It appears as though soccer was once again all but ignored in the deliberations to name Canada’s top athlete in 2011.
World Champion figure skater Partick Chan captured the award, with shot putter Dylan Armstrong (World No 1; silver medallist at World Championship), baseball's John Axford (43 consecutive converted save opportunities) and Joey Votto (led the NL in doubles (40), base on balls (110), and on-base percentage (.416)), speedskater Christine Nesbitt (triple gold at World Championship) and show-jumper Eric Lamaze (world No 1) the finalists.
Details of other athletes discussed are unknown, but it’s somewhat surprising that neither MLS MVP Dwayne De Rosario nor, especially, Christine Sinclair were on the final list.
A soccer player has never won the award.
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Was Chan a worthy pick? Sure -- he won the World Championship and broke a world record during the year. Figure skating isn’t everyone’s thing, but it is undoubtedly an athletic endeavour and the sport remains very popular (mostly with your mom’s friends, but still...). All of the athletes on the list are remarkable and suggesting that Sinclair should have been in the discussion is not a knock on their accomplishments.
But, she should have been (DeRo is a harder argument to make due to the quality of MLS. A player in a second tier league has not won the award since 1969 when CFL QB Russ Jackson was named).
Sinclair was the WPS championship game MVP, scored the championship winning goal, had 10 goals in 15 appearances and lead Canada to a gold medal at the Pan Am games. She also had one of the best goals of the Women’s World Cup. Canada’s performance at the World Cup hurt her chances, but it’s telling that her club record seemed to be ignored. Unlike De Rosario and MLS, Sinclair plays in a league that is in the discussion as the best in the world.
So is Sinclair. There are some that think she is one of the top 5 players worldwide. On her best day she might be, but even a conservative estimate of top 25 is impressive. Vastly more women play soccer than speedskate. Yet Nesbitt is a finalist but Sinclair isn’t? Seems a bit inconsistent.
Last year I asked someone at the CSA whether they thought the sport got the short end during these type of things. They felt that it was possible, although they didn’t think winning the overall award was in the cards anytime soon. The Bobbie Rosenfeld Award for top female athlete, however, was a different story. According to this CSA official the organization was gently lobbying for Sinclair to win the 2010 award.
She didn’t, of course. The voters bizarrely went with figure skater Joannie Rochette, who was about the 10th best candidate. In a year that saw multiple Canadian women win gold medals they gave it to a bronze medallist for sentimental reasons (her mother died while she was at the Olympics. A sad story, no doubt, but not one that should have allowed voters to eschew logic when casting their ballots).
The 2011 award will be named sometime before Christmas. Let’s hope that Sinclair is at least in the conversation.