I published my first sports roundup a year ago when COVID-19 was heavily impacting teams, athletes, and venues. Now, many leagues are trying to operate as they did in 2019 with some adjustments. Vaccine mandates for athletes have sparked controversy across every sport and have been the focus of many interviews with individual athletes. Meanwhile, the WNBA boasts a 99% vaccination rate across the entire league, proving once again that they are at a level above the rest. If you are interested in reading up on the reasoning behind and the fallout from this, Sports Illustrated did a really interesting article about it that you can read here. Next up: how will Canadian teams and players, who are held to a stricter standard at home, fare when playing in the U.S.? And the opposite for American athletes in Canada? But to start, consider that most leagues are back to their regularly scheduled seasons which is a far cry from how things were going back in April. But COVID-19 aside, let’s take a look at sports mid-October across North America.
WNBA: postseason
This year’s Finals will feature the Chicago Sky versus the Phoenix Mercury. While the Sky dominated in their semi-finals matchup against the Connecticut Sun, Phoenix had to battle the Las Vegas Aces right down to Game 5. The intensity was off the charts this entire postseason, with superstar Sue Bird and her team the Seattle Storm being eliminated early on and fans having to hear the unfortunate news that Bird might not return to the court next season. The other legend you know and love, Diana Taurasi, helped lead Phoenix to the Finals, but can they take it all the way? Candace Parker and Kahleah Copper of the Sky will certainly give Taurasi a run for her money, already taking a 1-0 lead in the series.
MLB: postseason
With the Wild Card games completed, baseball’s postseason is now officially in progress. Next up, the best-of-five League Division series (one for the American and one for the National league), deciding who continues to the League Championship and eventually, the World Series. Having the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees for the American Wild Card is so rich and savory for fans of their historic rivalry. Other fans will appreciate the Cinderella story if the Milwaukee Brewers go all the way this year, for the very first time. Meanwhile, other fans are still wary of the Houston Astros after their cheating scandal last year.
NBA: preseason
You can catch your favorite teams duking it out in a series of preseason games from now until October 19th. Throughout this season, which as I mentioned above is finally back to how it was scheduled back in 2019, the NBA will be celebrating its 75th birthday with special promotions and a diamond-shaped logo. Diamonds aren’t just a girl’s best friend, after all. Back this year is the Toronto Raptors getting the chance to play for the home crowd now that COVID-19 vaccines are widely available and travel between Canada and the United States has changed for vaccinated persons. New this year are the draftees, especially top picks Cade Cunningham, reporting to the Detroit Pistons, Jalen Green to the Houston Rockets, and Evan Mobley to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
NHL: preseason
Men’s hockey has also returned to a regularly scheduled season and regularly scheduled rivalries and divisions. Fans had differing opinions on whether they liked the changed division alignments last year or not, with many saying it changed the difficulty of some divisions more than others. Most everyone can agree though that the important thing is that hockey has returned. With a few major retirements over the summer, teams are looking ahead to opening night on October 12th. The biggest change this year comes in the form of a brand new team. The Seattle Kraken held their expansion draft in July of 2021, plucking one player from each established team (minus the second-youngest baby of the league, the Las Vegas Golden Knights) to form their roster. They also participated in the Entry Draft along with everyone else, having earned a higher pick in their first year of operation. Owen Power went first to the Buffalo Sabres, followed by Matty Beniers to the aforementioned Kraken, and Mason McTavish to the Anaheim Ducks.
PWHPA, NWHL, PHF?: who is women’s hockey?
The PWHPA is preparing for the next iteration of the Dream Gap Tour, although many of their players will be centralized for the upcoming Winter Olympics, so that tournament is still to be announced. The NWHL announced in early September that they have renamed their league to Premier Hockey Federation (or “PHF”). The change eliminates the word “women’s” from the original name and acknowledges that men’s leagues don’t identify themselves by using the players’ gender, so why should the women’s league? Their season is just getting underway with preseason games from right now until the regular-season opener on November 19th.
NWSL: what goes on here?
Content warning in this section for brief mentions of sexual harassment and abuse (more explicitly explained in the linked articles).
If it didn’t pop up on your trending page, women’s soccer is also having an identity crisis, but maybe a better word would be a reckoning. On September 30th, an article written by Meg Linehan with Katie Strang was posted by the popular sports news outlet The Athletic, covering years of abuse by (now former) NWSL coach Paul Riley against two of his former players, Sinead and Mana, that were willing to come forward. In their allegations, they anonymously identify other women who were subjected to his abuse over the years, and they know that there are more who haven’t spoken out. This shocking and disturbing story is unfortunately not news, as the women had reported their nightmare back in 2015. The league simply closed their investigation at that time, and Riley was moved to another coaching position. It is also only the latest abusive-coach scandal to make waves in the league, but will it finally make a change? While play was temporarily suspended, the league has resumed games around the country, albeit without coach Riley or the commissioner, Lisa Baird, who was also fired, on top of other recent coaching changes per other allegations of abuse. Legendary players have voiced their support of the victims and there is hope for change. Another change coming up is the retirement of one of those legends, Carli Lloyd, who is retiring at the end of this season. Hope for positive change is on the horizon.
MLS: regular season
The soccer schedule was, unfortunately, one of the few adversely affected by COVID-19 this year, pushed back from late February to mid-April with the MLS Cup Playoffs scheduled for mid-November. We are nearly there! Columbus Crew FC is the defending champion with the Philadelphia Union defending the Supporter’s Shield and this year we finally get to meet the new kid on the block: Austin FC (Matthew McConaughey, anyone?). In other good news: the three Canadian teams were allowed to return to their home turf in the summer following the accessibility of vaccines. With Seattle and New England at the top of their respective conferences, we will be watching the thrilling conclusion of this season over the next few weeks.
PS. The U.S. men’s national team is in the middle of their final set of World Cup Qualifiers. Mexico is leading the points, but Canada and Panama are tied with us at five each. Good luck, gentlemen!
NFL: regular season
Sunday marked week five in football with matchups all across the country. Or should I say world? The Atlanta Falcons played the New York Jets in London, England at Tottenham Hotspur Football Stadium. Fans tuned in from a few timezones away but if we know sports fans, no one complained (too much). In case you missed the draft in April, the first three picks were all quarterbacks, marking the third time this has happened (including 1971 and 1999). Talk about the power of threes. The order was: Trevor Lawrence (Clemson) to the Jacksonville Jaguars, Zach Wilson (BYU) to the New York Jets, and Trey Lance (North Dakota State) to the San Francisco 49ers. Finally, this year the league expanded the regular season by one week, eliminating one preseason game, ensuring that the Super Bowl will still be played in Los Angeles on February 13th, 2022 (and how about that Super Bowl halftime announcement?).
QUICK HITS: RACING
This month has seen historic moments by two Black men and their legendary careers in NASCAR and Formula 1. If you didn’t already know, the two leagues are substantially different from one another, although at the end of the day, they are both driving super-fast cars. Bubba Wallace clinched his first win in a NASCAR Cup Series race, the first Black man since 1963 to do so. Lewis Hamilton crossed the finish line in first place for the 100th time, making him the only F1 driver to ever reach this milestone. Impressive feats of speed around the world.
As noted in April, more availability of vaccines and acknowledgment of their efficacy has increased attendance at live sporting events and hopefully, the industries that make it happen (from catering to travel to security to hospitality) will be able to recover, too