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Greatness in the blood

Sam Reinhart takes top spot in North Shore sports countdown 2014

In the final installment of our North Shore sports year in review we narrow the field down to focus on the top three stories of the year, as chosen by the wise and humble North Shore News sports editorial board.

We've also thrown in a bonus selection for an athlete who didn't earn any major victories in 2014 but took home the coveted "Ignored a Super Gross Injury" trophy.

More on that later. First we start at the top with our No. 1 story: the rise of the youngest — and, dare we predict, best? — member of the famous hockey playing Reinhart family from West Vancouver.

1. Sam I am

Perhaps the wildest thing about Sam Reinhart's year is that we still don't know how it will end. The West Vancouver hockey player will suit up tonight, New Year's Eve, in what is becoming a beloved national tradition: Canada vs. the United States at the World Junior Championships. A few days later the tournament will wrap up with the championship final at Toronto's Air Canada Centre. Helping Canada break their golden drought — they haven't won the tournament since 2009 — would be a nifty little bow on top of what has already been a spectacular 2014 for Reinhart.

It all started in the same tournament 12 months ago. Reinhart suited up for Team Canada but the squad finished fourth, failing to live up to the golden expectations that always tag along with Canadian kids playing at the World Juniors.

Things got better for Reinhart though. After the World Juniors he returned to his post as captain of the WHL's Kootenay Ice and went back to shredding the league, finishing the season with 36 goals, 69 assists and 105 points in just 60 games. At the league's award ceremony in May he was named Player of the Year as well as Most Sportsmanlike Player.

"Being named Player of the Year is a huge honour and a direct reflection of my team, my teammates and the opportunity I was given," Reinhart said after accepting his awards. "With the sportsmanlike award, I've always taken pride in playing the right way and being smart. I always felt you can get a couple of more shifts in a game if you're not in the penalty box."

The party continued a couple of months later when Reinhart was taken second overall by the Buffalo Sabers in the NHL entry draft. Following the draft he said he'd been waiting for that moment all his life.

"I've envisioned myself in this position, coming in here at this point in time," Reinhart said. "I know I have a lot of work ahead, and I know I'm going to continue to work."

The dream turned into reality when Reinhart made his NHL debut — at the tender age of 18 — in Buffalo's season opener Oct. 9 against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The dream didn't last forever — Reinhart played only nine games, picking up one assist, before being sent back to junior — but an elite career seems well on its way. Back in Kootenay this season he's again lighting up the WHL, having scored 27 points in just 15 games.

This month he made his second World Juniors team and was named an assistant captain. As of Sunday he'd already picked up three assists in a pair of Team Canada wins.

It's been a great year indeed. But what may be the most unique part of the story is the bloodline that he's following. Father Paul played 11 standout seasons in the NHL with Calgary and Vancouver. Older brothers Max and Griffin both have also already tasted NHL action early in their pro careers.

But Sam might be the best of all of them. At least he already has draft position bragging rights — he nipped Griffin by two spots. However it all shakes out, the Reinharts have already made their mark on the hockey world, and Sam has definitely stamped himself all over 2014.

2. Capilano's World Cup rugby trio

"I think we can win the World Cup," Carson Graham grad and Capilano Rugby Club member Hilary Leith told the North Shore News before she and her Capilano teammates Andrea Burk and Mandy Marchak set out with the rest of Team Canada for the Women's Rugby World Cup in August. At the time it sounded like a standard, and wildly optimistic, pre-tournament boast, but one month later the Canadian women were playing in the championship final at Stade Jean Bouin in Paris with the World Cup trophy on the line.

To get to the final the Canadians conjured up one of the most electrifying rugby plays you'll ever see, a play that had North Shore fingerprints all over it. Leading their semifinal against France 11-6 early in the second half, the Canadians were in a tight spot, facing a French scrum in the shadow of their own goalposts. The Canadian front eight, including Leith at tighthead prop, blasted back their French counterparts on contact, stealing the scrum in decisive fashion.

Canada's Elissa Alarie scooped up the ball and scooted to her right before dishing off to Burk, also a Carson Graham grad, who deftly passed again in one swift motion to a charging Marchak. Marchak caught the pass and ran straight at a tackler, drawing her to the inside before shooting a pass outside to Magali Harvery who then lit a trail of fire on an amazing 80-metre run, juking a tackler with a wicked head fake at midfield before sprinting the rest of the field and diving into the corner for an incredible try.

Harvey topped it all off by kicking the convert from an extremely tight angle to give the Canadians an 18-6 lead. The team would hold on to win 18-16, becoming the first Canadian national team to ever make a Rugby World Cup final.

Back home, rugby fans from Capilano, Carson Graham and all across Canada could hardly believe it.

"I've been involved in rugby now for 20 years and it's one of the best tries I've ever seen, men or women," said longtime Carson Graham coach Brad Baker. A few days later some 140 rugby fans packed into Capilano's clubhouse on an early Sunday morning to watch three of their own go for World Cup glory. The team's incredible run had won over a new nation of supporters.

"Some of our senior guys were saying 'Holy crow, we didn't realize they hit that hard,'" said Capilano Rugby Club president Ken Robinson. "The women's game has changed a lot in the last 10 years."

The World Cup dream, however, ended in silver as England topped Canada 21-9. The disappointment of the loss soon wore off and all that was left was an enormous amount of pride for the players and team. Capilano club members were still trying to wrap their heads around the fact that three of their own had played in the World Cup final, making up a full 20 per cent of Canada's starting lineup.

"For us it's just overwhelming to get those three on the team," said Robinson. "That was absolutely spectacular. I know full well how much work they've had to put in."

After the final Marchak, a Winnipeg native who moved to the North Shore to join the powerful Capilano club, tweeted out her thoughts on the wild ride the Canadians had just been on. "No we didn't win the World Cup, but I'm damn proud of what we have achieved together as a team. That being said, never settle!" she wrote. "Thank you Canada. We had a whole country and beyond that was behind us, that connection was felt over seas!"

The three North Shore players took different routes to the World Cup but the Capilano club was the one uniting factor that has pushed them this far, said Leith. "Having the Capilano Rugby Club behind us and supporting us is pretty cool," she said. "All the girls that have played for the club and all the old boys have a piece in this. The club has helped us so much getting to where we are. I would not be playing if it wasn't for them."

3. Scott Morgan - King of the Commonwealth

North Vancouver's Scott Morgan has had an up-and-down relationship with the sport of gymnastics in his lifetime, but 2014 was an up year. Way up.

Morgan started gymnastics at age four and he was only six when his skills earned him a short stint as a pint-sized, high-flying mini sidekick for Vancouver Grizzlies mascot Grizz. The gig didn't last long because Morgan's family moved away — so did the Grizzlies, for that matter. The family returned to North Vancouver but by the time he reached high school Morgan had lost his interest in elite gymnastics and dropped out. In 2007, before his Grade 12 year, he finally tried the sport again, rejoining the Flicka Gymnastics Club only because a friend was looking for a training partner. The coaches at the club welcomed him back but no one was expecting much from an athlete who had been out of the sport for so long.

There were low expectations all around, and they all were wrong. Within four years he was on the national team. In 2013 he made the floor exercise final at the world championships, finishing eighth. That result set the stage for this year's breakout at the Commonwealth Games where Morgan won four medals to earn the virtual crown as king of gymnastics.

Morgan won gold on back-to-back days to finish off the competition, first winning on the rings and then flying back to the top of the standings on vault. A silver medal came in the floor event while a bronze medal came in the team competition as Morgan led the way for the Canadian men as they finished third behind England and Scotland.

"It was spectacular to get up there on the podium and hear the Canadian anthem," said Morgan about winning gold. "It's something you dream about as an athlete."

Those low expectations that accompanied his return to the sport are now long gone as Morgan is now Canada's undisputed leader heading into the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Gold star - Ricker's unimaginable recovery

Elite athletes battling for worldwide glory likely don't have much time for the corny old cliché "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game," but it's a fitting mantra for Maelle Ricker's showing at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia.

It's fitting because Ricker played the game just 19 days after breaking both her radius and ulna bones, competing in the crazy of snowboard cross with two metal plates and 16 screws in her left arm.

Just one day after breaking her arm in a training fall — the radius actually broke through the skin — Ricker was already mapping out a plan to get herself ready in time for the Games. A few days later she took part in a conference call with reporters to describe the fall as well as her audacious plan to make it to the Games to defend the Olympic Gold she won on home soil in 2010.

Ever competed with a broken bone, she was asked.

"Not this fresh," she replied with a laugh.

"She's one of the toughest athletes that I've ever had," said her longtime trainer Anthony Findlay, owner of North Vancouver's Level 10 Fitness. "I've had pro football players that take epidurals to play a football game in the NFL, and Maelle is right up there with the toughest of all of them." Competing with her arm in a cast, Ricker looked good during her qualifying run on at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park outside of Sochi, posting the fourth fastest time of the day on a course that was at times treacherous - two of the first six riders in the qualifying round were taken off the hill on stretchers.

In her six-woman quarterfinal — her first elimination race — Ricker was in the middle of the pack and battling for the necessary top-three spot when she fell while taking an aggressive inside line around a banked curve. She ended up 21st in the overall standings. Her broken arm affected her ability to compete, she said. In snowboard cross, racers use their arms to launch themselves out of the gates at the start of the race.

"I (didn't) have my usual pull out of the gate," Ricker said. "It just kind of all fell apart there in the quarter-final. My start wasn't anything to write home about and it just got worse and worse as I went down the course. Usually I'm able to refocus and get back on point, especially in pressure situations. I can usually pull up my socks and dig deep, but that was really not the case today."

Despite the injury, Ricker fully expected to contend for a medal in Sochi. Her crash didn't do any further damage to her body but left her shaken up nonetheless.

"I'm a little bit in shock," she said. "It's something that's going to replay in my head for years to come. I'm not going to be able to shake this one off very easily."

She didn't win this one, but she'll always be our Golden Girl. And now we know for sure what we've always expected — she's made of steel.