Skeleton

EDMONTON - When skeleton slider Amy Gough was called up to the big leagues she thought she was being taken behind the woodshed.

It was November 2006 and though Gough was the leader of the Canadian team on the Europa Cup development circuit, she had run afoul of coach Nathan Cicoria for refusing to wear the team-sponsored sliding gear.

But c'mon, the clothes were picked-through leftovers from other teams, three and four sizes too big, like sliding in a monk's habit or a burlap sack.

They went for a walk near the track at Konigssee, Germany. Cicoria didn't waste time.

"I'm sending you home,'' he said.

She was floored.

What? "Just because I'm not wearing my gear?"

"No. You're going to go up to the World Cup. Mellisa (Hollingsworth) is not sliding and we're sending you home.

"I was ecstatic,'' said Gough in an interview, recalling Cicoria's deadpan delivery.

"He got me good,'' she laughed.

The 32-year-old from Abbotsford, B.C. is now back on the World Cup circuit, which begins this week on the track in Park City, Utah, hoping to springboard from it onto Canada's 2010 Olympic team.

Her first go-round back in '06 was a rousing success, but a tough start.

The first run was at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, her home track, the one where she first tried the sport four years earlier, the one she had trained on, night after cold winter night.

But standing at the start line on race day, looking down the icy course and the skyline of north Calgary beyond, she was nervous.

She took a breath, put her sled in the left groove of the start track, placed her right gloved hand on the handle, bent over and took off, feet pounding over the ice.

Down the track she ran, reaching max speed, getting ready to jump face down onto her sled as the groove in the ice ended and the downward tilt of the course began.

But she jumped in off-kilter, knocking her sled out of the groove and - wham - into the wall before fishtailing down the course like a windshield wiper blade.

Her finish time was so bad she didn't qualify for the second heat.

Welcome to the big leagues, kid.

Gough (pronounced GOFF) was born in Williams Lake, in forestry and sawmill country of B.C.'s interior. When she was one-year-old, her family returned to their original home in Abbotsford, next to metro Vancouver.

In high school, she was born to warm the bench. Volleyballs hit the net; basketballs became air balls. She tried out for the soccer team and was told not to come back.

She found success, and solace, in rugby, taking out her teenage angst by drilling opponents into grass streaked with sweat and spit.

In Grade 11 she met Dan Steffler, the man who would become her future skeleton sponsor. He was the father of a boy she was dating. When the family went camping, she would go along, said Steffler in an interview.

She was a jewel, a practical joker who could make those around her laugh, he said.

One morning Steffler popped out of the tent, in suspenders and a Kermit-green beef marketing co-up hat with a white cow logo, the brim turned up so he looked like Gomer Pyle USMC.

Gough couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm going to call you Farmer,'' he recalled her saying.

OK, he replied, searching for a comeback. "I'm going to call you Aimless,'' a play on Amy.

Soon after, Gough and Steffler's his son broke up. They all lost touch.

By age 25, in 2002, Gough was in Calgary, a sales manager at a downtown hotel. Life was 14-hour days, work the phones, block-book those rooms, sell, sell. Lunch was a half-hour at the hotel-supplied buffet table: Fettuccini Alfredo, bread and butter, leftover cheesecake from the trolley cart. Gough put on 30 pounds and was miserable.

She needed to make a change and found it by accident when she went on a double date to Canada Olympic Park, where they were offering skeleton rides.

She needed convincing: "There was no way I was going down some ice tube with my face an inch off the ice.''

But when she did - eureka. "I totally loved it. It was the best roller-coaster ride.''

She began sliding, shed the 30 pounds, and by the following year was on the national team, quickly moving up the ladder, carving the ice with the precision of a jeweler, racing at thoroughbred speed.

Her first World Cup season started poorly in Calgary but by year's end was a triumph: fourth at Winterberg, Germany, fifth at both Nagano, Japan, and Igls, Austria. At year's end, she was the 7th best slider in the world.

She had quit the hotel and worked as an oil company production accountant, crunching numbers to ensure royalties matched output.

But full-time work threatened to erode her Olympic dream. Every day she was up at 6:30 a.m., work by nine, out by five, fight rush-hour traffic to Canada Olympic Park to work out until 9 p.m. Then home, dinner, hit the pillow by 10:30 and then up eight hours later to start all over again.

On training days she worked split shifts to slide in the afternoon, pulling up to the track frantically in her car, a Subway sandwich under her arm, sliding, then hustling back to work.

Her body rebelled. When she got back from week-long sliding events, hopped up on adrenalin, drained by jet lag, her system would crash. She'd be sick for a week.

"After years of doing that, you just get physically exhausted.''

About that time, back in Abbotsford, Steffler was learning more about skeleton. A relative talked about how much fun it was to bankroll Hollingsworth on her Olympic bronze medal run in 2006. Find someone to sponsor, he was told.

Steffler looked in the local newspaper. Hmmm, who to pick, who to pick.

And there it was, staring back at him in agate type.

Aimless.

He got in touch and she had dinner with Steffler and his girlfriend at Harrison Hot Springs, north of Vancouver in December 2007.

"There were signs of exhaustion,'' he said.

"We felt like if she didn't have an opportunity to train full-time, (the Olympics) may not happen for her.''

Three months later, he went all in, taking her on board as an employee at his DAN-U-Tec Industries, which makes computer infrastructure. The deal allowed her to live in Calgary and train full time.

They sealed the deal with the Farmer hat, which Gough now takes with her on the World Cup circuit.

When she finishes in the top three, she'll put the hat on at the podium, get her picture taken and send a copy back to DAN-U-Tec.

"Dan loves it,'' said Gough. "And it shows that I'm supported on race day.

"I can show him we got there together.''