Heart of the matter
For some Olympians, like Dara Howell and Charles Hamelin, sport is a family vocation
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Create AccountFor some Olympians, like Dara Howell and Charles Hamelin, sport is a family vocation
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir rose above politics and scandal to show what it means to be Olympic greats
Para ice hockey (also known as sledge hockey) is a version of ice hockey played by athletes with a lower-extremity disability. Players use a two-bladed sledge, as well as sticks with spikes at one end for propulsion and curved blades at the other end for shooting. Canada is a world power in the game and has won medals at all of the Paralympic Games except 2002 and 2010. In 2016, the International Paralympic Committee decided to rename and rebrand the sport under its jurisdiction. Since November 2016, sledge hockey has been officially known as para ice hockey.
The first FIFA Women’s World Cup to be held in Canada, and only the third in North America, the 2015 tournament was the largest and most watched in Women’s World Cup history.
Our men and women’s stirring victories revealed the value of planning, patience and sheer unbridled talent. This is Canada on a gold-medal tear.
How an astounding finish transformed the world’s perceptions of women’s hockey, lifting it from second-tier status to a phenomenon that will forever enrich Canada’s rich sports mythology.
Brad Jacobs’s rink struggled in Sochi’s early going, but gold was always the plan—the only plan.
Wheelchair basketball is one of the most popular team sports for athletes with disabilities. In 2014, over 2,500 Canadians were active in the sport as athletes, coaches, officials and administrators.
Northern Dancer, racehorse (b at Oshawa, Ont 27 May 1961; d at Chesapeake City, Md 16 Nov 1990).
Hockey is Canada's national winter game and arguably its greatest contribution to world sport, and this prowess undeniably translates to the Olympic arena as well.
The first Olympic Winter Games were held in Chamonix, France, from 25 January to 5 February 1924. Canada sent 12 athletes (11 men, one woman) to the Games, and won the gold medal in ice hockey. The country finished ninth in the overall medal count.
The Lou Marsh Trophy is awarded annually to Canada’s best athlete, as decided by a committee of Canadian sports journalists convened by the Toronto Star. The award is named after Louis Edwin Marsh, a former sports editor with the Toronto Star. It was first awarded in 1936. More recently, there have been calls to rename the award, due to Marsh’s long, documented history of promoting racism and discrimination in his columns. In November 2021, the Toronto Star agreed to assess “whether it is appropriate and fitting to continue to have his name associated with the award.”
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional team in the Canadian Football League (CFL). The franchise dates back to the formation of the Hamilton Football Club (the Tigers) in November 1869. The Tigers and another Hamilton football team, the Wildcats, amalgamated as the Tiger-Cats for the 1950 season and played in the Inter-provincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). The IRFU became the Eastern Conference of the CFL in 1960. Since the early 20th century, the Tigers and Tiger-Cats have been associated with a tough, physical brand of football that reflects the blue-collar roots of Hamilton as an industrial city. The team’s iconic cheer, “Oskie Wee Wee, Oskie Waa Waa, Holy Mackinaw, Tigers… Eat ’em Raw!” is well known throughout Canada and dates back to the early 20th century. The Tiger-Cats have won the Grey Cup 13 times, including five times as the Tigers.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a football team that plays in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the Blue Bombers have alternated between the league’s West Division and East Division. They have been part of the West Division since 2014. Since its founding in 1930, the team has won 12 Grey Cup championships. In 2019, the team won its first Grey Cup since 1990 when it defeated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 33–12. After the 2020 season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Blue Bombers defeated Hamilton in the 2021 Grey Cup by a score of 33–25. It marked the team’s first back-to-back championship since 1962, and the first in the CFL since the Montreal Alouettes in 2010.
The Grey Cup is a trophy produced by Birks Jewellers that has been part of Canadian sports since 1909, when it was donated by Governor General Earl Grey for the Canadian football championship. The original conditions stated that the "cup must remain always under purely amateur conditions," although there is good reason to believe that this was at the urging of P. D. Ross of the Ottawa Journal rather than Lord Grey. The name "Grey Cup" has since been used to refer both to the trophy and the event.
For many Canadians, particularly baby boomers and Generation X, the eight-game hockey series between Team Canada and the national team of the Soviet Union in September 1972 provided the greatest moment in Canada’s sporting history. Most expected that Canada would handily defeat the Soviet Union, but this confidence quickly disappeared when Canada lost the first game. The series was tied heading into the final game in Moscow, which ended in dramatic fashion, with Paul Henderson scoring in the final seconds to give Canada the victory. The series became as much a Cold War political battle of democracy versus communism and freedom versus oppression as it was about hockey. The series had a lasting impact on hockey in Canada and abroad.
Dene games are tests of physical and mental skill that were originally used by the Dene (northern Athabascan peoples) to prepare for the hunting and fishing seasons, and to provide entertainment. Today, Dene games (e.g., Finger Pull and Hand Games) are still played in many schools and community centres in the North as a means of preserving tradition and culture. As competitive sports, Dene games are also featured in various national and international athletic competitions, including the Arctic Winter Games.
The Ladies Ontario Hockey Association (LOHA) was the first governing body for community women’s ice hockey in Canada. It was formed in 1922 and disbanded in 1940. Initially, the league consisted of 18 senior teams from across Ontario, from bigger cities such as Toronto, London and Ottawa, to smaller centres such as Bowmanville, Huntsville and Owen Sound. The creation of the LOHA led to the 1925 founding of the Women’s Amateur Athletic Federation, which absorbed the LOHA when it disbanded.