From Raptors in 6 to The Golden Goal: The top 10 Canadian sports moments of the decade

Rudi Schuller

From Raptors in 6 to The Golden Goal: The top 10 Canadian sports moments of the decade image

The end of a decade always brings about a period of reflection, as we look back on the 10 years that was before forging ahead into uncharted territory.

Sports are no different, with countless retrospectives giving us a renewed perspective on some amazing performances from some of the best athletes of our time. In Canada, we were blessed to have witnessed some epic events on home soil — from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver to the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup. Canadians represented the Maple Leaf with great success outside our borders too, while several non-Canadian athletes made an impact on the national psyche while wearing the colours of teams rooted in our soil.

When all's said and done, the decade will be looked upon fondly as one in which certain Canadian athletes and teams finally broke through on some truly global stages, setting the table for even more growth in the years ahead.

SN’s ATHLETES OF THE DECADE
NFL | NBA | MLB | College football | College basketball | Men’s soccer | Women’s soccer | Men’s boxing | Women’s boxing | Men’s MMA | Women’s MMA

Before we roar into the '20s, Sporting News takes a look at the top 10 Canadian sports moments of the 2010s.

10. Bilodeau breaks through

Heading into the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada had hosted two previous Games (1976 in Montreal and 1988 in Calgary) without winning a single gold medal. The issue came to the forefront when Vancouver was awarded the 2010 event, so much so that the "Own The Podium" program was created to ensure that Canadians not only competed at their latest home Games — but also excelled.

Alexandre Bilodeau entered the men's moguls event as one of the favourites to reach the podium, and after a getting through qualification in second place, he threw down a scintillating run in the final to clinch the first-ever Olympic gold medal by a Canadian on home soil.

His legacy already established, Bilodeau was no flash in the pan. Four years after making history in Vancouver, he repeated his feat and won gold again, becoming the first freestyle skier to ever top the podium in the same event in back-to-back Olympics.

9. Henderson's homecoming

Brooke Henderson is no stranger to big moments.

The 22-year-old golfer burst onto the scene at 18 when she became the youngest winner of the Women's PGA Championship. Under normal circumstances, that would be the moment that would make this list, but Henderson did something arguably even more historic two years later.

A massive fan favourite at the 2018 Canadian Women's Open, Henderson charged into the lead ahead of the final round and dramatically held off all challengers on the final day to become the first Canadian woman to win the national championship in 45 years.

Having amassed nine LPGA Tour wins — the most by any Canadian man or woman on the PGA or LPGA Tours, respectively — and seemingly getting better with every tournament, it's a good bet that Henderson puts herself on this list a decade from now.

8. Joey's bat flip

The Toronto Blue Jays are one of the few professional sports teams that are beloved throughout Canada. In the mid-2010s, they were considered a legitimate contender for the World Series.

One of the big reasons for that was the presence of Jose Bautista, the Toronto slugger who was a Blue Jay for a decade starting in 2008. With the Jays growing in prominence during the first half of the decade, "Joey Bats" was the face of a team that featured a vaunted lineup that brought Toronto back to the MLB playoffs in 2015.

It was during the aformentioned postseason that Bautista would hit his most famous home run. After stepping up to the plate in the seventh inning of Game 5 in the ALDS against the Texas Rangers, Bautista delivered a monster three-run go-ahead home run to left field that sent the Rogers Centre into a frenzy.

After briefly admiring his work, Bautista dramatically tossed his bat with his left hand and simultaneously enraptured Jays fans while enraging supporters of the Rangers.

The Blue Jays never got to the World Series in 2015, or the next year when they advanced to the ALCS after defeating Texas in the divisional series for the second-straight season. However, Bautista's bat flip lives on as one of the enduring moments of baseball in the 21st century.

7. De Grasse vs. Bolt

Usain Bolt's reign as the fastest man in history has been so thoroughly unchallenged that everyone else was literally racing for silver every time the Jamaican stepped onto a track. All good things come to an end, though, and Bolt made it known that he'd be hanging up the cleats following the 2016 Rio Olympics.

That meant there could be a possible passing of the torch in Brazil as the new generation of sprinters looked to claim the throne following his exit from the sport. Among the challengers was Canadian Andre De Grasse, an unorthodox sprinter from Toronto who had announced himself on the global stage a year previous with a pair of bronze medals (100m and 4x100m) in the 2015 World Championships and double-gold (100m and 200m) at the 2015 Pan American Games.

No one was beating Bolt in Rio, but De Grasse staked his claim as the rightful successor with two bronze medals (100m and 4x100m) and a silver (200m).

Despite his podium finish in the 100m, it was arguably in the 200m event where De Grasse had his true Olympic moment. A budding "bromance" between the young Canadian and Bolt translated to the track, where they could be seen laughing together after finishing one-two in the semi-final.

Things were a little more serious in the final, with Bolt looking to secure a second-straight "triple-double" of gold sprint medals, but De Grasse did enough to grab silver and share some of the spotlight with the greatest sprinter who has ever lived.

All-Decade Teams: Calgary Flames | Edmonton Oilers | Montreal Canadiens | Ottawa Senators | Toronto Maple Leafs | Vancouver CanucksWinnipeg Jets

6. Penny makes history

Heading into the 2016 Summer Olympics, Penny Oleksiak had already made a name for herself as a multiple medalist at the world junior level. Even with her obvious potential, no one could've imagined what an impact she'd make in Rio as a 16-year-old.

Oleksiak was entered into five different events, and she'd eventually medal in four of them. It started with an unlikely bronze in the 4x100m freestyle, with Oleksiak anchoring Canada's first podium finish in 40 years. She followed that up with a silver in the 100m butterfly and a bronze in the 4x200m freestyle.

But her biggest moment was yet to come. Lining up as one of the favourites to win the 100m freestyle, Oleksiak rode a late surge to finish in a tie with American Simone Manuel. Both women shared the top of the podium after posting an Olympic record time of 52.70, but only Oleksiak claimed the honour of the first athlete born in the 2000s to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event.

In the end, Oleksiak collected four medals in Rio, the most by any Canadian athlete in a single Summer Olympics.

5. Sinclair, the superhero

Sometimes a team needs a transcendent moment to push it into the mainstream. For the Canadian women's national soccer team, that moment came Aug. 6, 2012, when Christine Sinclair placed her squad — and in some ways, the entire sport of soccer in Canada — on her back and delivered a performance for the ages.

Up against the dreaded Americans in the semifinals of the 2012 Olympic tournament, Sinclair and Canada put on a show that captivated the nation. 

Playing at Manchester United's famed home stadium, Old Trafford, Sinclair made the venue's "Theatre of Dreams" nickname a reality as she put on a surreal show. The forward scored a hat trick, with all three markers being go-ahead goals, as Canada battled the U.S. in an epic back-and-forth affair that required extra time to decide.

The Americans would eventually win 4-3 in controversial fashion at the very end of extra time, but with 10 million Canadians watching back home, Sinclair had nearly single-handedly made herself, and her team, household names in their homeland.

4. Raptors in 6

It started with the trade of a franchise icon, and it ended with an improbable championship over the NBA's reigning dynasty. Led by Kawhi Leonard, the Toronto Raptors ignited a nation in 2019 when they took down the feared Golden State Warriors in — appropriately — six games.

The stellar playoff run included a series comeback against the Milwaukee Bucks, a dismantling of a promising Orlando Magic team, and the now-famous buzzer-beating three-point shot by Leonard in Game 7 of the East semifinals against the Philadelphia 76ers.

It all felt like a fairy tale for Raptors fans, and it sparked a celebration in Toronto the scale of which was previously unseen.

3. #SheTheNorth

Bianca Andreescu entered 2019 a virtual unknown. She ended the year as the fifth-ranked women's tennis player in the world.

In between, the Mississauga, Ont., native consistently showed a rare combination of power, determination and smarts to overcome some of the biggest names in the history of the game. Andreescu burst onto the scene by winning at Indian Wells and became a Canadian darling in claiming the Rogers Cup in Toronto, but her biggest moment came when she put the entire world on notice by dominating Serena Williams en route to her first U.S. Open title.

It was nothing less than a meteoric rise for the 19-year-old, with her historic win at Flushing Meadows being the moment that cemented her name as the best tennis player Canada has ever produced.

And she's just getting started.

2. Canada's sweethearts go out on top

Did anyone have as good a decade as Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir?

The Canadian ice dancers — arguably the team of the decade in any sport — stole the hearts of the nation with their sublime, gold-medal winning performance on home ice at the 2010 Winter Olympics, and carried that momentum through a period of dominance that had never before been seen in figure skating.

A month after capturing gold in Vancouver, Virtue and Moir did the same at the world championships in Turin. Another three podium finishes at the worlds preceded the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, where the Canadian duo claimed silver in hugely controversial fashion — a French newspaper later alleged that the gold medal-winning team from the U.S. benefited from vote rigging.

The scandal further solidified Virtue and Moir in the minds of the Canadian public, and they made their exit from competitive ice dance with two more Olympic gold medals in Pyeongchang in 2018 — giving the performance of a lifetime en route to setting the world record score in their discipline.

When all was said and done, Virtue and Moir racked up three gold medals and two silvers across three Olympic games, making them the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history. Oh, and they also won three gold, three silver and one bronze at the world championships.

The 2010s: Crosby named NHL Athlete of the Decade | NHL All-Decade Team

1. The Golden Goal

[Deep breath] 

An overtime winner in Canada's favourite sport by a generational talent in a gold medal final at a home Olympics against its biggest rival?

The choice for top spot was a no-brainer.

Expectations for the men's hockey tournament at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics were sky high, and the ending of the script couldn't have been written better. With 80 percent of the country's population watching, Sidney Crosby flipped the puck through American goaltender Ryan Miller's legs and set the country alight.

Crosby shouting "Iggy" to teammate Jarome Iginla before receiving the puck and slotting it home will forever be ingrained in the memories of a generation.

Rudi Schuller