Keaton Bruggeling and Jay Dearborn, former Carleton University varsity football players, never expected their athletic careers would lead them to represent Team Canada at the Winter Olympics.
Far from the gridiron, the two athletes are set to compete in the bobsleigh event at Milano Cortina 2026.
Bruggeling plays with the Hamilton Tiger Cats in the CFL as a wide receiver for five months out of the year. But for another four months, he’s the brakeman for the Skeleton Bobsleigh team in Canada.
It’s the first time Bruggeling will be competing on the Olympic stage.
A standout wide receiver on the Carleton Ravens football team, Bruggeling was first introduced to bobsleigh in 2022 while training for the CFL Combine at CANAM Strength and Conditioning.
There, Olympian Patrick Norton approached him, seeing potential in his speed and explosiveness as a football player.
“After my first year with the Ottawa Red Blacks, I was messaging Pat, and I was saying, ‘I don’t know if I want to do it. I’m tired, I might need some time off,’” Bruggeling said.
“And he basically told me that my flight’s on Tuesday.”
Bruggeling says his first race was one of the most memorable of his career — back when he was wearing a helmet that wasn’t his and a suit that was too small.
“I kind of got strung out there in Whistler, and after a couple times, it’s exhilarating, it’s like skydiving. There’s no seatbelts or safety handles in the sled. You just hold on for dear life,”
The adrenaline and exhilaration are some of the things that Bruggeling loves most about the sport.
“I’ve crashed 10 times, and even when you crash it’s fun,” he said.
“It hurts, but it’s like fighting a bear and winning. It’s like you’ve cheated death.”
For Bruggeling, making it to the Olympics has brought a whirlwind of emotions and lots of pride.
“It means so much,” he said.
“It’s hard to be the best at something, nevermind the best in Canada. And now we’re competing on the world stage. It’s just an extraordinary feeling of gratitude and pride to represent Canada.”
For Dearborn, representing Team Canada’s bobsleigh team at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy marks his second Olympic Games — and his first as a pilot.
Since Grade 6, Dearborn dreamed of representing Canada at the Olympics through hockey, but as hockey faded from his life, that dream slowly slipped away. Now bobsleigh has given him the chance to represent the nation on a global stage and fulfill those childhood ambitions.
“It’s incredible to be able to represent Canada at the Olympics and to be able to do it twice is just incredible,” Dearborn said
Dearborn played three seasons as a defensive back with the Carleton Ravens before signing with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. In June 2019, he was released after sustaining an injury at training camp — a moment that would prove to be a turning point.
After returning to Carleton, Dearborn was approached by strength coach Nick Westcott, who floated the idea of pursuing the sport.
“I had just been released from the Roughriders. I was pretty injured, pretty beaten up at the time. Nick Wescott gave me a couple weeks to mope around the gym and sulk, slowly get back into training again,” Dearborn said.
“He approached me at the perfect time, just dangled the carrot in front of me in terms of, ‘Do you want to try something new? Do you want to keep competing? Keep training?’”
From there, Dearborn built his bobsleigh career, making his first Olympic debut at the 2022 Beijing Games as a brakeman. This year, he is transitioning to the pilot position, driving both the two-man and four-man sleds -– a much larger role, he said.
Dearborn said the discipline and dedication of the football environment sets up an athlete to perform well in bobsledding.
“They look for strong, explosive, fast athletes,” he said. “The athleticism between a football player and a bobsled athlete are very similar. The training is very similar.
“In a way, all the training I’ve been doing since high school to try to get better for football was just preparing me for bobsledding.”
Dearborn said his accomplishments were achieved in such a short time by “keeping the blinders on.”
“Focusing on one heat at a time, and one training day at a time,” he said. “Fixing the little mistakes and staying very process oriented rather than outcome oriented. Really trying to pay attention to the things that are important without getting distracted by the noise and excitement of everyone’s expectations.”
Dearborn said he is excited to be in an environment where the stakes are high with virtually zero margin for error.
“Every four years the world and Canada really pays attention to some of these niche sports, or sports that don’t get a lot of air time. It’s exciting to feel that support to come on,” he said.
Representing Canada was one of the defining factors that sold bobsledding as a sport to Bruggeling.
“It’s once you get that feeling of ‘you’re playing for Canada now,’” he said. “It’s not Ottawa, it’s not Carleton, it’s not the Tiger Cats.
“It’s Canada.”
Bruggeling says he is approaching the Olympic Games with a focus on “controlling the controllable.”
“There’s a lot of distractions when you get to the village and there’s a lot of things going on and you want to be able to perform,” he said. “I really want to just make sure I’m going to execute at a high level and do my job because you can’t control anything else.
He reflects that if he could tell his younger self one thing, it would be to keep going.
“I would just be popping in and just saying, ‘Keep going, you’re doing the right things, you’re on the right path. Just keep working.’”
Bruggeling encourages athletes looking to branch into new sports to “just try it,” saying he is proud of himself for staying disciplined and persevering.
“The number one thing is just try and just commit to it,” he said. “If you’re gonna commit, you’ve got to commit. It’s not a hobby, it’s a profession. You go to treat it like it’s your job. You got to be disciplined, and you’ve got to show up every day.”
The two athletes are scheduled to race on the ice track next week. Bobsleigh competitions at the Olympic Games begin on Feb. 16.
The four-man competitions will be underway on Feb. 21.
Featured image provided by Keaton Bruggeling
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