This week, as we get ready for the Athletes edition of Wipeout Canada, I have a confession to make: I never played on any teams in school. I never scored a game winning goal, or felt the glory of being lifted by my teammates in celebration. In short, I have never felt what it is to be a champion.

The closest I came was the B soccer squad in Grade 11, and to be honest, I wouldn't call it a team. It was more like a group of human pylons that other teams could practice passing, scoring, and celebrating against. We were like the Bad News Bears, except the bad news was always "we lost again". You know things are bleak when the highlight of your season is the game in which your squad gave up 11 goals. By the end of that debacle, even our goalie were applauding when the other team scored. (By the way, the final score was 11-0. Which makes sense. I mean, when would we have even found time to score any goals of our own?)

The only other time I came close, I had to choose between Grade 8 volleyball final tryouts or an audition for the part of "Audrey II" in the St. Andrews JHS production of Little Shop Of Horrors. I decided to pursue the glamour and glitz of the musical production. That pursuit was in vain, as I lost the role to a young man by the name of Tatum Wilson, who, as memory serves, ALSO made the volleyball team. I ended up filling a number of smaller roles in the production, and turned my back on volleyball forever. Volley, set, spike... Disappointment.

Even in little league baseball, where we had to pay to play, I had trouble getting ahead. The only time my coach let me pitch was when my mother came to visit from San Francisco when I was 16. I was staked a 10-0 lead after one inning and still barely won the game, in the process, doing damage to my pitching arm from which I haven't yet recovered. (Is it possible your ego is in your bicep?) But hey, when you can hurl a baseball at upwards of 38 miles per hour, you don't think about the future. You just throw heat.

Later in the season, one out away from a berth in the championship series, I was patrolling second base when a hot smash took one bounce, hit off my glove and smoked me right in the face, the bridge of my glasses slicing into the skin between my eyes. Blood poured from the cut -- and my nose -- and the error led to us surrendering the tying run, after which the game was called due to fog. (Really?) We continued the game the next day, lost in extra innings, and then got shellacked in the final game of the series, and all I had to show for it was two types of blood on my jersey. (Which was a cool and rare sort of saving grace, as I had also -- spoiler alert -- never been in a fight.)

All I'm saying is, getting the chance to watch a bunch of Olympic medalists, trophy winners, and assorted physical specimens embarrass themselves on national television is a dream come true. For one glorious hour of television, I will show that I belong with the best of the best, as I pepper them with insults from far away, where they can't hear me, in the safety and isolation of a broadcast booth. Like a champion.