What was the biggest story in Canadian sports?

Ten years. 120 months. 3,652 days. And through them all, people went about their lives; the weather ran its (sometimes menacing) course; plants and animals lived and died.

Yet these were also the first few ticks of a new millennium, one marked by social upheaval, wars, scandals, flashes of hope, new technologies and innumerable hours of reality TV. When future generations look back on this decade, what will their verdict be? And which vital developments will they overlook?

We’ll tell you what we think on Dec. 26, both online and in print. But every Monday until then, we’ll reveal one of the challenges we have set for ourselves - and ask you to weigh in. Come back a week later to see the results, along with the next challenge.

How our weekly challenges will work

Every Monday until mid-December, we’ll reveal a new question
We’ll ask a notable Canadian for their picks
You can enter your nominations - tell us why too - in our comments
The next Monday you can vote on the top 10 picks from our readers
We ask a new question

Week three: Choose the decade’s biggest story in Canadian sports

For better or for worse, the sporting world has been a hotbed of activity over the past 10 years, from the scandals surrounding the use of performance-enhancing drugs to amazing achievements both by individual athletes and by teams.

Which do you feel has had the greatest impact?

Silken Laumann | Rower, Olympic medalist Ms. Laumann will be in Rogers Arena for the game as a guest of the NHL. "I'm so excited," she said. "It's the chance of a lifetime. How often is the Stanley Cup going to be in your backyard, with your team in the lead position?" She said she asked her 14-year-old son if she could borrow his Canucks jersey but he balked at the idea. "He's afraid I'm going to spill something on it."

Here are five great moments chosen by champion rower Silken Laumann, who won medals for Canada in three Olympic Games and is now an author and the founder of a charitable movement dedicated to children’s recreation based in Victoria.

“There are so many great moments,” she says, “but a few really stick in my mind because they encompass some of the remarkable elements that make up Canadian sports.”

Ms. Laumann's picks:

Simon Whitfield winning the first gold medal in the triathlon at Sydney in 2000 and then, eight years later, having a remarkable almost gold performance in Beijing. The guy has guts.
Kyle Shewfelt winning Canada’s first ever Olympic gold in gymnastics. Gymnastics is a sport dominated by Eastern Europeans. To see a fellow Canadian win this event made leagues of aspiring young gymnasts believe they could do it, too.
The double gold – both men’s and women’s – in Olympic hockey at Salt Lake City in 2002. Did we Canadians feel on top of the world that week!
The men’s eight winning gold in the Beijing Games last year. They dominated – I don’t think there has ever been a group as fit, focused and determined to win. They were in a league of their own in the most highly contested event in men’s rowing.
Steve Nash, the first Canadian ever named the National Basketball Association’s most valuable player, an honour he received two years in a row (2004-5 and 2005-6). You don’t need to know anything about basketball to be electrified by the intensity, passion and skill this young man from Victoria brings to the court.