What an NCAA rule change might mean for junior hockey in Sask.
Nov 18, 2024
Previously, WHL players were declared ineligible to play NCAA hockey in the U.S.
When thinking of Pike Lake, Saskatchewan, images of the beach might pop up or it might be references as that place next door to Dakota Dunes, but in 2024 it’s now known for being home to a two-time Olympian.
Pike Lake native Rylan Wiens is set to compete in the diving events at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
He will compete in the 10-metre synchronized platform event as well as the regular 10-metre diving competition.
“I’m super excited to go there, see everything, get in the pool and compete and see the other guys from other countries and stuff. There’s really nothing I’m not excited about,” said Wiens earlier this month before he hopped on a plane to Scotland for the Canadian diving team training camp.
Wiens last competed at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in the 10-metre diving competition where he finished 19th.
The now 22-year-old thinks he’s learned a lot from that previous Olympics experience and can’t wait to have the opportunity to perform in front of big crowds in Paris compared to what he saw during the COVID bubble Games in Tokyo.
“There’s so much that’s going to be different going into these Olympics. The biggest thing that I learned from the last Olympics is just go in there and do what I know how to do,” he explained.
“The last Olympics I didn’t make the semi-final by .05 – so it was a little heartbreaking – but I know where I’m at and where I’ve been competing the last three years and I know I deserve to be in that final and competing for medals.”
Wiens said diving is a sport he’s been training for and loved his entire life.
“I started diving and swimming in my grandpa’s pool. I probably got out of the water wings when I was two and started jumping off the (diving) board,” he said.
“I learned my first headfirst dives there with my grandpa (but) had no intentions of doing diving later in life. I officially started diving at the Harry Bailey Aquatic Centre when I was six-years-old and then went in the competitive program when I was eight.”
When he entered the competitive program, he met coach Mary Carroll who is still his coach today.
Carroll herself competed as an Olympic diver at the 1992 Games in Barcelona. She also went to two Olympics as a broadcaster for CBC from 2000-06.
Those three experiences combined with her first as a coach in 2021 means she’s getting ready to attend her fifth Olympic Games.
Carroll got into coaching in 2008 and moved to Saskatoon to help launch the competitive program after the Shaw Centre opened up in 2009.
She couldn’t be more proud of what Wiens has accomplished.
“(I’m) beyond proud. It takes a team to do this and it’s not a coach and athlete – it’s a package,” Caroll said. “Coaching him from a child to a man it’s a partnership and it’s working pretty well. I’m just ecstatic to see what he can do at the Olympics because I want him to get every single goal he’s dreamed of since he was young.”
At the Games, Wiens said he wants to win medals.
His first opportunity to win one of those medals will be on July 29th when he and his partner Nathan Zsombor-Murray will compete in the 10-metre synchronized diving competition.
The combination of Wiens and Zsombor-Murray is one of the top ten teams in the world, but their relationship is a unique one as they hardly get the opportunity to train with each other.
“I’ve got to say we’re probably the furthest apart syncro partnership in the entire world right now,” Wiens joked.
“We get to train with each other once in a while. Every competition we go to we make sure we get good reps in, but a lot of it comes down to just being good at diving and then as soon as we go together it’s a couple of minutes of timing up our arm swings. If you do two good dives at the same time it’s going to be a good syncro dive.”
You can watch Wiens compete in his first event on July 29 at 3 a.m. with the synchronized platform — his second event is scheduled for Aug. 9 to 10.