John Lennon asked in song: “And what have you done? Another year over.” Well, quite a lot. Here are the top-10 Island sports moments from 2018:
1. The 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, were a breakthrough triumph for Mount Washington. The Island hill produced ski half-pipe ace Cassie Sharpe of Comox, snowboard slopestyler and big-air performer Spencer O’Brien of Courtenay, ski slopestyler Teal Harle of Campbell River and snowboard cross-racer Carle Brenneman of Comox for the Winter Olympics, capped by Sharpe’s stunning gold-medal victory.
2. The 2018 Winter Olympic experience came full circle in May at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre when all seven members from Canada’s gold medal in the figure-skating team event group hugged at centre ice after skating to Fields of Gold by Sting before a sold-out crowd in Stars on Ice. It was one of the most unforgettable moments ever on Blanshard.
3. Two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash of Victoria, an undersized Canadian who cut against the grain to become perhaps the most unlikely hoops great of all time, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in September.
4. The sigh of relief you heard in Langford was from Rugby Canada. A year of anguish, foreboding and doubt was capped by the Island-based national team earning the 20th and final berth into the 2019 World Cup in Japan through the nerve-wracking final repechage qualifier held in November in Marseille, France.
5. The vibe in the Croatian cultural hall in Gordon Head was so utterly memorable, as it become the place to be in June, during the annual Canadian ethnic tribal dance known as the World Cup of soccer. Their homeland team ultimately lost in the final, but what an emotional ride the Island Croatian community took us all along on.
6. In sticking with the Beautiful Game, it was announced Canada would join the rest of the world by having its own domestic professional soccer league, and that Island-based Pacific FC would be among the charter members to begin play in the Canadian Premier League in 2019 at a revamped Westhills Stadium in Langford. Combined with the announcement Canada will co-host the 2026 World Cup with the U.S. and Mexico, it helped highlight a big year for Canadian soccer.
7. The Commonwealth Games, as they always do, belied the tired and hack arguments regarding their relevance by again providing a useful and colourful halfway measuring stick to the next Summer Olympics. There were 52 Island athletes in the 2018 Commonwealth Games in April at Gold Coast, Australia, and many proved themselves as names to be watched on the road to Tokyo 2020, including basketball player Conor Morgan, cyclists Jay Lamoureux and Haley Smith, triathlete Desirae Ridenour, hammer-thrower Adam Keenan, divers Bryden Hattie and Celina Toth, field-hockey players James Kirkpatrick and Maddie Secco and swimmers Sarah Darcel, Jeremy Bagshaw, Faith Knelson and Jade Hannah.
8. There were no 2018 championships for mainstay teams such as the Royals, Shamrocks, HarbourCats, Highlanders, Rebels or hoops UVic Vikes. The highlights included the HarbourCats retaining their annual position atop the West Coast League attendance table by welcoming 62,599 fans to RAP for a 2,318 per-game average and again providing a vibrant place for NCAA baseball players to spend the summer.
9. The high school sports year included B.C. championships won in rugby by Oak Bay, basketball by Brentwood College and football by Mount Douglas with Belmont just missing the provincial threepeat in girls’ volleyball.
10. In an event that began in 2018 and straddles into 2019, Victoria again landed on the world stage this month as host, along with Vancouver, of the International Ice Hockey Federation world junior championship. Although in progress, the tournament is already being hailed as an organizational success.
