Canada Sports Power Rankings

Hello and welcome to the Canadian Sports Power Rankings!

The goal here will be to (semi-seriously) rank Canadian athletes - both those born in Canada and occasionally those playing for teams located in Canada - in order of percieved "power" in the Canadian sports landscape. Since we are in the midst of Peak Sports Season (NFL, NHL, NCAAFB and MLB (and CFL, I guess) are all still playing games, NBA and NCAABB are just days away from tip-off) there's no better time to start then now!

Like most sports power rankings columns, this will consist of a completely arbitrary rating not based on any actual standings or statistics. Since we'll be spanning the entire sporting world and not just focusing on one particular league, these rankings will be even MORE arbitrary than any other power ranking you'll have seen before. In fact, the main factors in these rankings will be a combination of popularity, media hype, and on-field/court/ice performance.

So without any more up-front BS, lets start the rankings:

Canada Basketball got screwed by FIBA, Finland, and... Angry Birds?

A re-enactment of  the Rovio-FIBA "sponsorship".

It's a boring Saturday afternoon. I'm sitting here watching Team USA destroy Team Finland on the opening day of the FIBA World Cup, and I'm wondering "how the heck did this Finland team even qualify for this tournament?" Because they are getting absolutely pummeled. 

My next thought was "I wonder what group Canada is in?" 

Well, I must not have been paying much attention in the spring, when the qualifiers were announced, because Canada did not qualify for the tournament. That's right; Canada, Land of the First Overall Picks, did not qualify. Shameful, I thought. We should be watching Wiggins & Co. get pummeled by Team USA, not those blond-haired, blue-shirted Finns! How could this happen?

The Loser of the Wiggins-Love Trade? Canada Basketball

Did Kevin Love and LeBron James hurt our chances of seeing more of this?

The trade that's kept the NBA world buzzing for the past couple weeks seems to have finally been finalized.

Cleveland will trade Canadian youngsters SF Andrew Wiggins and PF Anthony Bennett (who were drafted 1st overall in the previous two drafts) along with a draft pick to Minnesota for All star PF Kevin Love, who will team up with All Star PG Kyrie Irving and some LeBron guy to seemingly create a new "Big Three"for the Cavaliers.

The move has been rumoured for weeks, since James shocked the world and went home to Ohio, and Love started making it pretty clear he wanted out of Minnesota sooner than later. Then in his written-word version of "The Announcement," James' failed to mention new teammates Wiggins and Bennett, and as of last week still hadn't reached out to them. This week the trade was confirmed by the god of NBA reporting, Adrian Wojnarowski, despite the fact League rules say it can't be completed for a few days.

The consensus on the trade is that it's good deal for both sides. Love gets what he wants (out of Minnesota, onto a contender), LeBron gets what he wants (Love), Cleveland gets what it wants (whatever LeBron wants) and Minnesota gets what they want (the highest-upside rookie since Anthony Davis.)