Tom Laidlaw walks into Survivor with a lot of achievements already to his name. He’s the first Canadian to compete, with casting opening to our neighbors to the north last year. He’ll also be the first former NHL player to go from the ice to the island, playing for more than a decade in New York and Los Angeles. At 60 years old, he’s the oldest person to play in nearly a decade, only surpassed by season 32’s Joe Del Campo. Now a motivational speaker, Tom hopes to use his life experience to his advantage, leading by example, training his mind to remain calm under pressure, hoping to score every goal along the way.

Read on for my chat with Tom, and make sure to check in with Parade.com every day for interviews with this season’s contestants and other on-set tidbits. Survivor: Island of the Idols premieres on September 25 with a special 90-minute premiere on CBS.

Tell me about yourself.

I’m an old farm boy from Canada. I grew up playing hockey and was lucky to play with the New York Rangers for seven years and the L.A. Kings for four years. When I got done playing, I got into the agent business, representing other players. I do a lot of motivational speaking now with books and podcasts. I’m 60 years old, so I’m all about showing older people that you can still whatever you want to do.

So how did “Survivor player” get added to your resume?

It started a couple of years ago. Jerry Bruckheimer was a big hockey fan and approached the NHL about getting a couple of hockey guys on The Amazing Race. The NHL contacted the Rangers, who contacted me. I’m one of the few alumni who are still in shape. We ultimately didn’t find anyone to be my partner. Eventually, they mentioned Survivor. I watched it early on, but I hadn’t seen it in a while. I started to go back and watch.

Tell me some more about your motivational speaking.

The brand is called “True Grit Life.” It’s more for the people who get up every day and go to work six or seven days a week. They’re not LeBron James or Wayne Gretsky. Nobody is doing any articles about them, but they’re very important people. My whole life has been like that. I grew up on a dairy farm outside of Toronto. It was about going to work every day, milking cows and baling hay.

What has your preparation been like for this experience?

I look at Survivor as equal parts physical and mental. It all starts with your mind. You’ve got to train your mind to deal with pain and frustration. Over the last few years, I’ve even trained my mind. I would memorize a poem, then get on a bike to elevate my heart rate. It was incredible how I couldn’t remember it once I did that. You have to learn about yourself, then how you fix that problem.

I now have a whole mental process I go through. If I’m in a challenge, for instance, and I have to go from intensely physical to doing a puzzle, there’s a process I go through to settle my heart. I don’t think people come as close to training their minds as they could. The anxiety’s going, and Jeff’s doing his stuff. The more you watch, you see there’s a method to his madness. He’s trying to amp up that frustration level to get out emotions. To be successful, you have to control your emotions.

How much are you going to tell the other players about your life?

I’m not going to go out of my way to reveal who I am. I’ve got scars all over my body. For me to try to pretend I’m some accountant would be too much. (Laughs.) I think the fact that I played so long ago helps. I’ve seen people like Culpepper and Cliff Robinson never hide who they are. And Culpepper went to the Final Three! People may start thinking, “He’s got all the money in the world, so he doesn’t need it.” I’ve been divorced twice, so that kind of takes care of that problem. (Laughs.)

You’re the first Canadian to be cast on Survivor. Do you feel any pressure to represent your country?

It’s pretty cool when you’re the first in anything, especially with a show that’s been around as long as Survivor has. There are some differences between Canada and America. Hockey is such a big part of the culture in Canada. If we were to have this show in Canada and I would be on, I would want to hide it even more. But I love the United States. The Great Lakes, the Grand Canyon, all it has to offer. Growing up in Canada, there’s a little bit of feeling second in line to the U.S. We don’t even call them the United States; we just call them “the States.” But there’s a lot of pride in Canada, and a lot of that pride is derived from hockey. Canadian people like to compete.

What do you think people are going to perceive you as?

Well, I’m the old guy. I’ve been told I have this intimidating thing going on, I guess because I’m in shape with short hair and a crooked nose. I don’t want our tribe ever to have to go to Tribal Council. I want to win every game, and I think that’s doable. I’m going to try to blend in at first. I’ve learned that with leadership, you’ve got to gain people’s trust first and show them you care about them. Obviously, I want to win Survivor. But I have to recognize that everyone else wants to win too, so we can work together to make sure we’re not going to Tribal Council.

How does the team-oriented environment of hockey relate to tribe dynamics?

Every team I was on, I was a captain or assistant captain. I was that guy who wasn’t that good of a player but worked hard. I do think there are a lot of similarities. This is much more individual, even at the tribe level. At the same time, everybody can recognize that if we win every challenge, then we’re not voting each other off, knowing full well that we’re all trying to build resumes. That’s part of leadership. You need to understand that you have your goals, but you need to know their dreams and goals too.

I still think you can lead. The mistakes I’ve seen other people make is when they make an alliance and the leader becomes more of a dictator. I won’t do that. One of my favorite seasons was where Ben the Marine won. He was in a strong alliance, but he had a little bit of that dictator thing going on. Ultimately, he worked his ass off to win. But he could have made it easier on himself if he backed away from that dictatorship.

How much will your naturally competitive spirit affect the way you view challenges?

My goal here is to win every challenge. I’ve had coaches in the past who would always break down the season into segments. They would always say, “How many of the games in this five-game segment should we win?” And I would say, “Well, all five!” What if we want to win four games, and we win the first four. Do we just tank the fifth? I feel the same way with this game. I want to be the best player that ever played the game. I don’t mean that to be disparaging or arrogant. That’s the mentality I have to I have when it comes to games.

What do you desire in an alliance partner?

Loyalty. I saw seasons where Tony was flipping and flopping all the time. I think the game’s evolved where an alliance isn’t as big of a thing as it was. They call it the “voting blocs” now, where people were part of an alliance and then voted against them. In the past, if you did that, you were ostracized and could never come back. But now people are more willing to say, “That’s part of the game. I don’t like it, but now I have to work with this guy or girl.” I’d like to think you can hold an alliance together. But at the same time, people want to win. It’s a vote-by-vote thing.

You have two sons who are 25 and 28. Is that going to help you connect with some of the younger contestants out here?

I would hope it’s something that draws them to me. It sounds arrogant, but I feel like I have a good personality and I’m fun to hang out with. So I can be a father to some of these people. They feel like, “Let’s latch onto him. He can take care of things.”

Give me some Survivor alumni you want to play like.

I’ve thought about that a lot. I wouldn’t want to mirror Tony at all; he was vicious. At the same time, he had that intensity to win. I don’t agree with his style; it’s not for me. But he was going to do whatever he had to win. Even before the season, he said, “I’m gonna bring everything except integrity.” I like the way he played the game. I know everyone talks about Boston Rob. I like that whole strategic side to him too.

You know who I like? Bob Crowley. One of the things I learned about training my mind was what he did really well in challenges. It didn’t seem like he cared about what anyone else was doing. He had his own pace. Even if he was behind, he just kept going. He was great around camp and his social game was fantastic. He was this older guy where he would be fixing the shelter, and a couple of people would say, “When are you gonna start fixing dinner?” (Laughs.) It became a joke he was going to take care of everything. I like being that trustworthy guy.

What line will you not cross morally in the game?

I wrestled with that because I wanted to build this reputation of not lying. But it’s a game. More than anything, I think you do what you have to do to win. But it’s how you react after. I don’t like it when people revel in blindsiding someone. I’d rather say, “This is a person I formed an alliance with. I had to stab them in the back for me to go farther. I hate that and I’m not glad I had to do it. But I had to do it to win.” It’s sportsmanship, for lack of a better term.

When your tribe visits Tribal Council, would you rather vote on strength or loyalty?

As I said, I want to win every challenge. So I’m voting strength. And at that point, I think you have to. With loyalty, it’s too early in the game. People say they’re in an alliance with you, and all of a sudden they’re stabbing you in the back. It’s one of those things you can’t wait around too long for loyalty to evolve. You’ve got to win challenges.

I don’t think I have a fear. I want to be aware that it’s so easy to watch on TV, where you hear everybody’s conversation and know who’s going to get blindsided. What I want to make sure is that I make sure I know what is going on around camp as much as possible, which you can feel out. If someone’s not talking to you, obviously you’re the target. I’m thinking to myself, “How am I going to handle that?” You can watch it on TV, but until you get there, you don’t know how in-tune you’ll be.

Which is more important to your game: Strategy or social?

I think social will come more naturally to me. The strategy is going to be so fluid as we spoke about. It seems like it changes so much now from episode to episode. In Game Changers, they were all over the place. I like that, though. You’ve got to get in your head that you’re out here for 39 days. You wake up every day and have got to be ready to go. That’s something I trained for and understand. You’re going to suffer, being hungry, tired, and bug-bitten. But you’ve got to focus on making the right decisions on you winning the game. Not the right decisions from someone aggravating you at camp. I get it, but at the same time, I think, “You’re here to win. Is it really that important?” Culpepper voted out Tai, and even he admitted at the end, “I made a mistake. I voted with my emotions.”

When you’re at your lowest low, what’s one memory you’ll pull from to boost your spirits?

It’s really my whole life. My parents and grandparents ran the dairy farm. The first house I lived in didn’t have a functioning toilet. We had a bucket underneath the toilet. Once you were done, you took the bucket and dumped it out in the middle of the field. My parents grew up in an environment where it was just working every day. I’m 60 years old, which is roughly 22,000 days. I think to myself, “It’s 39 days out of 22,000. Suck it up.” I’m a big fan of the Navy SEAL mentality. They have a mission. It doesn’t matter what’s going on, what the weather is, or how sick they are. They’ve got to get the mission done. There’s a quote that says, “Fate whispers to the warrior, ‘You cannot withstand the storm.’ The warrior whispered back, ‘I am the storm.'”

If you could bring one celebrity or fictional character out as your loved one, who would you pick?

It’s either John Wayne or Michael Murphy. Murphy was a Navy SEAL who was killed in Operation Redwings. I’ve done a lot of studying on his life. He’s the kind of guy who lived all out all the time. I would love to talk to someone like that.

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