Dec 31, 2020
TSN.ca Decade in Review
With 2020 almost upon us, TSN.ca looks back at the top story of each year from 2010 to 2019 based on the No. 1 selection of SportsCentre’s Year in Review show that counts down the top 10 sports stories annually on Christmas Eve. Here is one story from each year that stood out.
Triumph, tragedy and everything in between. This past decade had it all, and then some.
Consider this: After returning to Cleveland, LeBron James delivered the city its first title in 52 years with an incredible comeback in the NBA Finals. Tiger Woods shook off four back surgeries to win The Masters for his first major in 11 years. The Falcons blew a 28-3 lead in the Super Bowl, giving the Patriots yet another Lombardi for the trophy case. The NHL lost nearly half its season in 2012-13 before the Blackhawks rose from the league’s ashes to win their second Cup in four years. Nineteen-year-old Bianca Andreescu captured Canada’s first singles Grand Slam with a triumphant win over Serena Williams in the U.S. Open Final.
Now consider this – none of those were named as the top story of their year by SportsCentre. So, yeah, it’s safe to say a lot happened.
With 2020 almost upon us, TSN.ca looks back at the top story of each year from 2010 to 2019 based on the No. 1 selection of SportsCentre’s Year in Review show that counts down the top 10 sports stories annually on Christmas Eve. Here is one story each year that stood out:
2010: The Golden Goal
If you think about it, Sidney Crosby’s ‘Golden Goal’ was about as close to perfect as it gets. Not just the result, but the setting, too.
Canada’s men’s team was coming off their worst finish ever with a seventh-place result in Turin, Italy, in 2006, but things were drastically different in Vancouver. The only thing standing between Canada and Gold on home soil to close out their most successful Olympics in history? Archrival United States. In the finale, Canada looked like they had things locked up but the U.S. tied the game on a scramble in front of the net with 30 seconds to go, sending things to overtime deadlocked 2-2. The stakes couldn’t have been higher. And the end result couldn’t have been better.
The first 7:40 of overtime solved nothing. What came next will be remembered forever.
Crosby controlled the puck and made his way into the Americans’ zone with a full head of steam. Sensing Gold just past the blueline, Crosby tried to split two U.S. defenders but didn’t get much on his shot attempt that was turned away by goaltender Ryan Miller. As the puck made its way off Miller’s pads and into the corner, Crosby used his momentum to beat the Americans to the puck. He took off up the boards but stopped on a dime, spinning around and feeding Jarome Iginla down low.
As soon as he passed it, Crosby cut to the net. “Iggy!” he yelled, hoping to get the puck back unimpeded in front of the net. He got it all right. And Canada got their Gold.
“Iginla. Crosby. Scores! Sidney Crosby! The Golden Goal!” was the call from Chris Cuthbert as pandemonium ensued across the nation.
Crosby’s goal won Canada their 14th Gold Medal, a mark that still stands as the record for both Summer and Winter Games.
“I didn’t see it go in,” Crosby said. “I just heard everyone else scream.”
Everyone meaning the entire country.
2011: The Riot
The Vancouver Canucks were far and away the best team during the 2010-11 regular season. Their 117 points were tops in the league and their 54 wins were – and still are – a franchise record. Down went the Blackhawks and the Predators in the early rounds. The Sharks fell in five games in the conference final. Then Vancouver jumped out to a 2-0 lead against the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final. It was theirs to win.
Except they didn’t. Boston defeated the juggernaut Canucks 4-0 in Game 7 in Vancouver, leaving the city without its first Cup after coming so close. But that wasn’t the story, not really.
As the third period wore on and a comeback seemed less and less likely, hope turned to anger and that anger quickly got out of control. At around 7:45 p.m. on Wednesday, June 11, viewers at a downtown watch party threw things at giant TV screens. A car was flipped and soon after set on fire. Fights – lots of them – broke out. Arrests were made. A man was taken to hospital after falling off a bridge. More cars were flipped. Windows were broken and stores were looted.
That was just the start. All in all, there were more than 100 vehicles and businesses damaged, about 50 reported assaults and hundreds of charges laid across approximately 300 rioters, according to Global News.
It brought back memories of 1994 where a similar riot broke out after the Canucks fell to the Rangers in the Cup Final. In fact, some even said it was worse.
“It’s absolutely disgraceful and shameful and by no means represents the city of Vancouver,” said then-mayor Gregor Robertson. “We’ve had a great run in the playoffs here, great celebrations, and what’s happened tonight is despicable.”
2012: An Olympics to remember
Let’s start with Canada’s women’s soccer team. Led by Christine Sinclair, Canada found themselves in a thrilling semi-final matchup against the Americans. The Canadians ended up falling 4-3 in extra time in what some consider the greatest women’s match ever played, but it wasn’t without controversy. A number of calls went against Canada including a missed handball and a delay of game that put them in tough against their top-ranked opponents. Sinclair later said the “referee took it away from us.”
But there was still a medal to win. As heavy underdogs against France, Diana Matheson scored with less than a minute to go to give Canada their first medal in program history. It might not have been the colour they wanted, but it was an enormous step.
After an incredible showing at Beijing in 2008, Usain Bolt was every bit as good four years later in London. Bolt took home Gold in both the 100-metre and 200-metre, becoming the first sprinter to do so in consecutive Olympics. He later added his third Gold in London, anchoring Jamaica to a win in the 4x100 men’s final.
“It’s what I came here to do. I’m now a legend,” Bolt said.
He was already, but 2012 only established it further.
And then there was American Michael Phelps, who became the most decorated Olympian in history by earning his 19th medal with Gold in the men’s 4x200 freestyle relay. That win passed then Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina’s previous record of 18, who congratulated the American on the record.
“I could only be happy to see that there is such a talented athlete who was able to break that record,” she said.
2013: Biogenesis
There was the performance-enhancing drug boom in the late-1990s that cast a cloud over the memorable home run race of 1998. There was the BALCO fiasco of the early 2000s and eventual publication of the Mitchell Report in 2007 that cast a cloud over Barry Bonds’ home run records. But by the end of the decade, those clouds were starting to clear.
By 2013, Major League Baseball’s steroid era was long gone. Or so we thought.
In January, the Miami New Times received documents from a disgruntled former employee at an anti-aging clinic in Coral Gables, Fla., that contained the names of several prominent MLBers – including players who have been associated with performance enhancing drugs in the past like Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez.
The owner of the clinic, Anthony Bosch, quickly became the new face of baseball’s latest steroid scandal despite not being certified as a doctor in the U.S.
A few months later, MLB handed suspensions of 50 games or longer to 13 different players, headlined by Rodriguez’s historic 211 game ban that would knock him out for the rest of that season and all of 2014. The Yankees star appealed the penalty and was allowed to finish 2013 but missed all of 2014, effectively ending any chance he had at reaching Bonds’ home run record of 762.
“I believe that over the long haul, the Biogenesis case will cause players to avoid PED use,” current commissioner Rob Manfred told USA Today that year.
“Our game is far cleaner today than it was 20 years ago.”
2014: Donald Sterling
In the midst of their first-round series with the Golden State Warriors in April, the front office of the L.A. Clippers and head coach Doc Rivers became aware of a tape TMZ was about to release featuring owner Donald Sterling.
They didn’t know exactly what was on it. They just knew it was bad. It turned out to be worse than almost anybody could have imagined.
The recording, made by Sterling’s girlfriend V. Stiviano, featured him repeatedly using racist language and it shook the NBA to its core. There was mounting pressure on commissioner Adam Silver to act – less than 90 days on the job as David Stern’s successor – or risk the teams boycotting Game 4. If they boycotted one game, what would happen to the rest of the playoffs?
A Game 4 boycott was eventually avoided with players instead turning their warm-up shirts inside out in protest and placing them in a pile at midcourt. Soon after, Silver acted, too.
With Game 5 just hours away, the commissioner banned Sterling from the NBA for life and fined him $2.5 million, calling Sterling’s language “deeply offensive and hurtful”. A huge step, sure, but there was work left to do since Sterling still owned the team.
After months of legal wrangling, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stepped in and bought the Clippers in August once a California court ruled Sterling’s wife, Shelly, was legally allowed to sell the team out from under him.
“I believed that he has crossed a line that broke the essence of the contract of the moral fiber of this league,” Silver said of the ban. “And I didn’t think it could be repaired.”
2015: The Bat Flip
With a 50-50 record in late July, the Toronto Blue Jays were well on their way to missing the playoffs for the 22nd straight season.
Then Troy Tulowitzki and David Price arrived and the team took off. They went 43-19 the rest of the season and drew the Rangers in the ALDS. The Jays dropped a pair of games to open the series but won the next two in Texas to set up a deciding Game 5 back in T.O.
The game was tied after six innings, but a wild 53-minute seventh changed Blue Jay history and took the city to heights they hadn’t reached in over two decades.
The craziness started as Aaron Sanchez faced Shin-Soo Choo with the go-ahead run on third base. After the count went to 2-2, Russell Martin’s toss back to the mound hit Choo’s outstretched bat and trickled away, allowing Rougned Odor to score. Umpire Dale Scott initially waived off the run but the call was reversed after a lengthy review, giving Texas the lead.
Fans were irate, Toronto needed to answer. And did they ever.
The Jays led off the home half of the seventh by reaching on not one, not two, but three straight Texas errors. In came reliever Sam Dyson, retiring Ben Revere for out No. 1. Next up was Josh Donaldson, who tied the game on a jam-shot single just out of Odor’s reach.
With the home crowd buzzing and the stage as big as possible, up stepped Jose Bautista. By now we all know the story.
“The 1-1 from Dyson. Bautista with a drive. Deep left field. No doubt about it!” screamed FOX’s Kenny Albert.
Up and away went the ball – and Bautista’s bat.
The Jays fell in the ALCS that season and the year after before reverting to old ways in 2017. While the Jays’ most recent run was less prolonged than their successes from the mid-1980s and early 1990s, the ‘Bat Flip’ remains one of the most iconic moments in team history.
2016: Breaking the Curse
It all started because of a goat.
In 1945, Chicago tavern owner William Sianis was stopped before Game 4 of the World Series and not allowed to enter Wrigley Field because of his pet goat. He didn’t take it well and vowed the Cubs would never win a title again.
Well, for more than 70 years – 108 in total – he was right.
Breaking curses often involves magic. The Cubs’ 2016 World Series title took loads of it. Trailing 3-1 to the Cleveland Indians in the series, the Cubs won Games 5 and 6 to set up one of the most memorable finales in baseball history.
Chicago led 6-3 in the eighth inning but Cleveland got to fireballer Aroldis Chapman when Rajai Davis tied the game with a near-impossible homer. A scoreless ninth gave way to extra-innings and a bizarre 17-minute rain delay added even more tension.
After getting two in the top of the 10th and the Indians down to their last out, Kris Bryant picked up a Michael Martinez grounder and threw a strike to first base.
From the curse in 1945 to Steve Bartman in 2003, the Cubs had been through the ringer. In 2016, they were on top of the world. Finally.
2017: A Fight for Justice
It all started in August of 2016 when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat on the bench during a pre-game national anthem.
“I am not going to stand to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of colour,” he said when questioned afterward.
Kaepernick continued to protest the following week but instead kneeled after speaking with U.S. Army veteran Nate Boyer. Teammate Eric Reid knelt alongside Kaepernick for the anthem and has since become synonymous with Kaepernick’s movement.
Later that season, he would play his last game as a 49er and quite possibly his last ever. A free agent that summer, Kaepernick was not signed despite throwing 16 touchdowns compared to only four interceptions. Not being on a roster meant he couldn’t protest during the anthem but other players like Marshawn Lynch and Michael Bennett did.
In October, Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL alleging collusion by owners not signing him and keeping him out of the league.
Many criticized Kaepernick, including U.S. President Donald Trump. Vice-President Mike Pence left an Indianapolis Colts game after observing Colts players protesting.
“I have the utmost respect for the military, for the anthem, for the flag,” said Reid in late 2017. “So I will say that every time y’all interview me. This is about systemic oppression that has been rampant in this country for decades on top of decades.”
As of today, Kaepernick has yet to be signed by an NFL team.
2018: Tragedy
It was a routine bus ride through rural Saskatchewan as the SJHL’s Humboldt Broncos travelled to Nipawin for Game 5 of their playoff series against the Nipawin Hawks.
Then tragedy struck.
In the early evening of April 6, a westbound semi-trailer ran a stop sign and collided with the Broncos’ bus at an intersection, killing 16 and injuring 13. Gone way too soon were 10 players, two coaches, the Broncos’ athletic therapist, statistician, broadcaster and bus driver. The hockey world – and most of Canada – came to a standstill.
Earlier this year, the truck driver, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, pleaded guilty to 16 counts of dangerous driving causing death and 13 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm. It was later determined Sidhu failed to see five different signs warning him of the intersection, including a large stop sign with a flashing light.
The crash was as awful as can be, but the response was anything but. With an outpouring of support, the Broncos rebuilt themselves the following season to make the playoffs after posting 74 points in 58 games. Two players, Brayden Camrud and Derek Patter, returned to the team and it was the bond they shared that helped get them through the season.
“We sit directly across from each other in the room and sometimes for me, it was just looking up and looking at him and just knowing that he was there for me,” Camrud told CTV News earlier this year.
“You’re living your life to represent 29 people and 29 families,” Patter said. “I think that’s how I want to live the rest of my life.”
Read more about the aftermath of the Humboldt tragedy from TSN’s Frank Seravalli here.
2019: We the Champs
Change had to come.
Despite years of record-setting campaigns, Toronto could never get past LeBron James as his Cavaliers ended the Raptors’ season every year from 2016 to 2018.
Change came all right.
Trading away franchise cornerstone DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard in his walk-year gave the Raptors a clear objective – the Larry O’Brien Trophy. A solid regular season and first-round gentleman’s sweep over the Orlando Magic had fans believing. But it was all in danger of falling apart as Toronto battled the Philadelphia 76ers in Round 2, finding themselves tied in the dying seconds of Game 7.
Leonard took matters into his own hands.
The Shot may not have won the Raptors the championship by itself, but it was the highlight of Toronto’s magical run to immortality. Down went MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks in the next round. Down went the dynasty of the Golden State Warriors in the Finals and up went the banner at Scotiabank Arena.
“It’s amazing. Everybody’s out. Look at it, it’s crazy,” Leonard said at the parade.
More than one million people lined the streets of downtown Toronto for a celebration that lasted hours longer than expected. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was there. Part of the city’s transit system shut down. Plant guy finally got to give Kawhi his housewarming gift. Marc Gasol had some, uh, fun. Neither Toronto, nor Canada as a whole, was shy about celebrating.
“Thanks all of Toronto, the city, the country. It was a great, amazing season,” Kawhi said.
Truly, it was.