DeVaughn
Appearances
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
I fear if I touch their sled, I would be... Yeah, they probably wouldn't like that. I don't want to know what happened.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
So the program has their own. As far as who we had last year, there's a lot of local companies. Because it's not a... Especially in Canada, it's not... And North America generally, it's not a well-covered sport. You're not flipping through the channels and like, oh, there's bobsled, unless it's the Olympics.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
All those other years, you're not going to see the sport typically unless people direct you right to it. So it's not like a high coverage sport. You're typically not selling people that like tons of eyes are going to get on the sled and see your logo.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
You're more or less selling a dream of what you're competing for, which everyone who joins the sport is joining to, for the most part, some people might not be, but almost everyone is joining to make the Olympics eventually. So that's what you're selling when you're selling it to people. Otherwise, yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
You can try and do what you can for social media sponsorship and give shout outs and stuff, but otherwise the coverage on it isn't super high.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
You look incredible. I should have worn my shirt that says yoked. It would have been way better.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Yeah. Canada O'Brien needs a friend is what the sled will be called.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Yeah. I just, I would like to say I've been watching you since I was like nine. I used to watch, I used to like stay up late and then I'd pretend to go to sleep. And then I, I had this little, like, 15 inch TV in my room that I'd like quietly turn on when I was a kid and just like find the channel and watch it. You know, I used to watch it all the time.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
And like, this is to see you now talking directly to me is very like, it's almost not about out of, out of body experience for me. So, well, this is like quite literally a dream come true. thank you. Yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
You can always take a ride in a bobsled. You head to Whistler or Lake Placid, they have tours for you.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Uh, yeah, I do work out quite often. Um, I've been training for, uh, I mean, how old am I now? I'm almost 33. So since I was like 16, um, so yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
I'm not a professional. I would make that clear for sure. But I did compete in bobsleigh last year for our Canadian national team.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
I would call it former because I'm not doing it this year. But last year I did do it. It was my first year. And yeah, I was on the World Cup team. I think when I sent the email last year, I could be wrong. I sent applications a few times to you guys. But when I made the team, I was like, I'm going to send it and hopefully Conan will want to talk to me now. And I might have been in Europe.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Yeah, I was very lucky. I was also just very fortunate to be in good positions. I put myself there and put myself out there last year and was able to just find my way into one of our top sleds last year and
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
150 kilometers an hour. Damn it, you and your metric system. I don't know.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Seriously. Do you fall out? What happens? You can, if you don't hang on, you will fall out. Yeah. Like it's kind of my first crash. I learned it real quick. Um, I was doing a two man, so it doesn't go quite as fast. It gets to, I don't know what it is in miles per hour, but it gets to like 140 ish kilometers an hour. And we crashed probably at the fastest point on the track in Whistler.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
And you feel it right away. It's like trying to kick you out. It's like almost like a bull just trying to kick you off. So you have to like grab on to the frame and pull yourself back in and just try and stay in. The other thing is if you let yourself come out, you're usually scraping on ice. There's walls. So you might hit them.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
You're trying to get as low into the sled so that the sled takes it and not your body.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
There's a helmet. And then we have what is called a burn vest. So to prevent any ice burn from like skidding on it. You have this, like, Kevlar vest, but other than that, it's just a speed suit. Okay, okay, I don't understand.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
I haven't. I've been really fortunate. Our crashes, one looked violent. It wasn't that bad in it, but it looked really bad. Just because you're about halfway down, we crashed, we tipped over. And as you're going through all these turns going down, the sled's just doing its own thing. No one's controlling it. So when it goes up on a turn, it comes back down as if it's coming down on your head.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
You can kind of feel it, but... You're just hanging on. Again, you're with your buddies, so you're kind of like hanging on like, okay, let's hope we all don't fall out and get hurt here.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
So I'm from Calgary, Alberta in Canada. I originally was from Edmonton, but yeah, I'm in Calgary now.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
I think, like, the last crash that we had, I was thinking, like, my first thought was, like, because it was our first four-man on the World Cup together, and... I like told my family all back home, like, this is where you can watch it. Make sure you tune in. It's at this time. And like, first thing I was like, oh man, my mom is watching this and she's not going to like this sport anymore.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Just because that's all I was thinking the whole time. I'm like, oh man. I need this to end so I can pop out and just give her a thumbs up.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
It's unseasonably warm. It's about five degrees Celsius. So, yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Well, I was always, I was the third guy. So when you load, you have like a routine. I was the third guy. And I mean, in the crash, your instinct is to get as low as possible into the sled. So yeah, in fairness, I am trying to get lower than everyone else in that sled. Yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Your bobsled sounds more like one of those big, like, tall bags. It's going to tip over all the time. Oh, okay.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
That was a good reference. That was a good Canadian reference.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Yeah, so a lot of Olympic sports are pretty underfunded. Bobsleigh is certainly no different. We do get some support, of course, and we are obviously very grateful for it. And any support that teams do get, yeah, we're happy about it. But usually, especially the last few years, it's been self-funded. Devon, Devon, just ask him. Just ask him. Yeah, no.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
So the main reason I'm here is because you put your face just on a side of a sled. Just give us some money. We'll slap it on there.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
I could probably get you on a sled for sure. I could get you connected with the right people. That would be amazing.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
I've never figured out the conversion there. So your guess would be as good as mine. So it's 41 degrees.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Conan, when did this become the Jeff Ross podcast and not the Conan O'Brien one?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Do you want it in Canadian dollar? If you give us U.S. funds, we really would be thrilled.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Did you call it Calgary? Yeah, so I'm not originally from here, so I call it Calgary. I'm supposed to call it Calgary.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Bobsled, bobslay, it's the same. Is it a slay or a sled? I call it bobsled. I prefer it bobsled. It's because you can use it in lots of different ways. Bobslay is very singular.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
I want to know what's going on in the very front that he he steers it. I want no part of steering it. It seems like a lot of pressure. I just have to exist for like five seconds pushing it. And then I hop in and just the rest of the blame can go to the guy at the front after that.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Pretty much. You try and get in. So when you get in, it's kind of like a, I call it like a meathead ballet. There's three big guys that are all trying to get in, moving as fast as they can. And then it's like quick and in. It's like, if you see it, it's very orchestrated. It looks... If the good, the teams that are good at it look very good when they do it.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Yeah, the locals don't really know what they're talking about. I don't think so.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
Um, so it's like, you're very quick off the bunk and then in and down as low as you can. And then when you're back there, you don't want to be shifting a bunch. Cause if you got three guys shifting around in the back, the pilot will feel it. So you're trying to just kind of stay as still as you can and stay as low as possible.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Canada O'Brien
They genuinely do have their bobsleds at times. We try and take a look at them, but they look very sleek. They're very high-tech.