Misconduct | What was your favorite sports moment of 2024?

The section where Sports journalists answer a question with pleasure

Jean-François Téotonio

My year 2024 has been memorable, perhaps the most memorable of my young career in Sports. The Press. I had the chance to breathe the same air as Lionel Messi not once, not twice, but three times. And not just from afar. I caught him signing Mathieu Choinière's Argentina jersey as I was leaving the CF Montreal locker room after the match against Inter Miami, in Florida, in March. Unfortunately, he did not play the match, but we were able to catch up on this trip thanks to this chance, intimate meeting, of which I had the presence of mind to capture the video. Choinière was all smiles. Me too, I admit it. I very clumsily tried to ask him questions in Spanish during his visit to Montreal in May, while he was carrying his mate alongside his Uruguayan teammate Luis Suárez upon his arrival at the Saputo stadium. He ended up playing the entire match, in front of a passionate and won over Montreal crowd. A month later, my friend Messi met me in Atlanta, for Argentina's match against Canada in the Copa América, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. I had experienced the Argentinian madness outside the stadium before the clash. I had witnessed the very honorable performance of Canada, and especially that of goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, in front of the best team in the world, in a fiery atmosphere. Then I once again took out my Sunday Spanish to try to extract an answer from Leo, in the hell of the mixed zone. Wasted effort. I would have tried everything. Allow me a fourth memorable moment: CF Montreal's crazy playoff match against Atlanta United, at Saputo stadium.

Alexander Pratt

The men's road cycling final at the Paris Olympic Games. That day, I was assigned to tennis. But seeing on TV tens of thousands of Parisians crowding onto the sidewalks of the central districts to encourage the runners, I took the first metro to the finish line, at the Trocadéro. On the platform, in the wagons, in the street, people followed the race on their cell phones. Three kilometers from the end, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel, in a breakaway, suffered a puncture in front of the Louvre. Two Frenchmen were chasing him. All of Paris held its breath. Then the Evenepoel team gave him a bike that was too big! Evenepoel still managed to arrive at the Trocadéro before his competitors, stopping dead at the finish line, a few meters in front of me, to pose in front of the Eiffel Tower. Magic.

Simon-Olivier Lorange

I like to tell anyone who will listen that all events organized by the NHL are pockets. However, I had to change my mind at the draft last June. The idea of ​​holding the session in the Sphere in Las Vegas, we quickly realized, was brilliant. As soon as we arrived at the venue, the view was spectacular, with an infographic of the top hopefuls covering the entirety of the large dome above our heads. The League also managed to create a real frenzy when announcing the transactions, with a siren blaring while the arena turned red. A real show, finally! The clubs, for their part, were mandated to announce their first-round picks in a non-traditional manner. The mandate was ambitious, but the Canadian nevertheless won the evening by inviting Céline Dion on stage. From the moment Kent Hughes called the singer to come closer, excitement took over the room, particularly and especially within the group of journalists from Montreal. “Well no! ”, we could hear here and there, probably from the very mouth of the signatory of these lines. Royal, the pride of Charlemagne spoke in French and English, slowly, creating suspense, before pronouncing the name of Ivan Demidov. The excited crowd roared. It was honestly cool. It's rare that I express myself this much, but it was perfect.

Nicholas Richard

The year 2024 has been extraordinary in terms of hedging. But that of the Olympic Games obviously comes at the top of the list. I witnessed great moments of euphoria in Paris. As I have witnessed failures, disappointments and underperformance. But my highlight of the year took place at the swimming pool of the Paris La Défense Arena, on the evening of August 2. Léon Marchand, the king of the oceans, the prodigy of Toulouse, the face of these Games, had the ambition to achieve what no French athlete had achieved before him: to win four gold medals at the same Games. He had the opportunity to rewrite history in the 200m medley, and that's what he did. In an exceptional way, moreover, by beating Michael Phelps' Olympic record. I will forever remember the shrill, excessive and almost terrifying noise of the crowd during the 1 min 54.06 sec that the race lasted. It's impossible to describe. And the delirium continued even when the champion came to meet members of the media after his race. For the almost superhuman performance, the emotional charge and the importance of this evening for French sport, it is difficult not to evoke this memory as a priority when thinking about the year that has just passed.

Richard Labbé

This one is easy. I have the immense happiness of having two sons. The first was a goalie in hockey, and his matches are among my best hockey memories, just ahead of Guy Lafleur's big goals. The youngest is a linebacker in football, and when his team, in a big playoff game in the fall, was able to convert a fourth down and 17 yards to go for the win with about 50 seconds left or so , I almost fainted, but with joy. Sport is fabulous, and it's even more so when you look at it through dad's eyes. Merry Christmas to the rest of you.

Jean-François Tremblay

The great joy of being Director of Sports at The Press is that it gives you the opportunity to see everything, all the time. The negative point is that with the raw quantity of information and events, it takes a lot to blow me away. Yet that's exactly what happened when the Canadian relay won gold in the 4×100 meters at the Paris Olympics. In fact, as the exceptional Simon Drouin recounted in the evening dedicated to the donors of The Pressits main assignment was the women's relay with Audrey Leduc as spearhead. It was, on paper, the biggest story for us at that particular moment. However, the shock and amazement of Canadian domination occurred while Simon was waiting to conduct the interviews. In fact, I saw the triumph of Andre De Grasse and company much better than Simon… who was in Paris and in the stadium. What a life we ​​lead.

Guillaume Lefrançois

I'm not particularly a fan of Celine Dion, but her big return to the microphone literally gave me chills. It was a spectacular conclusion to what was already, even before the first notes of Offenbach's classic Hymn to lovethe best opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. When Gojira spits My faultperched on the balconies of the Conciergerie, is just ONE element among so many highlights, it is the sign of a successful show. On a personal note, I had the chance to watch it live because the boss asked me to host a chat for our readers. For this task, colleague Alexandre Pratt had given me the media guide for the show in advance, which made listening to it even more interesting. I'm not the type to go through such ceremonies, even less so on a beautiful summer Friday. So I would have missed it if I hadn't been assigned to it. In the end, it was worth missing an afternoon of cycling. Thanks, JF!