The Power List: Sports – Macleans.ca

This Olympic-bound basketball star claims the title of Canada’s next Greatest Player
If being on top of the hockey world feels like a Canadian birthright, dominating men’s basketball is another story. Although a Canadian invented the game, Canada has struggled to be relevant within it: one of our only two NBA teams moved to the US, we have yet to win an international basketball championship, and we haven’t risen to a Olympic podium for this sport since then. 1936. We had a brief moment of glory in 2019, when Kawhi Leonard and the Toronto Raptors won the NBA title and sent the city into a frenzy that even the Leafs would be jealous of. But five years later, we’re hungry for the next big thing.

They could be Canada’s next record-breaking Olympic trinity
In Canada, legendary Olympic trios often present themselves as hockey lines: Lemieux-Yzerman-Kariya gave us gold in 2002, and Crosby-Iginla-Staal did the same eight years later. But the next trinity that will bring us Olympic glory will do so in the pool. Penny Oleksiak is the veteran of the three and she is already Canada’s most decorated Olympian at 23 years old. Maggie Mac Neil was Canada’s top swimmer at the 2020 Tokyo Games and is the defending champion in the 100m butterfly. And McIntosh has broken 50 Canadian records, taking fourth place at the last Olympic Games at just 14 years old. The most swimming medals Canada has ever won at an Olympic Games was 10, in 1984. This powerful trinity could surpass that number out of the water.

For revitalizing women’s professional hockey
Jayna Hefford won four Olympic gold medals before retiring from the game in 2015. When the now-defunct Canadian Women’s Hockey League asked her to be its new league commissioner in 2018, she accepted the challenge. It was too late to save that league, which closed shortly after due to lack of funding. But the fallout prompted Hefford to help form the Women’s Professional Hockey League Players Association and advocate for a financially viable alternative. By 2023, it became the Professional Women’s Hockey League: a six-team circuit that has been selling out arenas and setting attendance records for women’s hockey in its first season, pointing the way to a much brighter future.

He’s the new boss of a Canadian sports giant.
After working across the Atlantic for nearly a decade, Keith Pelley left his role as CEO of the European PGA Tour in January to become president of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. The 60-year-old Etobicoke, Ont., native, who has led TSN, the Toronto Argonauts and Rogers Media, feels perfect. His roots in television reporting and his willingness to share pointed opinions with the media also set him apart from previous MLSE CEO Michael Friisdahl, whose departure in 2022 was the biggest headline he generated during his six years at the helm. The charge. A more visible boss will add more pressure for MLSE franchises, including the rebuilding Raptors, a struggling Toronto Football Club and the ever-struggling Leafs, to quickly find their groove and chase new titles.

For creating your own soccer league
Diana Matheson is tantalizingly close to launching her ambitious creation: Project 8, an eight-team professional women’s soccer league in Canada. Matheson, a 40-year-old retired midfielder and Olympic medalist, is the organization’s co-founder and visionary CEO. She’s already secured sponsorship from Air Canada, CIBC, DoorDash and Canadian Tire and enlisted former teammate and soccer legend Christine Sinclair as an advisor. The capture? It needs five more teams to accompany the clubs from Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. Matheson wants the league’s inaugural season to be in 2025, but she needs to generate interest from sports investors willing to spend about $1 million on an initial franchise fee, with up to $10 million needed over the next five years. (Hello, Ryan Reynolds.)

He is restoring Canada’s Olympic hopes
When David Shoemaker became CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee in 2018, he inherited an organization that was barely recovering from a high-profile scandal involving sexual harassment allegations. Six years later, he is leading a righted ship. Canada’s Olympic teams have eclipsed the rare (for us) mark of 20 medals at both Olympic Games since his appointment. And last June, he implored a parliamentary committee to bolster safe sport efforts at the local level across the country, to ensure sport in Canada is free of physical, mental and sexual abuse, after scandals that recently rocked rowing, gymnastics, fencing and hockey. and track. The 2024 Games will be Shoemaker’s third Olympic Games, and perhaps his most exciting, with up-and-coming basketball and tennis teams making Canada more competitive than ever.

He is the great hope of Canadian athletics
In just two Olympic Games, in 2016 and 2020, De Grasse became the most decorated Canadian male athlete in Summer Olympic history. With six medals under his belt, he is even closing in on the medal total accumulated by legendary sprinter Usain Bolt, and Bolt needed three Games to get there, compared to De Grasse’s two. However, in many ways besides speed, De Grasse is the anti-Bolt. He’s eight inches shorter, allergic to showing off, and absolutely beatable: plagued by injuries, he dropped to sixth place at the 2023 World Athletics Championships. But if he can find his world-class form in time for competition, which he usually does, he’ll be the Canada’s best chance to make the sprint podium at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. Keep an eye on him, especially during the 200-meter event, where he’s already taken home a silver and a gold.

For making women’s professional sports worthwhile, really
In 2022, forward Sarah Nurse led Team Canada to Olympic gold in Beijing and set an individual points record in the process. The following year, she joined the executive committee of the Women’s Professional Hockey League Players Association, which that year spawned the Women’s Professional Hockey League. Thanks to a collective bargaining agreement that Nurse helped negotiate with the league’s ownership group, professional female talent is finally being compensated with reasonable salaries of up to $80,000. The league’s roster includes Nurse herself, racking up points in front of sold-out crowds. Expect those numbers to increase over time: Her consistent goal scoring, not to mention co-founding her own league, has made Nurse one of the most recognizable faces in Canadian athletics.

She is building a district to house the future home of the Flames.
The Calgary Flames’ Saddledome, at 40 years old, the oldest NHL arena in a decade, is not long for this world. This year, construction will begin on an $800 million stadium that will be completed in 2027. It’s great news for Flames fans and even bigger news for Calgarians: the stadium will be the economic engine of a cultural and entertainment district surrounding area, led by Kate from CMLC. Thompson. The district will include more than $600 million in city construction projects, including indoor and outdoor public plazas, retail shops and a community rink, and is intended to help revitalize the east side of downtown, known today for its numerous parking lots.

To level up Canadian tennis
Tennis Canada’s new leader is as popular as the CEOs come. Ziv, who immigrated to Canada from South Africa as a child, met his first friends at a small tennis club in Thornhill, Ontario, and eventually became a ball boy at local tournaments. He spent 26 years at Tennis Canada, most recently as tournament director, heading the National Bank Open. In her new role, she’s already on the offensive: leading negotiations alongside the Women’s Tennis Association to secure equal prize money for men and women by 2027, planning to open year-round facilities to more Canadians, and partnering with experts to promote mental health. among Tennis Canada athletes, coaches, parents and staff. All of this activity fuels an organization full of young stars, fresh off Canada’s 2022 Davis Cup victory, who are poised to dominate the Summer Olympics like never before.

This story appears in the May issue of Maclean’s. You can buy the issue. here or subscribe to the magazine here.