Team Behind the Team: Meet Keegan Pereira, two-time Olympian in field hockey & Specialist, Business Integration and Program Management at the COC

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) is proud to put athletes at the heart of everything it does. At all levels of our organization, from our Board of Directors to our interns, our team is composed of people who truly believe in the power of sport – including an impressive group of Olympians, Paralympians, Pan American Games athletes, former national team athletes, rec league athletes, and passionate sport lovers. In this series, we’ll share stories from members of our team who have competed at major multi-sport Games and who are now dedicating their professional lives to helping the next generation of Team Canada athletes live their dreams.

Keegan Pereira has earned more than 210 senior caps representing Canada in field hockey after making his international debut in 2009. His highlights include representing Canada at two Olympic Games, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, and four Commonwealth Games. Keegan also helped Canada win a silver medal at the Guadalajara 2011 Pan American Games, a silver medal at the Lima 2019 Pan Ams, and a bronze medal at the Santiago 2023 Pan Am Games. Keegan now works as a Specialist in Business Integration in the Program Management Office at the COC.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You grew up in a part of the world where another sport was king. I wonder if you could tell us about that.

I am from Mumbai, India, one of the (field) hockey hotbeds. The school I went to was one of the top schools for hockey at the time.  If I would have been born anywhere else in India, I probably would have probably ended up in cricket or soccer.

My family was always big on hockey. My dad played at quite a high level growing up and a lot of his friends were on the Indian National Team and brought gold medals back home. My dad was on the same company team as Dhanraj Pillay who was one of the hockey legends in India and around the world. I got to touch his gold medals when I was five or six years old. 

Do you still remember that moment?

I do because I was pretty nervous. Dhanraj was a big dude with long hair, kind of a scary figure for me growing up. I remember touching the medal and backing away because I was intimidated. But he ended up being one of the nicest guys in the world and one of the most influential figures in helping shape how I play the game. I tried to model a lot of my game after him with his speed and skill.

You had a fairly long career in the sport. What were the biggest highlights?

One of the key moments was the Pan American Games in Guadalajara in 2011 where I realized I was good enough to play at that level. Another highlight was when we qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Games. We played an Olympic qualifying event against Ireland. It was a home tournament with the winner going on to the Olympics. We were able to pull it off in front of the home crowd. I scored two goals, which was one of the biggest moments of my career, but it almost became one of my lowest moments. The game went to a shootout.  I was the third shooter. I needed to score, but I missed. After that if we missed one more shot, we would lose the game. I couldn’t open my eyes. I was on my knees, essentially praying a miracle would happen. A miracle did end up happening. They missed their next two shots. We scored our next two and we ended up winning.

Tell me about your role and what exactly you do in your day-to-day job at the COC.

I work in the Business Integration and the Project Management Office. A couple years ago, our senior leadership team created our department after identifying an organizational risk. The COC is made up of a lot of different components that all work together to eventually send the Canadian teams to games. But in the past, everyone kind of operated in silos. They weren’t really communicating or collaborating as efficiently as they could. One of our main goals is to make sure that we collaborate and work better together.  For instance, we store knowledge from games to games in one place that’s easy for anybody to find. Secondly, we make sure that all projects are run in a standardized way with guardrails to make sure that they’re running on time and not going over budget.

How does this fit with your passions and your previous experience?

While I was playing, I did my Master’s in sport management and towards the end of my career, I did a certificate in project management at U of T.

For a large part of my career, I wasn’t the strongest or the biggest guy on the field. I always had to be one of the smartest and one of the most organized players. I had to outthink people and make sure the plans from our coaches were implemented. That meticulous detailed organization and the ability to understand concepts and put them into play is one of the things that I’ve been able to transfer over into the work I’m currently doing. Also, near the end of my career, I had to take on more of a leadership role where I had to be able to communicate effectively to my team and make sure I had their trust. A lot of what we’re doing now are foundational changes within the organization. Change isn’t always easy so I have to communicate what we’re doing and make sure I get buy-in from the rest of the staff.

Can you walk me through a bit more detail about the kinds of projects you would work on?

We are knee deep in Milano Cortina 2026 planning with our games management system. It’s everything the organizing committee needs from us. That includes things like transport information to book tickets, to village operations, to outfitting. It’s mind blowing how much goes on in the back end that an athlete would not realize. We might send a team of 400 to 500 but we need to provide detailed information on a long list of say 2000 potential team members to have everything in the system ready depending on who ultimately qualifies and is named to the team.

What future goals do you have at the COC?

We have a vision for the organization, but also a vision for how the sports system in Canada can improve. You probably know it is quite fractured, very siloed, especially province to province, NSO to NSO, nobody really talks to one another. That’s the second major long-term goal of our office: to get everybody on the same page. It is something that my manager and our director always say, if you want to get people working better together, you must give them the tools to do that. That’s kind of our mantra for everything that we’re doing.

I bet from your experience in field hockey, you kind of see how important that is?

Absolutely. My background in a team sport like the one I played is one of the reasons this resonates so much with me. We were able to go to World Cups and the Olympics and were able to be fairly competitive despite the small number of people who play our sport in the country. We always had to work better together to deliver above our means.