a track where I thought I’d ever do that, but lesson learned and you move on. It’s not one of those “you’ve got to muscle through it” kind of deals, but you do come out stronger once you’ve known how to work through those failures yourself or with other people if you have the help.
The challenges as a day to day driver, I think, are pretty high. And any one of the athletes…we have a number of tasks to accomplish as a pilot which is “push and get it down”, and brakeman have fewer, but the number of things that the brakeman have to accomplish in a shorter period of time makes the risk/reward much higher. You get one shot as a brakeman, which is pretty tough. If you screw up one corner as a pilot you have opportunities to redeem yourself. And I think that’s where it gets really tough on some brakemen, if they don’t execute right they don’t get the chance to redeem themselves, which is tough. That would probably be the number one thing for me.
Some people might say the traveling part of the sport is pretty tough too, but you kind of have to embrace the grind on the development circuit, and that’s part of the fun and charm of it to me. Sign me up for those 18 hour drives, let’s go!
Question from Zack Digregorio: What do you think there’s more of in this world? Legs or Eyes?
Oh man! You’ve got centipedes and they jack up those numbers really quick!
Opposite end of that: Fish have no legs.
Yeah…spiders have tons of eyes and legs. Mosquitoes I think have lots of eyes and legs…oh man. I want to take the cheap way out and say it’s an even playing field here! It’s got to be close, but that’s not the fun answer here…there’s so many insects, I’m going to go with “legs”. Even though there’s fish there’s crustations that have legs too. Centipedes, and millipedes, and you’ve got all of those legs!
