Who is Eligible?
Sport Canada carded and recently carded athletes
If you are currently carded, or were carded within the past two years through Sport Canada's Athlete Assistance Program (AAP), all of Game Plan's programs, services and resources are available to you for free.
Non-carded athletes
If you are a senior national level athlete who is uncarded, some of Game Plan’s programs, services and resources are available to you for free, even if you have retired in the past two years.
Benefits to Athletes
For most dedicated competitors, it can be challenging to manage sport and non-sport commitments. But when athletes wrap their entire identity around sport, it doesn’t just affect how they manage life transitions beyond the podium – it can also negatively impact their performance as an athlete.
Research suggests that athletes who engage in non-sport development, such as education or professional training (while actively training and competing), can actually achieve better results both in sport and in life. Instilling a focus on non-sport pursuits within an athlete’s training and competition schedule has been known to help maintain motivation, decrease the risk of burnout, reduce non-sport distractions, and allow athletes to prolong their athletic career.
Here’s what elite athletes have cited as benefits of engaging in career development activities:
Reduced frustration and pressure resulting from exclusive focus on sport
Enhanced mental engagement to help overcome the physical challenges of training and performance, which helps to maintain an interest in and commitment to sport
Sense of security having a post-sport career plan, resulting in better athletic performance
Wellbeing and balance derived from recognizing that sport can be complemented by outside pursuits, yielding stronger overall athletic performance