Brendan Gillanders
© Patrick Doyle
“Chantale helped me a lot with the mental skills aspect of football.”
“Definitely a lot of the characteristics of her talks – whether it was dealing with anxiety on a day to day basis or reminders about proper activation level, how to get yourself psyched up before a game, how to handle losing, how to handle winning, and how to pay attention to yourself as a person as well as a professional athlete. So some of the themes throughout her talks throughout the whole season definitely served as important reminders on how to take care of myself mentally so I could perform on a field… I think the majority of the team could relate to Chantale’s talks. She talked about how to prepare yourself and separate life off the field versus life on the field, how to distinguish what's important on the field, I think her talks basically helped a lot of people and a lot of people could relate to the main topics… I think it helped with the team cohesion a lot as well and obviously, it left an impression on certain people because they reached out and worked with her on a one-to-one basis… being able to flex your mental agility and being able to move from one situation to the other is important, in the end, it’s going to make you a better athlete.
Chantale has great energy. For a tiny woman she can raise her voice and speak in her talks and topics are relevant to the sport and it commands respect and people are willing to listen. You can tell that she’s worked in a professional athletic setting before because the talks are all relevant its stuff that we’re going through, it’s stuff that we face on a day to day basis and its skills that we can literally use that day after she’s done talking and they all serve as a reminder that we need to take care of the mental aspect of the game just as much as we need to take care of the physical aspect of the game so I think that the confidence in what she does, the confidence in the way she speaks and she brings such a level of positivity that it commands the respect of the room… You can see how genuine of a person she is and when she says and conveys the message that she’s here to make us better people and here to fill the need in terms of what the individual needs in mental skills training, she genuinely means it and she’s looking out for our best interests, and she is just as excited for the season as us… Chantale is completely genuine as a person and you know that right from the time that you meet her and when you speak with her you get a sense that she is definitely looking out for your best interests and she’s a great listener.
You know whatever you’re going through she’ll be able to help… you know football players are supposed to be tough and keep all this stuff in and we aren’t supposed to feel a certain way – but I feel like being able to express it in front of a team, being able to share some common goals, being able to share some common experiences going through it all as a team just brought us together more. So I think (working with Chantale) was something that was extremely valuable (Excerpt from interview with Time out with the Twins). “
