Steve Milton: How Hamilton’s Mike Shoreman went from ‘monster’ to ‘Man of the Year’

It was an award-winner at a prime-time inspirational speaking contest and its central nine words come at you like a spear.

In the mirror - for months - I saw a monster."

Mike Shoreman, who grew up in Hamilton, still lives with the impact of the neurological destruction which triggered it so he will never forget that feeling. But he's learned to use it, rather than it using him.

Same mirror, different reflection.

Now I see me," says the 37-year-old who was named 2020's Man of the Year by SUP Connect, the prestigious magazine and website which covers the sport of stand up paddleboarding.

He is the first person with a mobility problem, the first Canadian and the first LGBTQ person to take the award.

Previous winners include his friend Chris Bertish who soloed all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. But Shoreman won in a year when he could stand on his board for no more than a couple of minutes at a time. But that was a stunning, evocative, triumph.

In the late fall of 2018, Shoreman was stricken by Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a shingles variant, which attacked his ear, paralyzed and collapsed the right side of his face, and dealt him very serious vision, speech, taste and hearing problems.

Shoreman would have to retrain his brain, so he could walk. And - perversely, to a professional stand up paddleboard instructor - he lost his sense of balance.

His life and self-image were shattered but after a long period of lonely negativity he's rebuilt, and re-entered the world of Yes.'

Buoyed by physical toil, by good friends, and most impactfully, by seeking out mental health therapy starting in early 2019, Shoreman has gradually pulled himself back into a satisfying life and into his sport.

Mental health treatment really helped me process the anger and rage," he told The Spectator. That helped turn it into sadness and sadness is much easier to manage. It was kind of about coming to terms with it, part of the healing process.

And eventually that sadness just faded and I became used to the new normal."

He has become friends with fitness guru Tony Horton, who also has Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, and Shoreman's dramatic PADDLES UP" talk at the 2019 Speaker Slam competition in Toronto has led to a blossoming inspirational-speaker career. A lively blend of stand-up, pathos, and evangelistic positive thinking, the speech has gone viral on numerous big-name platforms.

The self-nicknamed Unbalanced Paddleboarder has written a book on his experiences, Crash and Rise," which is selling well at major outlets. Another widely-viewed video - the indoor 400-metre SUP race at last January's Toronto Boat Show in which Shoreman fell many times, finished a distant last and was able to stand for only three minutes at a time - led to several opportunities, including sponsorship from a board manufacturer.

He has also taken on several causes, including youth mental health, as a public spokesperson.

And it's Mike Shoreman - not his crooked smile nor the right eye he still cannot close - who's now in that mirror. So strongly that in November, after an anxiety-filled two-year wait as his facial nerves recovered enough to allow corrective surgery, he opted out of the process.

I've become an advocate for facial palsy, and decided I don't need the surgery; I'm good to live the way I am," he says.

Shoreman lived on the now-famous Arkell Avenue as he attended elementary and high school in Westdale, spent a season on the rowing team, went to Ticat games on weekends, worked at the local Pita Pit and at Captain Jack's in Dundas.

He left Hamilton after high school and eventually built a successful business at Toronto's Cherry Beach, offering SUP rentals and coaching services for recreational and competitive athletes.

But it all crashed in November, 2018. Sudden dizziness, overwhelming headaches and excruciating ear pain, some misdiagnoses which cost him the 72-hour treatment window, hesitancy to even speak, knowing strangers on the street were staring at his sunken face, ensuing deep depression.

You lose your independence, your business, your social life, and you're not coping," he says. It was a very dark period, so I just shut down. I felt very, very alone in it."

He was devastated when he was told he'd never paddleboard again but in April 2019, some friends helped him demonstrate SUP safety at his annual gig for the Canadian Safe Boating Council media day on Toronto's waterfront. Afterward, although he was terrified that his vertigo could pitch him under the water, they coaxed him into sitting on his board for a minute, then two.

As the sun set that day he briefly stood up on his board, and by July he could stay standing for a full minute. That encouraged him to try the race last January.

There's a line at the end of my book, It's your race, and whatever it is just finish it,' and I did finish that race," he says. I think everyone in the arena that day knew the story."

As you might expect from a man whose office" was on a beach, Shoreman dots his writing and talking delivery with outdoor references and metaphors: the healing sun on his face that first day back on the board: the virus striking and submerging him like a tsunami; breezes morphing into more helpful breezes to guide him in a different direction.

He still has vision and hearing issues and there are some down days when fatigue takes over but, Shoreman says with enthusiasm, life is very good.

You get on a roll with the winds and you just keep going with them."

Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com