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Sidney Crosby took home a bag full of hardware, Bryan Colangelo went deep to rebuild the Toronto Raptors and Ken Read lifted the alpine ski program to the top of the mountain, or close to it.
Among the movers and shakers of Canadian sport, Crosby, Colangelo and Read exemplified influence, impact and power in 2007.
But the sports figure with the most clout did not shoot a puck, make a trade or run an association.
At the top of The Globe and Mail's list of influential figures is a bronze-plated coin with the image of a loon on one side and a portrait of the Queen on the other.
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The dollar, a pint-sized player that outmuscled its U.S. competitor, is our choice as Canadian sport's most influential player of 2007.
The impact of the loonie, which hit par this year and exceeded the value of the American greenback before falling back, was profound.
For professional clubs, which earn Canadian money but pay out in U.S. salaries, it produced millions in additional revenue. It helped clubs pay off debt. It turned the Southern Ontario market ripe for NHL relocation. And it made the pursuit of a NFL franchise for Toronto even more attractive.
Placing second on the list is Crosby, the Pittsburgh Penguins' star, who, at 19, became the youngest player to win the NHL scoring title. Crosby is the first consideration when U.S. television networks arrange their NHL schedules. And his popularity was the single most important factor for the league's move to increase interconference games, starting next season.
Colangelo quickly rebuilt the Raptors, an NBA team that had failed to qualify for the playoffs for four years. In his first full season as the club president and general manager, the Raptors won the Atlantic Division.
Read's Alpine Canada Alpin program continues to rise in the international standings, moving from 12th place in 2002 to fifth. After the first weekend of downhill racing this season, the men ranked second in the world to the Austrians.
In fifth place on the Globe and Mail list is the NHL's Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the most popular sports league in Canada. He blocked the sale of the Nashville Predators to billionaire businessman Jim Balsillie, winning no friends in Southern Ontario, where Balsillie was planning to move the franchise.
Rounding out the top 10 are: Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment chairman Larry Tanenbaum; the head of CBC Television, Richard Stursberg; NHL veteran Chris Chelios; outgoing Toronto Argonauts president Keith Pelley; and Montreal Canadiens owner George Gillett Jr.
The strengthened dollar touched all aspects of sport in 2007.
It gave baseball's Toronto Blue Jays the cash to increase dramatically its player payroll. It put the two NHL clubs in Alberta on an equal footing with comparably small U.S. franchises.
The NHL's Vancouver Canucks and Montreal Canadiens, after lean years, started making substantial operating profits (the difference between revenue and operating expenses before interest and taxation) in no small part because of the strengthened dollar.
"It's a huge chunk of the reason for our success," Gillett said of the Canadiens, who were losing money when he bought the club in 2001. "We've got to thank the politicians [and their economic policies]."
Thanks also would be due the debt crunch that weakened the U.S. dollar and the booming resource sectors in Canada that strengthened the loonie.
The Canadian dollar was trading at 85 cents against the U.S. dollar in January of this year. By June, it was up to 94 cents. It reached parity in September, and its highest level in November, $1.10. It is currently trading at slightly below par.
Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey says he keeps an eye on three sets of numbers during the baseball season.
"I look at the box scores," he said. "I look at attendance, because attendance affects revenue sharing. And I look at the value of the Canadian dollar, because every time the dollar moves one penny, it's a $700,000 impact on our bottom line.
"I tell people, jokingly, that every time it goes up a penny, I do a victory lap of the Rogers Centre, which is a big lap to do."
In addition to running the Jays, Godfrey is the point man for a Rogers Communications-Tanenbaum alliance that is pursuing an NFL franchise, the cost of which is pegged at somewhere between $700-million and $1-billion (U.S.).
"That's a big nut," a Rogers source said. "We like to say the [strengthened dollar] as it applies to the cost of an NFL team has made Paul do two victory laps around the Centre."
In the 1990s, the falling Canadian dollar almost crushed the Griffiths family, which owned the Canucks and old Vancouver Grizzlies of the NBA.
"There are people like myself who are no longer in the sports business in large part because of the Canadian dollar," said Arthur Griffiths, now a senior vice-president of Octagon, an international sports management firm.
"I used to tell people, you wake up in the morning and the competition on the ice was tough enough, but the financial competition was 40 per cent against us. It was really tough to make the numbers work."
When the Griffiths sold their interest in the Canucks and Grizzlies in 1997, the company was losing between $15-million and $18-million a year, Griffiths said.
Today, because of the bounce back of the dollar as well as good management, the Canucks, minus the departed Grizzlies, who moved to Memphis, have an estimated annual operating profit of between $12-million and $15-million annually — a turnaround over 10 years of about $30-million.
In 2002, when the dollar bottomed out at 61.75 cents (U.S.), the Edmonton Oilers were losing about $2-million a year, club president and chief operating officer Patrick LaForge said.
Free-agent players had fled. To produce extra revenue, the club scrambled to organize money-raisers such as the 2003 Heritage outdoor game.
Today, the Oilers have an annual operating profit of about $10-million, according to estimates. The Oilers, despite playing in a small market, are now designated as a have-team and, as such, pay out in revenue sharing.
The loonie also had an impact on the CFL, which pays salaries in Canadian currency. The league is now more attractive to American players because the dollar is close to par.
But there are also negatives. From the viewpoint of a small-market NHL club, LaForge notes that the enormous financial success enjoyed by the Maple Leafs and Canadiens has raised overall NHL revenue and forced up the salary cap.
Revenue increases for the Leafs and Canadiens from 2005-06 to 2006-07 have been pegged at about $20-million for each club. According to Forbes magazine, the Leafs had an operating profit of $52.7-million (U.S.) in 2006-07 and the Canadiens $25.2-million (U.S.).
What's more, sports tourism in Canada is likely to suffer because of the strong dollar, said Tom Valdiserri, the senior vice-president of sports and entertainment for international firm the Marketing Store. Vacationing north of the border, after all, is not the bargain it once was.
"We used to take a couple of trips a year to Northern Manitoba to fish," he said. "Now, we're reconsidering whether we go to Canada or we go to Minnesota."
Despite speculation the NFL's Buffalo Bills will eventually be sold to a Toronto group, Valdiserri wonders whether the strong Canadian dollar may actually help keep the Bills in Buffalo. It's estimated that 30 to 40 per cent of Bills tickets are now bought by Canadians.
"If Buffalo can draw more fans in from Canada and maybe also corporate dollars for advertising and sponsorships, and even unsold suites, and really create a regionality around it, there may be a reason for them not to move," Valdiserri said.
