Explore every episode of the podcast Blitz and Bloom

John Bowman built a career on consistency in a league that rarely offers it.

Fourteen seasons.
All with Montreal.
Over 130 sacks.
Two Grey Cups.
A Canadian Football Hall of Fame career.

But this conversation goes beyond production.

From a small school at Wingate to becoming one of the most dominant defensive players in CFL history, Bowman shares what it actually takes to last — not just physically, but mentally.

We talk about the evolution of a player, the shift from playing with something to prove to playing for something bigger, and what happens when the role you’ve known for over a decade suddenly changes.

This episode is about identity, leadership, and learning how to adapt when the game demands something new from you.

Episode 6 of Blitz & Bloom features Vernon Adams Jr. — traded, benched, replaced, doubted, and still standing.

But this isn’t about touchdowns.

It’s about composure.

What it takes to keep showing up when the job isn’t secure.
What confidence looks like when it’s lost — and rebuilt.
What leadership sounds like when it’s honest.

We talk Montreal, BC, and Calgary.
We talk being “the rental.”
We talk six interceptions and staying in the game.
We talk integrity, self-preservation, and next play.

This episode is about resilience — not how loud you are when you win, but who you are when everything shifts.

Football is the stage.
Growth is the story.

Episode 5 of Blitz & Bloom features TJ Lee III — 12 seasons with the CFL's BC Lions, two torn Achilles, released and re-signed, and still steady.

But this isn’t about stats.

It’s about identity.

What gets erased when someone is reduced to “football player.”
What leadership looks like when it’s rooted in vulnerability.
What it means to separate performance from peace.

We talk injuries and aging in the CFL.
We talk money and longevity.
We talk locker rooms, blind spots, and fatherhood.
We talk about refusing to be your own opposition.

This episode is about legacy — not how you played, but what you stood for.

Football is what he does.
It’s not who he is.

After the breakthrough.
After the building.
After the firsts.

Episode 4 of Blitz and Bloom is about what happens when momentum collides with reality.

Tanya steps into the CFL as the league’s first full-time female coach — navigating respect, isolation, and the invisible rules of professional football. She walks through learning the league from the inside, finding her edge at the Combine, and choosing growth over comfort.

But progress isn’t linear.

As seasons end, contracts expire, and history quietly disappears, Tanya is forced to confront a deeper question:
Is success about being chosen — or choosing for yourself?

This is the episode about pressure.
About loss.
About stepping back without shrinking.

And about deciding where you belong when the door doesn’t stay open.

Before the system.
Before the shutdown.
Before everything changed again.

Episode 3 of Blitz and Bloom is about creation.

This is the chapter where football stops being personal and starts becoming purposeful.

Tanya picks up where momentum was building — stepping into leadership, formalizing her work with the CDMFA, and helping launch Alberta’s first girls’ tackle football pathway. What started with 18 girls on a field grew into multiple teams, national competition, and a pipeline from girls football to women’s leagues and Team Canada.

She walks through what it actually takes to build opportunity: structure, buy-in, logistics, and people willing to show up before there’s proof it will work.

And then — just as the system begins to connect — everything goes dark.

Seasons are cancelled. Pathways disappear. The work moves behind the scenes.

This is the episode about building something real.
About scale.
About momentum.
And about the quiet moment when success creates pressure — and something has to give.

The chapter before the exit.

Before the confidence felt solid.
Before coaching became the calling.
Before building anything bigger than herself.

Episode Two of Blitz and Bloom begins at the end of 2015 — when football stopped being something new and started demanding more.

In this episode, Tanya Henderson moves from local competition with the Edmonton Storm into provincial and national football, wearing the same jersey as former opponents, earning a spot at Team Canada tryouts, and learning what happens when your identity gets disrupted at the highest level.

She walks through being switched positions without warning, navigating overwhelm on the world stage, stepping into coaching before feeling ready, and sitting across from a man who tried to convince her she didn’t belong in the sport at all.

This is the phase where things accelerate.
Where adaptability matters more than talent.
Where leadership starts showing up before permission is given.

And it’s where a single sentence plants the seed for something much bigger —
the beginning of girls’ tackle football in Alberta.

The breakthrough isn’t loud.
It’s cumulative.
And once it happens, there’s no going back.

Before the CFL.
Before Team Canada.
Before any of the titles.

Episode 1 of Blitz and Bloom starts on a farm in Forestburg, Alberta — a town of 800 people, limited programs, and no obvious path forward.

In this episode, Tanya Henderson shares the early years that shaped her: growing up rural, learning work ethic before having language for it, falling in love with basketball, and running headfirst into the unspoken rules placed on confident girls in sport.

She walks through losing the game she thought would be her way out, discovering football with no experience and no expectations, and learning — through beat-up fields, frozen practices, and under-resourced teams — what commitment actually looks like.

This is the phase of saying yes to everything.
Of being humbled.
Of starting to think beyond personal performance and toward building something bigger.

The quiet work.
The early losses.
The moment before everything accelerates.

Episode 0 opens with the question Tanya Henderson has been asked — and asked herself — more than any other: “What business do you have talking about football?”

Tanya shares how football became her career, the lessons learned across every level of the game, and what Blitz and Bloom is really about: growing the CFL, expanding opportunity for women in football, and exploring the deeper conversations around leadership, identity, reinvention, and growth.

This episode sets the foundation for the story — and the conversations — to come.