Interview: Asher Hill, Figure Skater, Coach, Choreographer and Activist

In this episode, Shireen Ahmed interviews Asher Hill, former Canadian ice dancer and figure skating World and National Team member and current coach, choreographer and co-host of That Figure Skating Show on CBC. They discuss Asher's illustrious journey on the ice, the racism, sexism and homophobia in ice dancing and figure skating and his work with the Figure Skating Diversity and Inclusion Alliance (FSDIA) in Canada.

This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.

Transcript

Shireen: Hello, flamethrowers! Shireen here. Well, it is a season to be jolly, and I'm ecstatic about our next guest. I am so excited to have Asher Hill – coach, choreographer, world competitor, most wondrous person I know in figure skating, honestly – joining us on the show today to talk all things figure skating, and actually all things Asher. Hello!

Asher: Hi Shireen! How are you?

Shireen: I am so excited to be talking to you. Asher is also co-host of That Figure Skating Show, which is on CBC. He is Canadian and, as I said, a world-renowned coach/choreographer. But Asher, my first question is part of your bio. You also say, “I have a very nice personality and butt.”

Asher: Because I do. [laughter] Skating, most of us have pretty good derrières because of constantly with our back extensions, with our free legs and that. So like, speed skaters and hockey players, our hips don't fit in jeans. And then, you know, add in some Jamaican heritage and you have a great combination for a nice butt. [laughs]

Shireen: Well, this is the only time I've ever been sad that this is not a video program. [laughter]

Asher: Just Google any of my skating outfits and you’ll find it. [laughs]

Shireen: Okay. Thank you for that tip for the listeners. [Asher laughing] I would like you to tell me the Asher Hill origin story. How did you fall in love with skating? 

Asher: So, I have a twin sister. Her name is Acacia Hill, director of Brampton Hill skating academy in Brampton. And she really liked skating, and my parents were very obsessed with skating as well, especially during the eras of Surya Bonaly and Debi Thomas. I think also there's kind of that…My parents are Jamaican immigrants, and I think there's that aspect of, you know, everyone who's Canadian should learn how to skate or any winter sport or stuff like that. So, they put us both on the ice – you know, twins, it's much easier to watch them do the same thing. I get that. [laughs] I hated it. It was terrible. I cried before every single session. I would just sit on the ground and eat ice. And the rink that I pretty much trained my whole life in, the Scarborough figure skating rink, doesn't have boards. So it's like a skating rink – the boards are only like ankle height.

So I would just crawl off the ice and run. [laughs] Then my dad would have to try and get me and put me back on the ice, bribe me with candy or French fries from the snack bar. And then they eventually just were like, you're wasting everyone's time, so we're going to pull you out. But I still had to go to the rink every day after school to watch my sister. And so I eventually went back into it, and then started to find a little bit more of the joy. Had a lot of natural talent, and yeah, just kept going with it ever since. And now I'm a coach, choreographer, went to world's national champion a few times–

Shireen: And you were in Battle of the Blades season six!

Asher: Oh yes. That was such an exciting process to be a part of, one, because it was during the pandemic. I mean, the pandemic’s still going. She's here. [laughs] But it was interesting because not only like COVID protocols, but having something to do during a time that was so uncertain, and to be able to effect change. And of course, prize money goes towards the charity of the skater skaters choice. And you know, at a time where I wasn't working consistently, I wouldn't have been able to give the 17,000 that me and Jessica won, I wouldn't have been able to give that to a charity at any given point, especially during a time where I wasn't making money and industries that were hurting at the time of COVID. So that was really cool. And Jessica Campbell, who is my partner, was amazing. From the first week she was already doing waltz jumps and toe loops and working on her extension. I couldn't have asked for a better partner. 

Shireen: And just for people that don't know, Battle of the Blades is actually pairing choreographers and ice dancers and figure skaters with hockey players. 

Asher: Yes!

Shireen: I love that. I think that's wonderful. But I think you may be our first figure skating guest ever. 

Asher: Yas! [laughs]

Shireen: So, I mean, I love this for all of us. But that idea of working, can you explain the technical differences between what skates are different? Hockey players skate differently? 

Asher: Yeah, it was so interesting trying to relay figure skating knowledge to a hockey player. For example, the way we do a push, we would say push to your left foot. So we would step on our left foot being our supporting foot – the right foot is the one that generates power. But to hockey players, that would be a push from your right foot. And so we would say, “Okay, let's go left” and then she would push left. And so of course, when we're skating side by side, you can't do that. You clip, you fall down. So that was one thing. And then trying to just kind of use more of their lingo to help them understand ours. It was much easier to speak hockey to them than figure skating. And then as well, of course their skates don't have toe picks. It's just a round blade. So, most of them had to be wearing a knee pads. Jessica actually got a pretty bad injury from falling on her toe pick on those forward crosscuts. We had to shave down all their toe picks as well.

Shireen: Wow! [laughs]

Asher: Yeah, because we're not really jumping. Like, to have the big toe picks in skating is for like vaulting, for jumps, particularly free skates. So for them, those are death traps. So we had to shave them all down. But yeah. And then of course, you know, skating is has an emotional content to it – we’re moving to the music and choreography. So for a hockey player, being hunched over, protecting your space and like staying grounded is very important. They don't care what they look like. But in skating, we're like, “Open up your chest! Smile! Take a deep breath and pretend like someone's just baked a tray of cookies and you're smelling it in the morning.” And like, you know, it's such a completely different world for them. It's like literally taking off the layers of their equipment and trying to find this elegant or human connection and vulnerability on the ice, instead of just grabbing the puck and going for the goal or whatever. Great hockey lingo. [laughs]

Shireen: I know. I love your hockey lingo. But what did that experience do for you as a skater? 

Asher: So, at the time that I was asked to do the show by Sandra Bezic I had been quite disillusioned with the sport. At the time, I guess, June 2nd or so, during George Floyd protests and Breonna Taylor and all those things, Black Lives Matter every other kind of news org…Not a news organization, but news organizations to institutions to sport orgs, you know, putting up their “we stand for Black people and we stand against anti-Black racism and police brutality and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah” – without doing much of any of the work, really, or just saying these platitudes. And Skate Canada was one of those organizations. And I had come forward with allegations of racism, abuse of skaters, misogyny, homophobia by a colleague at the Brampton skating club used to work at. And Skate Canada, I felt, didn't do a proper effective job during the investigation. I had been working with this person for a very long time, we were really close friends, and I kept kind of forsaking my morals.

And, you know, within skating, being one of the very few Black bodies in the sport, it's rife with microaggressions, jokes, things that you've always heard as a kid but you just let it roll off your back. You're there to do your job. That all came to a head when I made my allegations, and the report came back that I was making it all up, that they didn't believe anything I had said. They only interviewed his other colleagues, who are also like coaches – didn't talk to other people, like my sister, who also worked at the club. And then found me to be the bully and harasser of the whole thing, even though I came forward with something very personal and hurtful. And it took a lot out of me. I was in a world of depression. Imposter syndrome, that I already have pretty bad, was at its highest. It really threw me through a loop, and so I didn't really want to do anything with skating. I still don't really choreograph ice dance.

But then, you know, Sandra Bezic called me and she wanted to know the whole story about what was happening with Skate Canada. So we spent two hours just talking, and then she just tried to convince me to like at first do choreography for the show. So I said, okay, maybe I'll do it. And then she called again and said, actually, you know what? I think you'd be a wonderful performer. You're amazing. You're a great skater, and I think you have something to add, and it'd be so important, especially at this time. And I kinda sat on the fence, didn't want to do it. And then I think what really helped push me was being able to give to a charity, and my charity of choice was Freedom School Toronto. And then being able to find that joy of skating again, and it was with Jessica during programs, like a tribute to her late brother, Josh; just watching her do the things that I take for granted in skating, like a three turn or crosscut or like a landing with a turned out foot. And we're celebrating those wins. It was like watching a kid enjoy skating again.

And then I got to really feel that secondhand and firsthand joy in our successes. And being in this pressure cooker of creating programs every week together, our coaches and choreographer Ben Agosto and Katherine Hill were amazing throughout the whole process. There was so many tears backstage, and just feeling the joy of skating again and remembering why I love it. It's the freedom of movement. It's creating stories. It's that human connection that you can create through this weird judge sport by creating images and pictures on the ice with your body. And then as well as, you know, I got to be on national TV speaking about issues that often in Canada we don't like to talk about, because we are the…Cordial racism is I guess a good term for it? [laughs]

Shireen: Polite racism. We’re very polite about it.

Asher: Yeah, [laughs] we're polite about it. And we don't want to acknowledge any of it actually exists here. And so to be able to speak so freely about the charity I was giving to, that fights against anti-Black racism in the schooling industry or any discriminatory practices like that. Like streaming and, you know, teaching kids about resistance through a queer Black feminist lens, was so cool to be on national television just speaking that truth. 

Shireen: And I remember when that unfolded, because the headlines were like “Asher Hill calls out Skate Canada for hypocrisy” and all this kind of thing without truly deeply diving into it, because of the fact that, you know, most media is white, and sport media in particular, which is why I'm so excited to have you on the show to talk about it. Also, to see you thrive. Sandra Bezic, for those that don't know, is co-creator of Battle of the Blades and is a former competitor and Canadian legend in the figure skating world. But I wanted to touch a little bit on what you said about being one of the only Black bodies, and certainly not only in Canada – I would argue that this is more pervasive, and also being a Black queer man, like, there's intersections there. Those of us that don't know figure skating that well will assume – and please correct me – that gay culture is accepted within figure skating. But then there’s a race element also that is prevalent, and largely ignored in conversations. So in that time, did you feel any support at any level of those intersections? 

Asher: Definitely. I’ll first touch on, I guess, the acceptance of queerness in skating. I think because there has been a visibility of especially gay men in skating that it's been somewhat accepted. But it's quite interesting. A few weeks ago there was a Russian judge who was asked during an interview about Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, who are former world champions and most likely will be Olympic champions coming up. French team. They're fantastic. Been together for 14 years, skate transcendent programs, are so beautiful. They move you to tears. He is a gay man, and this judge was just like, well, “You know, it’s impossible to create good skating programs with a gay partner. They clearly can't connect. There's no connection between them. It's very dead. And that's the problem when you have a gay partner.”

So, those are the attitudes that we definitely have within skating. Even Skate Canada back in 2009, they wanted to try to do a campaign called “skate like a boy” where they're just trying to show how “macho” skating is, even though it's been a place where it attracts I guess queer identities because of the kind of artistic side of it. But even still, we have that repression side that was just like, well, let's not talk about gayness. Ooh, scary. But you know, lots of things have happened since that time, you know, Eric being the first out gay Olympic champion – Eric Radford, of course. So we're still fighting those battles, and especially with queer women and skating – Kaitlyn Weaver coming out this year, as well as we have Karina Manta, all those people. So it's been really cool to see the visibility of queer women, but, you know, in skating, they almost don't exist, is that what they say, but they're very much here.

So, in skating it is and it isn’t. There's a lot of work to be done to be inclusive to the LGBTQIA community. But I felt more of the support coming from I guess my Blackness, because I guess given the temperature of society at that time with the Black Lives Matter protests going all around the world, of course the discussions of in the inclusion of Black queer bodies, especially Black trans women. It was very much part of the conversation. But I think for me, although I'm pretty much out with my bisexuality, I kind of don’t…It wasn't really a sticking point with regards to the issues that I had going on with Team Canada, although it's very much intertwined with the homophobia that I experienced and heard from the coach in question.

And that affected me in ways deeply, because especially…When some of these incidents happened, I still was not out, I was not fully comfortable with my sexual identity. And so, you know when you're hearing the F word and you're just like, “Ah, you shouldn't say that…” But not exactly saying why, or not even a relating to yourself fully that it is because I identify with this community and understand that this word is hurtful. It kind of does a little bit of a mindfuck. Am I allowed to swear on this? [laughs]

Shireen: Oh come on, Asher! You know Burn It All Down!

Asher: So true. [laughing]

Shireen: You know this show!

Asher: Okay. It gives you a little bit of a mindfuck. [laughs]

Shireen: Part of me wanted to be like, “Today's guest on the show is the most fucking awesome person I know.” So, yes. 

Asher: [laughs] Yeah, so I definitely got that more from my Black identity, because you get all the text messages of like, are you okay? Are you doing this? And at the time, you know, I did say that I didn't want to hear from anybody because it was fricking annoying and performative. Like, thank you for checking in on me. It is really sweet. But whenever I've bought these things up before, it’s always like an eye roll or like a sigh, or like you're just letting me talk while I just let out the hot air and then we can all move on and continue with whatever. But now you're face-to-face with it, now you've heard my experience and now you can't ignore it.

Shireen: So, you talked about Surya Bonaly, who was literally one of the reasons that I fell in love with figure skating and was drawn, because the backflip and her quads…I remember watching her once after the backflip, and there was a survival and a confidence, but a quivering of her lip, and almost what looked like defiance, but I knew was survival, because I've had that indignant role with all whiteness in front of me and you're trying to stay solid and I could see her eyes and her lip quivering. And no, I don't skate. And you'll see this when we go skating this winter, because we are doing that!

Asher: We’ll have to bring Courtney as well. [laughs]

Shireen: I'll bring her. Absolutely. Dr. Courtney Szto is actually…I would love that. You’d leave me behind in the dust. But this is one thing I could relate to, because she was a person whose athletic ability was spectacularly beautiful, and her grace and her strength was inspiring, and she clearly belonged on the ice, but the culture did not do that. And I think when I was listening to you talk about freedom of movement, did you connect with her growing up? Or was she the skater that you looked up to growing up? You said Debi Thomas as well, but were those the two main ones that you looked to? Or was it Kristi Yamaguchi or anything like that? Anyone racialized? 

Asher: Yeah. Definitely Surya Bonaly was an icon in our home and an inspiration. You know, right now we have tons of women, young women, especially Russians particularly, during all these quads. But you know, back in the day, the women who are like trying and going for quads where those cultural bodies like Surya Bonaly really pushing the envelope, going for those quads. And then it would be decades before women tried it again, and now it's so commonplace and you would need it to win on the podium. She started that, and I think there needs to be more recognition of that. And there's skaters like Chrissy Lipscomb from America back in like juniors in the early 2000s was landing quads as well. She was also a Black skater. There's no kind of recognition for that.

But you know, growing up, my inspirations were…I really loved Daisuke Takahashi from Japan. What I would always do is I never had like big…I never looked up to everyone just for like all their being. I would look at skaters for the qualities I liked in them. Like if they had really good tenacity and attack, but maybe didn't have the best skating skills. And then I would look at like Daisuke Takahashi connection of movement and freedom of skating. You would look at Mao Asada for skating skills and all that stuff. And then you would look at Midori Ito for like raw power and stuff like that.

So I always just pick and choose things. I've never been a person of idols and stuff like that, because I think even as a little person – and by little person, I mean a child [laughs] – I would see kind of the folly in people. It'd be like, yeah, people all generally suck, but also are good. So I think just taking the things that you appreciate from the people that you look up to and applying those specific things to yourself will only make you a better person. So…Was that a correct answer? [laughs]

Shireen: All answers are correct. I love it. One of the things that I love about that is you describing your process in loving people in skating and the skaters that came before you. I do really love what you said about recognizing and how Black women in particular in sports don't get the credit that they deserve. And I love…I didn't even know the second…Lipscomb, I think you mentioned? I never even heard of her before. 

Asher: Yeah. Chrissy Lipscomb. She didn't make it very far internationally for the US, but she was doing quads so well in her junior and senior career back in the early 2000s. But yeah, she was lit and had huge jumps.

Shireen: I love all of this. I love you talking about it. I even love you talking…And the way you speak is so poetic, almost, in the fluidity of movements, and this– 

Asher: Stop! [laughs]

Shireen: I'm like, I’m gonna go Google Midori Ito right now. I don't know who that is, but I'm gonna find out! But also, are you hopeful about the sport? And it's really interesting that you talked about, you know, your discussion on…Not discussion, you bring it to the attention, and using your voice to talk about how you're frustrated that on the face Skate Canada does these performative things – as most sports organizations do – but really have difficulty in actually going to the root of anti-Blackness or anti-Indigeneity or homophobia or transphobia or misogyny and abuse, quite frankly.

But Skate Canada then released an EDI campaign and educational model and was one of the first associations to do so in this country. Whereas, you know, Hockey Canada is still a big ol’ mess. We know that. So, do you think your voice pushed that? Because I can't imagine that they woke up and were like, “We're really sad about the murder of George Floyd. We need to get on this.”

Asher: Yeah, [laughs] which is what it felt like. “Oh, we love Blacks.” [laughter] But I say this all the time, I speak to my sister…Every time there’s a racial trauma, whether it be Islamophobia or anti-Blackness that galvanizes everybody, it's like, you have – depending how big it is – it’s like a year or two years where people care about your voice for a little bit, and then they're like, eh, and then it just goes back. So I was always like, get your things now! [laughs] But I will say, I haven't been in direct contact with Skate Canada as there is a new investigation happening and it's ongoing. And right off the offsets, I said that didn't really want to create any kind of connection with them, any kind of change. I wanted to do it through our own volition, and that's with FSDIA.

But I know eventually a lot of communication will have to open up. I'm still a figure skater. I mean, I’m still skating coach. I have to register with them. I'm working with one of the Olympic hopefuls for women, Madeline Schizas, who's also actually a BIPOC skater as well. Her mother is Indian and her father is I think British. But I think Skate Canada is doing a lot of good work, and I can say that with confidence because I know who is behind the EDI work, and that is Dr. Tina Chen of Manitoba University. She has been so wonderful, not only just in educating me and getting grants done for FSDIA and working directly with the EDI group and, you know, creating the national survey for representation, just to get a litmus test of everyone's experience within Skate Canada regarding their racial identities.

So, I know she's doing such great work. I know that at the beginning there was a lot of resistance by some of the members of the EDI group. But Skate Canada has been actually very open to a lot of the things that Tina wants to get done and how to do it, and it's been very effective. And so, all praise to Dr. Tina Chen. And of course, as much as it pains me to say, you know, it's good to have this organization be a little bit more open to the change and trying to make those changes. But of course I will always be the the person giving side eye from the side, because I feel like that is just my destiny. [laughs] And just making sure that things are still going in that right direction and keeping their feet to the fire and keeping them honest and true to their word and their actions.

Shireen: That's absolutely important. So what's next for you? In addition to more Golden Girls episodes and skating with me and Dr. Szto? What is next for you, Asher. And can you even tell us?

Asher: Yeah, I guess so. Most of my things are top secret, so like, I'm not going to be doing thing with Gucci – but if you're listening, sure. I don't know what…Anyways! [laughs] I'm working with Beyoncé…I’m kidding. [laughter]

Shireen: You know what? Speak it into the universe! She hasn't done a skating video yet.

Asher: She hasn’t. She hasn’t.

Shireen: I think you should reach out. Beyoncé, if you're listening, text Tressa, please. 

Asher: [laughs] Yeah, I think I can send her a treatment for like, you know, some kind of icescape…I don't know. We'll figure it out. We'll be on her next visual album.

Shireen: And I’ll be a roadie. That's fine.

Asher: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll put you in my rider. [laughs] But right now I'm coaching and doing a lot of choreography at Brampton Hill skating academy, and Milton skating club, and Thornhill, mostly working with the free skaters on skating skills. And of course, during their programs, working with the Olympic hopeful Madeline Schizas in Milton, who just came off of a wonderful skate, a performance at Rostelecom Cup in Russia. Of course, That Figure Skating Show is up for its third season. We're still doing that somehow. I don't really fucking know why, [laughs] but apparently they like us. So we're going to keep going with that. We're going to be going to nationals in Ottawa. It's the Canadian Olympic qualifiers for figure skating. We're going to be on the ground there. So, it's going to be interesting for me.

Shireen: That’s in January?

Asher: That's in January. Yeah.

Shireen: It boggles my mind that the qualifiers are so soon before the Olympics.

Asher: Oh, I know, it's always like two weeks. It's always this kind of feeling of like people who are like, oh, I’m hoping to make the Olympics. And then it's like three weeks until the Olympics. And then the next week you go to Four Continents, which most of the Olympic athletes will forego going to Four Continents. So they send like what we call the B team. So, my two experiences at Four Continents have been during the year of the Olympics, and we always skated well there, but it's always like the always the B team or…There’s this kind of a cloud of sadness, because most of the skaters obviously who are there haven't made the Olympic team. So yeah, Four Continents is always a nice one. I like the party at the end [laughter] because everyone’s…You can feel the sorrow! [laughs]

Shireen: And you weave that into your choreography, those motions…

Asher: Yes! You have to. You have to. And then I think CBC, we have some stuff maybe playing for the Olympics. It's not set in stone yet, but that's really exciting. And then of course working with FSDIA, it's really cool to be in this advocacy role where actual work is getting done. And it's always a place that I've always wanted to be in. I was cleaning out my closet a few weeks ago and I found…In grade 10 you gotta do your careers and whatever, civics and careers. And I was reading one of my career duo-tang thingies and all this stuff written in there. And just seeing my 15 year old self writing how he wants to help the world and try and understand where people are coming from in different ways. And so, it was a nice reaffirmation? Reaffirmation? There we go. Wrong syllable. [laughs] But a reaffirmation of that I've always kind of been this person and this is where I've always wanted to be.

And so learning from educators like you, Amira Rose Davis, Brenda, Lindsay and Jessica – did I get everybody? Okay. Wonderful. Yes! Okay. [laughs] And of course Tina, and just learning about those intersections within sport and race and gender identity and queerness and even things too, like climate change – it’s opened my eyes up to how sport can be more accessible, more inclusive, more equitable, and how we actually get there with proper work and not just this kind of fugazi, performative, surface level, and then scratch underneath and it's barely anything kind of work.

And so I'm becoming more passionate about that and trying not to be afraid to actually go for it without feeling like I'm moonlighting as an advocate or anything like that. So…Oh, and then also I'm supposed to go to Manitoba in February to do a talk about race and sport at the University of Manitoba with Tina. So, that should be cool. It's more moonlighting. It's very interesting. I always joke that my six eighths of a degree from Ryerson [laughter] has gotten me to speak to actual students at a university. So, yay!

Shireen: Love, love that. And your work for FSDIA, for those that don't know, it's the Figure Skating Diversity and Inclusion Alliance. And we will look for that. Where can our listeners find you, Asher?

Asher: I can be found on the gram posting thirst traps, and then interspliced– [laughter]

Shireen: Folks, folks! They are beautiful and they are effective. 

Asher: [laughing] And then sprinkled in with some of my work for CBC, and and then some advocacy stuff. So it'll be like rah rah rah, capitalism sucks, here's my abs. [laughter] Which I love. It's all about ballots. [laughs]

Shireen: I love all of that. 

Asher: Oh, wait, on Instagram, @asherkwacie. And then on Twitter, I am just @asherhill. I am on TikTok. I barely use it. I don't understand it. So that just means I'm officially old. And then you can watch That Figure Skating Show on CBC Sports YouTube page. And then you can also see some of our work that we've done at FSDIA with our series called Conversations in Color, where we interview skaters of different identities and in-depth interviews on what it takes to get to the rink and being in the bodies that they are and just getting to understand their place within figure skating and how it's affected them. That's on the Figure Skating Diversity Inclusion Alliance, or FSDIA for short, and that's on their YouTube channel as well. I think that's it. And you can text me at…Wait, forget it. No. [laughter]

Shireen: This has been so wonderful and instructive and helpful. And thank you for providing all those resources that are immeasurably important, particularly in a figure skating setting that, you know, a lot of people may not know where to go – but also in an Olympic year where this is very relevant, very now. And I know how busy you are and I'm so appreciative of you jumping off the ice and coming to talk to Burn It All Down because we love you. I'm obsessed with you. And I can't wait…When things do slow down for you, I would really love to make a fool of myself on the ice and have you…I just wish I skated better than I do. Like, my parents were like yours as immigrant families. They're like, skate and swim. But I took more to the swimming, even though I love skating and I watched hockey far more than I watched swimming. But my point is that I could use your help. 

Asher: So absolutely. BHSA in Brampton, we have an adult program and it's actually…We’ve got two more adults that are on there. So it's growing, and it's really…Right now I'm working with an older Jamaican man and his sons are in skating and he's trying to show them it's okay to try new things. And it's so cute! It warms my heart, reminds me of my dad. I’m like, I'm already like crying now. [laughs] But just yeah, it's so cute. He really wants to learn how to crosscut. I haven't worked with adults in a long time, but it's already so healing for the soul. So, we would absolutely love to have you, and we should absolutely go skating.

Shireen: That's amazing. Thank you so much for this. And we look forward to seeing you in so many different places. And again, thank you so much for the work you do on and off the ice. You're like a joy and a light in this place. 

Asher: Thank you so much, Shireen. The work that you all do at Burn It All Down is phenomenal. You all talk the real real, and it's just like you said, it's a feminist sportscast you absolutely fucking need. Everyone should be listening to this show. It's fantastic. Thank you so much, and I'm so honored to be one of…I know you do have men on the podcast as well, but I know I'm part of a select few, so I'm going to take that to my grave. [laughter]

Shireen: You are. And I love that you dropped that. Love that! I will see you soon, my friend, and best of luck out there with everything.