For reasons obvious to anyone who picks up a newspaper or peruses the web headlines, Merriam-Webster picked “surreal” as the word of the year for 2016.
In keeping with the theme, Island athletes did well at the Summer Olympics without Ryan Cochrane reaching the podium. The unheralded Victoria Royals came out of nowhere to win the Western Hockey League regular-season crown only to see a millisecond whiplash from near sure victory to almost indescribable defeat in the playoffs. And a true Canadian baseball folk hero from the Island, buoyed by support from across the country, was whisked away on an unlikely magic carpet ride to the 2016 MLB all-star game.
Surreal does not even begin to describe it.
Here are the top-10 Island sports stories of 2016:
1. REVELLING IN RIO: That’s what silver-medallist Victoria rowers Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee did at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games as Brazil, sometimes rather shakily, pulled it off. It was sporting samba time as nearly 50 Island or Island-based athletes participated with bronze medals going to Victoria swimmer Hilary Caldwell, Island-groomed mountain-biker Catharine Pendrel and the Langford-based Canadian women’s rugby sevens team.
2. RIO II: Parksville-Qualicum MLA Michelle Stilwell was a rolling force of nature with two wheelchair track gold medals at the 2016 Rio Paralympics. Silver medals were won by ambulatory track racer Liam Stanley of Victoria, husband-and-wife sailors Jackie Gay and John McRoberts of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, Victoria-based triathlete Stefan Daniel and bronze by the Elk Lake-based mixed coxed four Canadian rowing crew.
3. DEFEAT FROM JAWS OF VICTORY: Does any more need be said than .02 seconds? It is a clocking that will reverberate in the psyche of Victoria Royals fans for years to come. The Royals won the Scotty Munro Trophy as WHL regular-season champions with 50 wins but were denied access to the Western Conference playoff final by a stunning reversal of fortune in the second round against the Kelowna Rockets, with barely a fraction of a second remaining, and which is already ingrained in local sporting lore.
4. GOLDEN OLDIES: You’re never too old to be a swinger. Some of the greatest players to wander the fairways of the world during their prime — Colin Montgomerie, Bernhard Langer and Vijay Singh — came to Bear Mountain in their dotage for a stop on the 2016 Champions Tour. The oldies but goldies proved they still got game. Yet, the Bear’s stubbornly obstinate Mountain Course more than held up against their years of experience and none of the well-seasoned pros was truly able to bring it to its knees.
5. REBEL YELL: With apologies to Billy Idol: In the midnight hour, local fans cried more, more, more. And they got it. The Westshore Rebels were built around an imposingly massive offensive line that ripped open gaping holes for running back Jamel Lyles and his B.C. Football Conference record 1,604 rushing yards. Don’t be surprised to see either the running back or some of the O-line players maybe in the CFL one day. They were certainly good enough at the junior level to get the Rebels their first Cullen Cup B.C. title and Canadian Bowl appearance since 2003, before bowing to the Saskatoon Hilltops dynasty in the national final.
6. THE ISLAND PASTIME: The Victoria HarbourCats added the threepeat to their run of West Coast League baseball attendance crowns. But they added a new wrinkle in 2016 — success on the diamond to match their ongoing success in the Royal Athletic Park stands — with the best record in the WCL at 40-14 and the franchise’s first WCL regular-season pennant.
7. BIG BENN: Jamie Benn continued his progression as a prototype power forward of his generation when the Central Saanich product was named finalist for the 2016 Hart Trophy as National Hockey League MVP along with Sidney Crosby and winner Patrick Kane.
8. BIG MIKE: Michael Saunders struck a chord as a genuine national folk hero. As a Canadian playing on the Blue Jays, and with a solid first half of the season, the Victoria outfielder and DH garnered balloting from across the country to be voted into the 2016 MLB all-star game in San Diego. It was like something out of a Frank Capra movie — Mr. Saunders goes to the midsummer classic.
9. HOMETOWN HOCKEY: Smile. Who does not like being on television. Ron MacLean brought his TV roadshow to the Inner Harbour in 2016. The travelling broadcast troupe liked it so much on the Island they announced later in the year that they will be returning next year, this time to Nanaimo.
10. POWER: The kids are alright. From Belmont in girls’ volleyball and Reynolds in boys’ soccer to Shawnigan Lake in boys’ rugby and SMUS in both soccer and rugby, there was a bumper crop of teams from the Island winning 2016 B.C. high school championships. The future looks bright, and at least in sports, anything but surreal.
