Last week I started my top-10 list for sports happenings over my lifetime, or about the last 50-years, with an eye to the good news ones, since we have enough negativity these days without remembering the 13th man debacle.
So this week, I’ll finish up the list, starting at #5 which goes to Canada winning the gold medals in men’s hockey at the 2010 Olympics held on home soil in Vancouver. Sydney Crosby scored the game-winner on a feed from one of my favourite players at the time; Jerome Iginla. The winner was an overtime effort to defeat the rival Americans 3-2. I can imagine with the younger reader this might well top their personal list, but there are better things when I look at five decades of sports.
At #4 are the Saskatchewan Rush and their first National Lacrosse League Championship after their move to the province.
The team moved from Edmonton in 2016, and were thought to be on a likely one-season layover, as no one knew how professional lacrosse would be accepted in Saskatoon. Well the team went on to win the championship that year, and fans fell in love with the team and sport.
As a box lacrosse fan I was an easy convert, and being in the stands as Jeff Cornwall scored the gam-winner was huge.
The Toronto Blue Jays take the #3 spot with their first World Series win.
In 1992, the Blue Jays won their first American League championship, defeating the Oakland A’s. They then became the first team based outside the United States to capture the World Series, defeating the Atlanta Braves in a memorable six-game series.
Dave Winfield drove in the winning runs in the 11th inning of the sixth game. Catcher Pat Borders won the series MVP award.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders settle in at #2 with their Grey Cup win in 1989.
With just 44 seconds left on the game clock, Riders QB Kent Austin completed three passes for 48 yards to position the ‘Riders for the most famous field goal in the team’s history. At Hamilton’s 26-yard line with nine seconds remaining in the game, after Hamilton coach Al Bruno called a time-out in an attempt to break the concentration of kicker Dave Ridgway. It didn’t work. Glen Suitor put down the snap from Bob Poley, and Ridgway drilled what has become known in this province simply as the ‘The Kick’ through the uprights to give Saskatchewan its first Grey Cup championship in 23 years. The final score was 43-40.
For a #1 story I had to pause for about 0.1 of a nanosecond before settling on Paul Henderson’s goal in Game #8 of the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series.
The entire series was ground-breaking, bringing the then top-two hockey countries together to see which was really the best. Canada was supposed to cakewalk the series, but the Russians proved far better than anyone in this country had believed before the drop of the puck.
In fact, it looked like Russia might win the series until the iconic Henderson goal. At the time virtually the entire country was glued to a TV watching the final game of the series. I was in class at the Centennial Junior High School in Tisdale, taking shop, although we were all glued to the TV that class.
It is ‘the goal’ of a lifetime; an indelible moment that brought Canada together as few moments ever have.
I have been fortunate to meet Henderson, a rather average NHL player who grasped the moment to become a hero to a hockey nation, creating the greatest sports memory.
And there you have it, the top-five stories.
Now to start thinking about what to share next week.
