By Austin Stanton
The first time John Conway donned a water polo cap, he found himself competing against kids nearly twice his age. At age 7, the local club didn’t have anyone else that young involved, though that proved to be a positive.
“That gave me good exposure to the sport and competition level,” recounts the Canadian national team member of 10 years. “I was a small kid playing against 13-year-olds, so I had to learn pretty fast.”
Conway went on to spend the next 17 years chasing water polo supremacy. Despite not achieving his Olympic dream, the 24-year-old Ottawa native has now decided to hang up his speedo.
Conway played for the Ottawa Titans for 11 more years since that first introduction, winning a national championship in 2008. The work ethic and competitive fire he developed in his youth drove him to become a leader for Team Canada over many years.
“That helped me at the international level,” reflects the Ashbury College grad. “Maybe I didn’t have the skills right away when I got on the team, but the competitive spirit we built in Ottawa was ingrained in me.”
Competing is what Conway loved most about playing water polo. He wanted to be the best water polo player he could be, playing against the best teams in the world. That meant an Olympic berth was always his #1 goal.
He remembers doing triathlons as a kid and being inspired when Simon Whitfield won gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He knew then that he wanted to be an Olympian.
Conway literally could not have come any closer to realizing that dream. After missing London 2012, Canada had established itself as strong contender for Rio 2016. But a pair of one-goal defeats in the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games semi-final and the quarter-final game that would have booked their ticket to Rio at the last-chance qualifier kept it from materializing.
The 9-8 loss to USA on home soil in Toronto was particularly devastating.
“That was the worst,” Conway recalls. “We were playing in Toronto in front of family and friends and we were controlling them the whole time and fell apart late in the game.
“To know in your head you could have won, that is very difficult to deal with.”
Along with the lows, there were many highs along the way. A 6th-place finish at the 2014 World League Super Final was a top global result, the Canadians did top USA for the 2013 UANA continental title at the national team’s home base in Calgary. And there are Pan Am Games silver and bronze medals.
“I knew we had a special team,” reflects Conway, consistently a top scorer for Canada at big tournaments. “We achieved a lot of great things, which is why it’s sad we don’t have the Olympic experience to go along with it because we had some great results.”
Conway is leaving the guys on the team behind as he retires from the sport but he will never forget the bond he has with the men he battled with for seven years on the senior national team, which has earned unprecedented victories over a number of the world’s top water polo nations in recent years.
“When you go through something huge and you do something Canada’s never done before and knowing you’re doing that with your buddies, it goes beyond the surface level,” explains Conway, who had childhood friend and fellow Titan Alec Taschereau at his side for much of the journey.
Conway won’t be getting back in the water any time soon. He’s content working as an IT applications recruiter in Calgary. But the University of Calgary commerce grad doesn’t plan to leave the game behind entirely.
“I’ll always be around or involved,” Conway indicates. “Water polo has given me a lot – great friends and mentors. I’ve been able to travel the world and experience different cultures I never would have done without water polo. I want to give back to kids and share my experiences with them.”