Erik Guay was the leader of a Canadian alpine ski team that CBCSports.ca calls the best of 2007. (Sven Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images)
2007 - Year in Review
Team of the Year: Canadian alpine ski team
Alpiners climb to the top of CBCSports.ca's year-end list
Last Updated Wed., Dec. 26, 2007
Jesse Campigotto, CBC Sports
Many scoffed at Alpine Canada CEO Ken Read's bold proclamation during the run-up to the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy, that his team intended to become the top medal winners at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.
Could you blame the skeptics? Following a trio of tantalizing but ultimately agonizing fourth-place finishes in Turin, the roster of uneven veterans and largely unknown youngsters Canada took into the 2006-07 World Cup season didn't exactly seem on the verge of greatness.
But a funny thing happened as 2006 gave way to 2007. The no-names became names.
After Calgary's John Kucera capped '06 by winning last season's Lake Louise super-G for his first career victory, Erik Guay of Mont-Tremblant, Que., landed five podium spots in the opening three months of '07, including his own first win in a February downhill in Germany. Calgary's Jan Hudec scored silver in the world championship downhill in Sweden in March, then tasted World Cup victory for the first time at the Lake Louise downhill in November. Britt Janyk of Whistler, B.C., got her first career win at this December's women's downhill in Aspen, Colo.
The victories by Kucera and Guay helped boost the rapidly maturing Canadian team to a best-ever 14 podium spots in 2006-07 while moving up to fifth in the Nations Cup standings. And Hudec's and Janyk's performances are the finest of a young 2007-08 season that has already seen a Canuck climb the podium on five occasions.
Anyone still laughing at Read's prediction?
CBCSports.ca isn't. For enjoying their best season ever, for sticking it to their critics, and for edging us closer to can't-wait mode for 2010, Canada's alpine ski squad is our team of the year.
Oh, and the best may be yet to come for this group.
Consider what they've done in just the first two months of this season: along with the victories by Janyk and Hudec, Canada has already received additional podium performances from Kelly VanderBeek of Kitchener, Ont., (second in the St. Anton downhill), Emily Brydon of Fernie, B.C., (second in the St. Moritz super-G), and Janyk (third in the Lake Louise downhill).
Toss in the consistently strong runs being laid down by the likes of Guay, Kucera, Francois Bourque of New Richmond, Que., and Vancouver's Manuel Osborne-Paradis and - for perhaps the first time since the 1970s heyday of the Crazy Canucks - the Canadian team can say it's a legitimate threat to reach the podium in any given World Cup race.
"I’m pretty fortunate to be the first [Canadian] to win the downhill at Lake Louise," Hudec told CBCSports.ca after his historic victory. "There’s a bunch of other guys who could have done it that day."
Indeed, with more money than ever pouring into the program thanks to the Own the Podium initiative – a program designed to help the host country lead the medal standings in Vancouver – Canada's alpine skiers are benefiting like never before from top-notch facilities, coaching and training programs.
And with that previously anonymous core of youngsters entering its prime and a still-strong group of veterans led by Genevieve Simard of Val-Morin, Que., and Allison Forsyth of Nanaimo, B.C., (both on the mend from injuries) continuing to do more than just offer helpful tips, it looks like the sky is the limit for Canada's alpine skiers.
Maybe, then, the last word should belong to Read, who refused to back down – or take a back seat - when CBCSports.ca asked him before the season if he'd care to revise his goal for 2010.
"I don't think Canadians expect this country to be aiming for silver in women's or men's hockey. So why should we aim for silver or bronze or fourth in the overall team standings at the Olympics?"
RUNNERS-UP
Saskatchewan Roughriders
With CFL most outstanding player Kerry Joseph directing the offence and defensive back James Johnson supplying the big plays (a Grey Cup-game-record three interceptions), the Green Riders edged the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 23-19 in Toronto to capture Saskatchewan's first championship in 18 years.
Ottawa Senators
Overcoming a sluggish start to the NHL season that had some calling for blood, Ottawa tore through the Eastern Conference playoffs to reach its first Stanley Cup final of the team's modern era. Though they fell to the Ducks in five games, the Senators won over even their toughest critics with a newfound post-season moxie.
Team Glenn Howard
Emerging from the long shadow cast by his older brother Russ, a two-time world champion, Glenn Howard skipped his Coldwater, Ont., rink to its first Brier title, then added the world crown in front of a partisan crowd in Edmonton.
Canadian junior hockey team
Led by the magical scoring touch of Jonathan Toews, Canada once again showed it has the finest crop of under-20 hockey players on the planet, cruising through the world junior tournament unbeaten and beating Russia in the gold-medal game for its third straight title.
Toronto Raptors
In their first full season under GM Bryan Colangelo, Canada's only NBA team featured a roster as multicultural as the country in which it plays. And it was more than a gimmick – with Italian Andrea Bargnani, Spaniard Jose Calderon, and Americans Chris Bosh and T.J. Ford thrilling Toronto's boisterous crowds, the Raptors won their first division title.