Toronto Sceptres players celebrate defeating the Boston Fleet in a PWHL hockey game on Dec. 27, 2024.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
It was the year when politics overwhelmed everything. Its assault on our senses and sanity was unrelenting, right up to the very end. Isn’t it pathetic that a country with as much power as the United States can’t police its own northern border and has to resort to outrageous economic threats?
But never mind. There was a good news story in 2024, one we might focus on as it is about something that serves as that great getaway from the pall of politics: the year in sport. Women, after more than a century of men dominating the games we play, took centre stage and became a force in sport – which could mark a cultural shift.
Yes, the year saw the revival of the Olympic Games. The gathering in Paris of more than 200 countries – hands joined, borders transcended – was magnificent in many ways. But the cultural story of the year was the explosion in women’s sport: the exponential increases in markets, in ratings, in media exposure; the successful start-up of a women’s NHL; the launch of a Canadian WNBA team and a soon-to-be all-Canadian women’s soccer league; the amazing surge, owing to the phenom Caitlin Clark, in the popularity of women’s basketball.
As a sign of the times, March Madness in the NCAA – that storied college hoops tournament that has been for decades a showcase for men – was overtaken by women in 2024. Incredibly, the final game of the women’s own March tournament got higher TV ratings than the equivalent men’s game.
A movement, not a moment: 2024 was the biggest year for women’s sports
In Canada, Jayna Hefford, an executive with the new Professional Women’s Hockey League, noted that as of 2023, there were no professional women’s sports leagues here. “Hard to believe,” she said. Given that there have been men’s leagues dating back to the 1800s, no kidding.
The past year cracked that dismal stat. And the potential for what’s to come is extraordinary. With women making up half the population, there’s a huge market out there to be tapped. There are countless young women who might have never thought of a career in sport but will now take to it.
When you consider the broader benefits of sports, the talk of the women’s boom marking a cultural shift is not far-fetched.
Many see sports as just a sideshow, a trivial pursuit with no greater meaning, the toy department in the newspapers. What a load of poppycock that is.
You might start with the impact of sport on social justice – how it has served to break down racial and ethnic and political barriers. In the advancement of women, of women’s rights, of gender parity, of respect for talent, sports have played an important role. With women’s sports taking off, that role is about to get much larger.
Meanwhile, patriotism is on the decline in Canada. But is there a greater source for it than sport? How many times would we hear O Canada played, were it not for sporting events? Having more packed venues in which Canadians are brought together to support their athletes can only be a good thing.
Politics polarizes, the east-west divide in Canada being a foremost example. Sports unite us, providing a sense of belonging, of unity. There is no east-west divide in sport.
More athletic triumphs on the women’s side, such as the Olympic soccer gold medal for Canadian women in 2021 or Summer McIntosh reaping all those swimming medals in Paris can only contribute to a feeling of national pride.
In this country, sport is of such significance that hockey is spoken of as our national identity. With women’s hockey taking off with the new professional league, that will be even more the case.
Sport is also loaded up with problems: gender issues, doping scandals, drone scandals, obscene salary levels, head injuries, gambling run amok.
But compare those problems to the vast range of societal benefits we derive from sport. It’s a leading provider of fitness, health and recreation, a prime source of entertainment and competition, and a chief fount of inspiration – the stuff of dreams for youth. It is our great alleviator of boredom, and a major supplier of the aforementioned patriotism, unity and identity.
What other endeavour, it might be asked, spreads more good in more spheres of life?
We are entering an age when technology and artificial intelligence will overwhelm everything. But not sport. Not an afternoon at the ballpark where, as the late great sportswriter Jim Murray put it, time stands still. Not a day at the golf course where, as the broadcaster Jack Whitaker observed, the clamour of the outside world is silenced.
Sports is about so much more than just sports. For what happened in 2024: Bravo!