Choosing top athlete as difficult as ever
The final choice is either applauded or negatively critiqued, with the assumption of many being that the decision should have been obvious.
Take my word for it, figuring out the winner of the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s athlete of the year is almost never obvious.
Indeed, as our Lou Marsh voting committee grows — this year more than three dozen media members were invited to participate in next week’s vote, plus several non-media voters as well — and we strive to include people from all regions of the country and have a better balance between the genders, the different criteria individual voters apply to their preferences is taking this process in new and different directions.
Last year, bobsledder Kaillie Humphries emerged as the winner of the 72nd Lou Marsh Trophy, outdistancing tennis stars Milos Raonic and Eugenie Bouchard, Los Angeles Kings defenceman Drew Doughty and lacrosse star Johnny Powless. The year before that, Calgary Stampeders running back Jon Cornish became the first CFL player since Russ Jackson in 1969 to win. In 2012, Christine Sinclair became the first soccer player of either gender to capture the prestigious trophy.
Quite the variety of winners, wouldn’t you say? So there’s no chance this year will be obvious, believe me.
In fact, with the voting set to take place next Tuesday, and the winner announced later in the day, this is one of those particularly challenging years for a variety of reasons:
A year of not-quite winning: In many year’s past, we’ve rewarded gold medallists, Stanley Cup winners, golfers who won majors, batting champions and various record-setters. This year, the performances have been no less superb in many ways, but fewer of the leading candidates can declare themselves champions in their sport.
2015 was just that kind of year, a year when second and third often seemed like being the best.
A non-Olympic year: Whether it’s the Summer or Winter Games, years in which there are Olympic competitions often provide a useful backdrop and measuring stick for deciding a Lou Marsh Trophy winner.
In 2015, of course, there were no Olympics. We had a Pan Am Games which were a surprising success in Toronto but offered a very different level of competition for the athletes involved compared to the Olympics.
A world championship in track and field was another measure for some, but not all, of those Olympic athletes.
The years in which there isn’t the one big party does add a complication to the usual apples-and-oranges debate.
Split seasons: This is a persistent challenge for our Lou Marsh voting panel, particularly when considering worthy candidates from the NHL and NBA. Andrew Wiggins, for example, became the first Canadian to win NBA rookie-of-the-year honours for the 2014-15 season, and for the first part of the 2015-16 season, he’s become an even more dangerous scorer for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
But how to evaluate a year split between two seasons?
The same applies to some worthy NHL candidates like Chicago captain Jonathan Toews, high-scoring Dallas Stars forward Jamie Benn and Montreal goalie Carey Price, who swept all the major hardware at the NHL awards last June but has been injured for much of this new season.
Next year may be an even greater challenge in this regard, with the 2016 World Cup of Hockey taking place in September.
The youth of top candidates: Wiggins is only 20, as is burgeoning soccer star Kadeisha Buchanan. Kia Nurse, who led Canada to basketball gold at the Pan Ams, is just 19. Sprinter Andre De Grasse is 21 years old.
Their age can’t be held against them, but in all these cases, you get the sense the best may lie ahead for all of these athletes. So do you wait until they’ve expressed their full potential?
The dominance of the Jays: The story of the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays took over most of the headlines from July through October. The team had three Canadian players, catcher Russell Martin, outfielder Michael Saunders and outfielder Dalton Pompey. Saunders was injured all season and Pompey was a part-timer, but Martin was an everyday player and a central figure for the ball club, which elevated him to national prominence.
That said, some criticized his post-
season performance as mediocre.
But should being a major part of the most compelling Canadian sports story of the year count for something?
New sports: With so many sports, Olympic and non-Olympic, having been popularized in recent years, it really becomes a challenge to assess the value of athletes in those sports against those from more established sports. For example, the major women’s rugby sevens competition is only five years old, but some would argue the performances of athletes like Jen Kish and Ghislaine Landry were as impressive as anyone’s in Canada this year.
The rise of parathletes: In 1980, Terry Fox won the Lou Marsh Trophy for his Marathon of Hope, a singular distinction for a singular athletic accomplishment outside the boundaries of competitive sport. In 2008, wheelchair racer Chantal Petitclerc broke another barrier, winning the Lou Marsh for her performances at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing.
This year at the Parapan American Games in Toronto, there were a number of outstanding performances, including those by wheelchair racer Brent Lakatos and power lifter Jackie Barrett.
As we expand our concepts of athleticism and sportsmanship, applying these new parameters to acknowledge a single Canadian athlete becomes harder and more complex every year.
But we’ll give it a try next week anyway. Damien Cox is executive director of the Lou Marsh voting committee. He is a broadcaster with Rogers Sportsnet and a regular contributor to Hockey Night in Canada. He spent nearly 30 years covering a variety of sports for the Star, and his column appears here Saturdays. Follow him @DamoSpin.