Fireworks over the Bird's Nest Stadium during the closing ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games. (Canadian Press)

1) The Beijing Olympics

Whether it was the almost superhero accomplishments of American swimmer Michael Phelps or Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, or the stunning backdrop of the Beijing Games themselves, there is no question that the Summer Olympics was our top news story for 2008.

More than six million electronic visitors dropped in at our CBC.ca Olympics site in August to keep track of the medal count, follow the Canadian team and the insider blogs by individual athletes, or to pick up on our special coverage. When you add in those who clicked on the individual stories or stayed on top of the big events with our online video player (2.6 million online viewers), the total would be much higher.

Jamaica's Usain Bolt after taking the 200-metre race. (Associated Press)

From an athletic point of view, Phelps, Bolt and the Chinese gymnasts and divers dominated the Games. But Canadians did well, too: 18 medals, three gold, nine silver and six bronze, the most since 1996 in Atlanta.

But these Games were about much more than international sport. An emerging economic powerhouse, China seized the occasion as an opportunity to dazzle the world with its efficiency, architecture and sheer creative energy, as evidenced in the masterfully choreographed opening and closing ceremonies.

That all this took place against a backdrop of heartache (the devastating earthquake only months before in Sichuan province) and controversy (the plight of Tibet especially) provided more than enough fodder for the world press, including the CBC, which sent back its former China hands — Don Murray, Joe Schlesinger and Raymond St. Pierre — to record their impressions of a changing regime.

• The Beijing Olympic Games

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2) Murder on a Greyhound bus

Few crime stories capture headlines as vigorously and for as long as the one of the young man, 22-year-old Tim McLean, who was viciously attacked and stabbed to death for no apparent reason, perhaps even while sleeping, as he rode the Greyhound bus to his home in Winnipeg on a soft summer night in July. McLean had spent the previous months in Edmonton working at a carnival.

Vince Weiguang Li is shown leaving provincial court in Portage la Prairie, Man., after his first court appearance in August 2008. (Rob Swystun/Portage La Prairie Daily Graphic/Canadian Press)

The story dominated news lineups here and around the world for weeks. How could such a thing happen in peaceable Canada, many asked. Couldn't the other passengers have done more to help? Why don't bus companies have more security on their lines?

Police arrested a 40-year-old immigrant and itinerant worker, Vince Weiguang Li, who had taken a few days off work from his job delivering newspapers in Edmonton because he liked to ride buses, his estranged wife told police. In his first court appearance in August, Li asked the judge to "please kill me." He was sent for psychiatric assessment. His trial, for second degree murder, is scheduled for March.

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3) Madame Jean's decision

If there is any doubt Canadians take their politics seriously, it was dispelled during those seven days that ended Dec. 4, when Governor General Michaëlle Jean agreed to allow Parliament to be prorogued so that Prime Minster Stephen Harper could avoid what appeared to be certain defeat on a confidence vote.

Governor General Michaëlle Jean (CBC)

That one news story alone generated 6,125 comments from agitated readers and represented a fraction of the explosion in reader comments surrounding this issue in particular. For those with long memories, it was like the Charlottetown Accord all over again.

The drama began on Nov. 27 when the newly elected Harper government delivered an economic statement in the House of Commons. Rather than offer the economic stimulus that was expected, however, given the recession that was engulfing the industrialized world, the statement talked about spending cuts, delivering balanced budgets and, unexpectedly, eliminating the party subsidies that were part of the Chretien-era electoral reform.

The statement was viewed as excessively partisan on the part of the well-funded Tories. In response, the three opposition parties made a pact to defeat the minority Conservative government at the first opportunity and replace it with a Liberal-NDP coalition that would be headed by then-Liberal leader Stéphane Dion until May and supported by the Bloc Québécois for at least 18 months.

The move, however, fired up regional rivalries and a degree of partisan brinksmanship that the country hasn't seen for some time. Jean's decision bought a brief reprieve (and a new leader for the Liberals, Michael Ignatieff). But the drama is not over yet. Parliament returns Jan. 27 for a full budget that is expected to have at least a bit more opposition input.

• The delicate role of the Governor General
• Don Newman: the coalition crisis and the lessons learned

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4) Canada votes

Was it only in October that Canadians chose a new government? It seems like so long ago now. Stephen Harper's Conservatives won, by the way, though he failed to secure the majority he must have thought was within his grasp when he provoked the early election, less than two years from the one before.

The reason for missing out: Quebec turned its back on the Conservatives and appeared to view them as Philistines for daring to cut arts funding.

Still, the Conservative seat count went up in every region, particularly the West and Ontario. The final tally (versus 2006): Conservatives 143 (124), Liberals 77 (103), Bloc 49 (51), NDP 37 (29) and two Independents.

• Canada Votes

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5) The hockey anthem

Da-dun-da-duh-duh-didida. Well, you know the tune. It is often called Canada's second national anthem, having trumpeted in Hockey Night in Canada for 40 years. But when contract negotiations broke down in June between the CBC and composer Dolores Claman, the song crossed the rink to CTV (reportedly for between $2.5 and $3 million) while the CBC staged "Canada's Hockey Anthem Challenge" to find a replacement for HNIC.

The online competition attracted 14,871 submissions and about half a million online judges (i.e. you the reader) who picked over the contestants with what seemed like the same enthusiasm that goes into the hockey-pool selections at Stanley Cup time. The winner: Edmonton's Colin Oberst and his tune "Canadian Gold" complete with a bagpipe flourish that, some say, evoked Braveheart.

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President-elect Barack Obama walks on stage to deliver his victory speech at his election night party at Grant Park in Chicago on Tuesday night. (David Guttenfelder/Associated Press)

6) America votes

Barack Obama's historic victory on Nov. 4 was the sixth most viewed individual news item on the CBCNews.ca site in 2008. But that single event doesn't tell the whole story.

From the opening salvo in the presidential primaries — from Hillary's early stumbles and corrections to Obama's problems with his old Chicago pastor, the presidential debates and the phenomenon that was Sarah Palin — Canadians followed the unfolding drama with all the zeal of neighbourhood block parents.

The contributions of our two main Washington watchers alone — correspondents Henry Champ and Neil Macdonald — attracted more than 600,000 online readers throughout the campaign. Our fascination with U.S. politics doesn't quite rival the interest in our own political shenanigans, or in hockey, but it comes awfully close.

• America votes
• The Canadian connection

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7) Economic meltdown

The CBC audience has always been very money-conscious, judging by the regular visitors to our Money and other business sites. But that interest became almost obsessive in late September and early October when the economy went kerflooey.

Taking note, we responded with a special site The Bottom Line that fast became a destination for those needing more information or an hourly fix of stock-market gyrations.

The site came with its own online poll-driven mood meter, which by late December showed Canadians were very worried about their economic prospects.

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8) CNN's holograms

Beam me up, Wolf. Well, maybe not. We didn't quite believe CNN's election night holograms were real and, it appears, neither did you. But when our tech specialist Pete Nowak looked into what the broadcaster had done and found experts to explain the technique, we were surprised at the interest.

As a standalone piece — and an explainer of what had been a late-night, election filler at that — Nowak's report turned out to be one of the most read stories we published in 2008. Perhaps it was a case of wanting to say, "beam me up, someone, the future awaits and I'm tired of paying these huge cellphone bills."

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Brandon Crisp, 15. (Canadian Press)

9) Brandon Crisp

Another tech story, but with an unhappy ending. On Nov. 5, the lifeless body of 15-year-old Brandon Crisp was found by hunters in a farmer's field north of Barrie, Ont. Crisp had been the subject of a widespread search by family, friends and police after running away from home three weeks earlier following a dispute over a video game.

His parents had taken away his game console for the Xbox online game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, fearing that he was addicted. The incident provoked nationwide interest and a renewed debate in the addictive quality of violent video games.

Autopsy results showed Crisp died from injuries to his chest consistent with having fallen from a tree.

• Brandon Crisp funeral

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10) Propane fireball

It went up in the wee hours of the morning with the suddenness of a summer storm, overturning tanker trucks, blowing out neighbourhood windows and puncturing the familiar Toronto skyline with a billowing black cloud that remained for days.

Two people died, including a firefighter and a student who was working as a night watchman, as the Sunrise Propane facility in the Downsview neighbourhood of central Toronto caught fire and ripped the mid-August night with a series of explosions.

The massive fire forced tens of thousands from their homes and shut down many of the city's main arteries. It also provoked a huge round of finger-pointing. as the city blamed the province for allowing these huge gas storage facilities in centre of a huge metropolis, while the province blamed the city for not doing more to police them.

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Teen star Miley Cyrus apologized to her fans for this and other photos from her Vanity Fair shoot (Annie Leibovitz, exclusively for Vanity Fair)

11) Hanna Montana meets Vanity Fair

It was probably to be expected when photographer-diva Annie Leibovitz hooked up with Disney teen sensation Miley Cyrus, star of the Hanna Montana TV series, for a photo spread for Vanity Fair.

The (to Leibovitz) sensitive but (to Cyrus) embarrassing and provocative result was more than the ultra-Christian teen apparently bargained for. (Even though her parents were with her during the entire shoot and Leibovitz had explained to her the dangers of, um, over-exposure.)

In any event, the resulting furor in the U.S. forced Cyrus to deliver a public apology to her mostly prepubescent fans, which gave the story — and the photos of her wrapped in a satin sheet — even more legs.

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12) Your Voice

Though not technically a news story, one of the biggest and largely unreported developments in the online news business this year was the emergence of what we call user-generated content, chiefly your comments on the bottom of news stories and other commentary. Simply put, you overwhelmed us with the volume of what you had to say.

What began as a trickle in the late spring grew to an informed commentary during August and the Olympics and then seemed to double in intensity and volume each month as first the Canadian election and then the coalition controversy took hold.

You have also sent us your videos of tornadoes and other events and your photos, some of which we have used to adorn news stories. No videos of cats riding vacuum cleaners yet. But we live in hope.

• Your Voice