It’s hard to know, as an editor, how many words a story is worth in advance. You hope it’s worth writing, then you hope it’s interesting enough to be a narrative. Then you hope it’s compelling enough to go longer while keeping the reader transfixed, and original enough to stand out on a website that’s filled with good stories and an internet that’s even more crowded. We all have too little time and too many things on our to-do list and, if you’re anything like me, an ever-growing list of things we’ve saved for later for which we’ll probably never find the time.
So a good story has to command your attention–and a good Big Read has to keep it long past the time when you’d have usually moved on to the next link, or tweet, or even real-world task. Below, in no particular order, you’ll find the 10 stories that did that best for us at Sportsnet in 2016. A picture is worth 1,000 words, but each of these tales are worth a couple thousand more than that. Enjoy.
Meet the world’s second-fastest man
Usain Bolt still reigns as the fastest human on the planet, but in 2016 we got our first glimpse of his heir apparent–a 21-year-old Toronto kid who didn’t even start running until Grade 12, but has already blown the rest of the country away. Evan Rosser tracked (hah!) Andre De Grasse down at his Phoenix training facility to chronicle his meteoric rise. Read it here.
A saviour comes to town
As soon as the lotto ball dropped, the Toronto Maple Leafs were no longer a punchline. The leadership of Mike Babcock and draft picks like Mitch Marner and William Nylander had already given Toronto’s perennial sad sacks a much brighter future, but it wasn’t until they were assured of landing Auston Matthews–who debuted with a four-goal game, remember?–that it really felt like destiny was finally on Toronto’s side. Ryan Dixon tells the story of the young man in the eye of the storm at the centre of the hockey universe. Read it here.
The hardest choice: Sport or self?
Harrison Browne is the only man playing in the NWHL. He’s also the first openly transgender athlete in pro sports. And now he faces an impossible choice: Keep playing the sport he loves, his dream since he was small, or walk away from it in order to continue down the path to become his true self. Kristina Rutherford tells his story with grace and sensitivity, and Browne is a profile in modern perseverance and dedication. Read it here.
The smallest, brightest star
Canada’s biggest city suddenly has a handful of really good sports teams, and some incandescent talents. Lost amid the Leafs plethora of elite youngsters, the Raptors dynamic duo and the Blue Jays slugger-rich lineup, however, is Sebastian Giovinco. The best soccer player on the continent guided his team to heights its fans could barely dream of reaching, and he did it while being perhaps the least recognized superstar in a city suddenly full of them. Dan Robson sits down with the Atomic Ant to find out…why Toronto, why now, and what does it feel like to live in such big shadows. Read it here.
A day at the racetrack and so much more
Shannon Proudfoot recalls “the first time I can remember seeing one of my parents as vulnerable and human”–it just happened to come on a race track. Every one of us has memories of our parents at their best and worst, and this story is a beautiful exploration of how a young mind then–and an wiser one now–process it. Also, it’s got cars that go really fast. But that’s not the point. It’s a memoir piece from Sportsnet magazine’s road trip package. Read it here.
The Big ‘E’, revisited
He wasn’t the easiest player to like, unless you were a Flyers fan. He was labelled as selfish before he ever got to the NHL. He wasn’t as dominant as the hype made us expect–an impossible task anyway given his ‘Next One’ billing. But he was a rare player and his career should be celebrated, not seen as a disappointment. Gare Joyce gives us a glimpse inside the world of Eric Lindros, and a look at the past from a new perspective. Read it here.
Everything you never knew about Sid
After Lindros, of course, there was Crosby. Another Gretzky successor, another otherworldly start, and another career potentially derailed by head injuries. So far, however, this story has a happier ending. After chronicling Lindros, Joyce digs into the most dominant star of this generation and reveals everything, from A-Z, that you might not have heard about The Kid. Just in time for his return to utter dominance. Read it here.
A goodbye to the King
It’s an obituary for one of the most beloved figures in all of sport, and so naturally it begins with a story about Arnold Palmer farting on the golf course. The man had a million stories, so it’s only fitting Kristina Rutherford lets some of his peers share theirs. Read it here.
Closing one chapter, opening another
When Blue Jays closer Roberto Osuna became a big league star at such a young age, a lot of us were surprised. But we shouldn’t have been. Stephen Brunt goes home with Osuna, back to the small Mexican town where he grew up, to chronicle the origin of a young man who has been ready for more responsibility every time its been handed to him, and to show us just how far he’s come. Read it here.
The night Canada ruled the NBA
Oral histories are all the rage right now–you can find one for just about anything you half-remember. But the ones that work take us inside moments that we all collectively experienced, and show them to you from the perspective of the people who created them. When Vince Carter brought the entire NBA to its knees with perhaps the greatest dunk contest performance in history, we were all watching. Dave Zarum spoke to Air Canada himself, as well as several others who were right there, to find out what, exactly, was going through their minds. Read it here.
