How Sceptres captain Blayre Turnbull spends a day off in Toronto

Toronto Sceptres captain Blayre Turnbull is no stranger to Olympic pressure. A two-time Olympic medallist with Team Canada—silver at PyeongChang 2018, gold at Beijing 2022—she’s now preparing for Milano Cortina 2026. But the weight of defending that gold doesn’t sit too heavily with her. “I personally don’t think of the Olympics as a journey just to bring home a gold medal,” she says. “We all know that’s the expectation of the country, and we’ll do everything we can to achieve it. But I don’t succumb to the ‘What if we don’t win?' feeling. That’s just added pressure, and it doesn’t serve anyone.” Here, Turnbull shares how she keeps those thoughts at bay and stays present on her days off in Toronto.

Morning

I wake up at 8:30 a.m. on a day off, wash my face, brush my teeth and head straight for my journal. My Team Canada teammates and I committed to doing this together starting January 1, carrying it through the duration of the Olympics. Every day, our national leadership coach sends a new prompt for us to write about.

I’ve tried journalling in the past without ever fully sticking to it, but the shared accountability of my teammates makes all the difference. It’s a quick daily exercise, but it helps me feel grounded and present. With all the travel and the constant juggling between the national team and the PWHL this season, it’s become a welcome stress reliever—something centring that I can return to no matter where I am.

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After journalling, I head for coffee. I’m super particular about it, which is why I’m fortunate to have an at-home barista—my husband, Ryan. We’ve got a solid set-up: a Profitec Jump and a good grinder, which is just as important if you’re serious about espresso. We did a bean subscription for a while, but with how much we travel, it stopped making sense. These days, I just pop into Brodflour and choose from their selection—we trust them to pick well.

My order is always a cortado: two ounces of espresso, two ounces of properly steamed milk (none of the replacement stuff). My husband goes for a flat white. We drink our coffee watching SportsCentre together, and since he handles the espresso, breakfast is my responsibility. We switch it up, but a typical day-off breakfast is avocado toast with eggs, oatmeal pancakes or—on a really special day—pumpkin-spice pancakes.

We buy our bread from Brodflour too, though sometimes Ryan bakes his own. He tried to make a sourdough starter himself when we lived in Calgary and failed miserably, so two years ago I bought him a starter at the Brickworks Christmas Market, and I have to give him credit: he’s gotten pretty good at it.

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After breakfast, we take our three-year-old miniature labradoodle, Archie, out for a walk along the Mimico waterfront. The walk lasts about 45 minutes, and it almost always ends the same way: Archie launching himself into the water and emerging as filthy as possible. Sometimes we start at Birds and Beans Café, where I’ll grab a black coffee and maybe an apple cinnamon muffin. Other days we finish there, in which case I skip the muffin—because our post-walk lunch stop is SanRemo.

Afternoon

SanRemo is our absolute go-to. Ryan usually orders one of the massive sandwiches—the muffaletta, for example—while I head straight for the hot bar and commit fully to the chicken parm, plus a side Greek salad. People may say I’m a creature of habit, but I don’t see it that way. I do my best to avoid the apple fritters if it’s not a special occasion. It’s not that hard since you can’t see the bakery from the front; as long as I don’t wander into the back space, I’m safe.

After lunch, I fit in a recovery session. If I’m treating myself, I head to Ritual Beauty and Wellness and book an hour of infrared sauna and cold plunge, rotating between the two. The longest I’ve stayed in the cold in one go is five minutes, followed by 20 minutes in the heat, then back into the plunge and so on. If I’m recovering at home, I use my infrared light panels to help with inflammation, lie on a PEMF mat and adjust the wave settings and finish with my legs zipped into Normatec compression boots.

Then it’s usually laundry—thankfully, all the gear and workout stuff gets washed at the rink—and a trip to Sobeys for a big grocery shop. I find the grocery store surprisingly meditative. There’s something about moving up and down the aisles that keeps me rooted in the present, even as I’m planning meals for the week ahead. My list is always the same at its core: apples, bananas, peppers, broccoli, chicken, eggs and Greek yogurt. We’re very much a bowl family, so a solid set-up is essential.

Occasionally, I’ll wander into the ice cream section, though I try not to keep much of it at home. If we’re going to have ice cream, we usually make a point of going out for it.

Evening

Evenings are for winding down. Ryan and I are television people, not movie people, so we usually settle in with a series. Lately, we’ve been into Black Rabbit and The Beast in Me. Ryan has been travelling quite a bit, so I watched Heated Rivalry on my own—I had to keep up with the change-room talk. The last few episodes really got me; it’s a surprisingly touching story, and I genuinely loved it. I’m definitely a Shane Hollander fan.

When we have time for a proper dinner, we treat ourselves to a strip loin from Monte’s Meats, roasted potatoes and a homemade caesar salad. If we decide to go out instead, we’ll either try something new—like the Korean spot OneFiveSix for their DIY steak lettuce wraps—or head somewhere that feels like home: Sugo. Conor Joerin, the owner, treats us incredibly well, and everything on the menu is top-notch. The pizza, though, is exceptional and wildly underrated; people should be talking about it more when listing Toronto’s best.

After dinner, it’s pretty much bedtime. I’ve recently made a habit of putting my phone away at 9 p.m. I’m a light sleeper, and cutting stimulation before bed makes a noticeable difference. Lights out is 10:30—there’s always another big day ahead.