McLaren Report cast harsh light on Olympics

CC: The McLaren Report, for me, was the most significant event in this Olympic year — sadly, probably bigger than anything an athlete accomplished in Rio, even Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps — because of the light the Canadian law professor’s investigation and two-part report shone on Russia’s duplicity and corruption, and for what it could mean to the future of the Olympic movement. This isn’t going away. Already cities are declining to bid on Olympic Games because of the outlandish costs of staging them; IOC president Thomas Bach doesn’t also want the public’s wavering faith in Olympism to disintegrate completely on his watch, and so far, he’s been awfully soft on an unrepentant offender.

SS: The McLaren reports of summer and winter provided a rather awkward bookend to the Games themselves. When the carnival that is the Olympics touched down in Rio de Janeiro, there were worries about the water, the traffic, the safety, the organization. All had their issues to varying degrees, but the Games, as they always are, were saved by the athletes: Bolt, Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky and Ryan Lochte. Okay, maybe not that last one. Canada also managed its best-ever haul in a non-boycotted Games with 22 medals, four of them to 16-year-old Penny Oleksiak in the pool. A good time had by all. Just don’t expect the IOC to return to a developing nation anytime soon.

CC: My assignments, as usual (notice how I made this sound like work?), weaved in and around golf ’s major events, and this year’s selection was stunning: Jordan Spieth’s unforeseen Sunday collapse at the Masters, when he looked like he might hit a small bucket into Rae’s Creek in front of No. 12, Dustin Johnson conquering his personal demons and a deplorable USGA ruling to win his first major at the U.S. Open, then one of the greatest final-round duels ever — Henrik Stenson over Phil Mickelson at the Open Championship — and Mickelson’s redemption in September, as the driving force behind the changes that ended up with the U.S. winning the Ryder Cup in front of a raucous and occasionally very rude crowd in Minnesota.

SS: Montreal’s Genie Bouchard once seemed a very safe bet to become the first Canadian to win a tennis major, but then 2015 happened. She improved in 2016, but didn’t come close to the highs of 2014. Meanwhile, Milos Raonic and his thunder-serve made the Wimbledon final, the semis in Melbourne and climbed all the way up to third in the world rankings, a Canadian record. The smart money is on him to win a major before her. Elsewhere in tennis, the Big Four has become more of a Big Two, with age and injury catching up to Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal, and Serena Williams won just one Grand Slam, which means the women’s draw looks wide open again. Angelique Kerber won two majors. Oh, you hadn’t noticed? True story.

CC: Things that made me smile in 2016: 41-year-old Henry Burris winning the Grey Cup and the game’s outstanding player award when the Ottawa Redblacks upset the Calgary Stampeders’ juggernaut … Vancouver race walker Evan Dunfee’s effortless grace in defeat and note-perfect articulation of the Olympic spirit after being bumped by a Japanese competitor 49-plus kilometres into the 50-km race in Rio, and edged for the bronze medal … The sweetly sentimental end of Vin Scully’s 67 mellifluous years of broadcasting the Dodgers … Wayne Gretzky returning from self-imposed exile to the NHL as ambassador for its 100th anniversary season, and as a consulting executive with the team he made famous, the Edmonton Oilers.

Things that made me scowl:

CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge tap-dancing around the league’s concussion issue … foot-dragging by the manufacturers of outsized goaltending equipment … the proliferation of the coach’s challenge, taking the officiating of games out of the hands of the officials and submitting it, Zapruder-film style, to microscopic frame-by-frame analysis. Boring, time-consuming, and hardly foolproof. In short, bah, humbug.

SS: I will save my griping for the World Cup of Hockey, an exhibition that seemed totally unnecessary and which deserved the fate that almost befell it: a victory by Team Europe But Not The Good European Countries. The bright spot, I will admit, was the play of the under-23 North America, which included the NHL’s ridiculous kid class: Connor McDavid, Matthews, Jack Eichel. Add in Patrik Laine, and it’s the greatest influx of talent in recent memory, which is fantastic news for the NHL but for the fact that none of them play in major U.S. markets. The other good news is that there will be no World Cup to moan about in 2017.

CC: Maybe no NHL in the Olympics, either. But that’s a topic for next year’s wrap. Happy New Year, sports.