My choice isn’t going to be the most popular, mainly because the man himself isn’t exactly the best person out there. He played for three different clubs in 2011 as well as represented Canada in international play. He was the MVP of the league he competed in and demonstrated excellent athletic ability time after time.

He is Dwayne De Rosario.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Patrick Chan is a fine choice too. But, like last year when I argued that Georges St. Pierre shouldn’t have been the Athlete of 2010 after competing in just two fights, I can bring up the same for Chan in 2011.

Chan is a fine athlete and great at what he does, but he is a figure skater and 2011 was a non-Olympic year. Chan only competed in five events – even though he did win them all. Many will argue that Chan spends a lot of time training and that should be counted towards his resume, but it’s not like De Rosario just sat around on his couch eating pizza when it wasn’t game time.

While Chan truly competed for one hour (a rough estimate) in 2011, De Rosario was on the pitch for 2,781 minutes. That’s roughly 84 minutes per game, or 24 more minutes per day that Chan competed in total.

Many don’t De Rosario because of his constant contract demands and the fact that he essentially forced his way out of his hometown team, Toronto FC. He was traded from the Reds to the Red Bulls of New York, where he kept up his fine form before again asking for a better contract and was dealt to D.C. United.

But are De Ro’s contract demands really too much? He has proven his worth time and time again and is arguably making hundreds of thousands less than he deserves. It’s just that in MLS, if you want to make the big money, a team has to make you their Designated Player, a tag that no team apparently finds the Canadian midfielder worthy of.

Yet, somehow, he was named the Most Valuable Player in MLS. Would his value decrease if he was getting paid more? Hardly.

His 16 goals in 2011 also earned him the Golden Boot for leading the league (although he was tied with Chris Wondolowski) and his 12 assists were fourth best.

Oh, and during his spare time in the summer, he found time to captain Team Canada at the Gold Cup, so he has that going for him too. How many other athletes can actually say they did that in their sports in 2011? Not too many unless you count the world juniors team who choked away gold or the second-rate tournament teams.

With Canada, he was unable to lead the team out of the group stages in the Gold Cup, but did help them advance to the next round of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup. He also tied Dale Mitchell for the all-time lead in international goals for Canada when he netted his 19th in November.

Patrick Chan may have been the easy answer for 2011, but Dwayne De Rosario was the correct one.

Follow me on Twitter @danbilicki

On Sunday, tens of thousands of people attended the Track & Field World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, many with the intention of just watching Usain Bolt do his thing and dominate the 100-metre dash. Guess what? They were sorely disappointed.

Because the world’s fastest man had a single false start, he was disqualified from the race and sent home. Is that really the way that we should be treating the world’s top stars? The guys that make the most money for their sports?

Well, honestly you do have to give everybody the same rules – I mean, come on, imagine if Peyton Manning had five downs to work with or if foul balls weren’t strikes for Derek Jeter. But this one-strike-and-you’re-out policy over false starts in sprinting makes no sense at all. The previous rule of one false start charged to the field and then individual DQs made a lot more sense. But then guys were still trying to get a jump on the gun the first time around because they knew everyone else was too.

My solution is something similar, but with a soccer twist. Also, it would revert back to the previous rule where in any race a false start is first charged to the field and then runners would be DQ’d. That’s a no-brainer. Now, throughout many tournaments, there are three or four races before you make the final. If the rule was that if you were responsible for a false start charged to the field, you are awarded a yellow card. Get charged twice and your tournament is over.

Doesn’t that solve everything? Guys would be hesitant to try to jump the first gun because they wouldn’t want to carry a yellow and the guys who are patient enough to wait for the real start can afford to make one gaffe in the final and not go home. Doesn’t everybody win here?

Now, this is favourite here, not best moments or worst moments, but they’re what I’ll remember first and foremost from the year that was. In chronological order:

Feb 12 — Nodar Kumaritashvili dies at the Olympics.
It happened before the Games even opened; a Georgian luger couldn’t handle the intense speeds of the Whistler track, lost control and hit a poll, killing him. It was a terrible story to start the Games and while Sidney Crosby’s golden goal to close the event is a nice, bright note, Nodar’s death was far more memorable.

Feb. 7 — Manning getting picked off to seal the Super Bowl.
Let’s face it, the number of people who don’t like Peyton Manning probably vastly outnumber the people who do. So when the feisty underdog Saints upset him and the Colts in the Super Bowl, the world cheered them on. To cap it all off, when the Colts were trailing to charge down the field late in the game, Manning was threw a pick six for the icing on the Saints’ cake.

April 5 — Butler’s halfcourt shot.
The Butler Bulldogs were longshots to even make the Final Four, let alone the championship game on their home turf in Indianapolis. But what happened throughout the title game with Duke was phenomenal as they hung tough and the game came down to one play: A halfcourt shot that just barely missed. It would have been the greatest shot in NCAA history and even though it missed, it was one hell of a memory.

May 9 & May 29 — The Perfect Games.
The rarest feat in baseball was accomplished a mere 20 days apart. First, Oakland’s Dallas Braden shut down the Tampa Bay Rays, then the Phillies’ Roy Halladay obliterated the Florida Marlins. To see two marvelous games thrown in such a short period of time was simply stunning and both were stunning on their own levels. Braden was essentially a nobody when he threw his perfecto and Halladay had come close to a few no-nos with the Jays, but could never nail them down.

June 2 — The Imperfect Game.
Armando Gallaraga’s gem was every bit as nice as Braden’s and Halladay’s, right up until the point where umpire Jim Joyce smashed it. A massively blown call at first base cost the Tigers’ pitcher what would have been the third perfecto in less than a month. While the first two pieces of perfection were amazing, this one was even more memorable, as Joyce apologized for getting it wrong the next day.

June 9 — The Hawks halt the streak and leave the Leafs behind.
Ice hockey’s longest Cup-less streak was snapped this summer thanks to some amazing play from the Chicago Blackhawks young guns and their superb goalie, Antti Neimi, who was the backup for most of the season. The Toronto Maple Leafs now own the longest title drought, having not even been to the Cup finals since the NHL expanded from six teams in 1967.

June 17 — Lakers win title despite trailing and Kobe going 6-24.
The Sports Guy Bill Simmons on ESPN.com has brought up Kobe Bryant going 6-for-24 in the Lakers’ Game 7 win over the Celtics a lot as a way of trying to diminish Bryant’s accomplishment. I think it should upset him and all Celtics fans that their opponent’s best player had a bad game and his team still won the title. It’s always nice to see a team repeat too, in an era where it’s so uncommon.

July 8 — The Decision.
While the outcome may have been foreshadowed by media reports, the impact of a superstar plunging a knife into the back of and entire city was almost too brutal to be real. Did LeBron James actually just hold an hour-long TV special to tell Cleveland he’s leaving, then never thank his teammates or the city? It made one of the NBA’s biggest stars into one of sports biggest pariahs and should be on everyone’s list.

July 11 — Spain wins the World Cup.
They didn’t win pretty — in any game — but wins are wins and Spain was the class of the World Cup. Their efficient defence, incredible passing and David Villa’s goal-scoring acumen, the Spanish won their well-deserved first World Cup title over a rough-and-tumble Dutch side that should have lost a few men to red cards.

Oct. 23 — Lesnar gets owned.
Seriously, when Brock took to the ring against Cain Velasquez, it looked like the only thing that the champ did to prepare for the fight was grow a beard. The Monster was absolutely dominated by the challenger and the UFC got to see what a specimen Velasquez is.

Nov 1— The Giants win the World Series.
In a season dominated by pitchers, it made sense that the team with the best rotation there was won it all. But, the most memorable thing about the Giants run to the World Series was closer Brian Wilson’s incredible facial hair. A thick, black beard made their ninth-inning man look crazier than he already is and watching him take the mound to win it all was an astoundingly memorable for me.

Honourable mentions: Sidney Crosby’s Golden Goal; The Tiger Woods comeback saga; Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame speech; the “Hand of Clod”; the Leafs ending up giving away No. 2 overall pick for Phil Kessel; the Yankees missing out on everyone in free agency; the Champions League final being widely televised in North America.

First, the fighting problem would be gone. Would you really want to employ a goon when a fight results in a game suspension? Not unless the player actually had other talents. This would completely eliminate the guys who are completely one-dimensional in the most primitive aspect of the game. But, let the record show, I have no problem with fighting’s part of ice hockey; I just think that it should be punished more severely.

Second, no-touch icing and quicker faceoffs would eliminate teams dumping the puck whenever they’re in trouble in their own end. If you couple these two rules together, teams that do so would be punished by having gassed players out on the ice for longer without the break that it takes a defenceman to collect the puck for a whistle. It would speed up the game immensely.

The trapezoid behind the net in the NHL should also be abolished. It became very clear that if a legend like Martin Brodeur – one of the best puck-handling netminders ever – could make mistakes with the puck, then how would scoring not increase with an increase in mistakes?

Finally, and this is the rule that needs to be in the NHL the most of them all, the points system needs to be revamped to international style. Three points for a win, two for overtime wins, one for an OT loss. Teams should be rewarded for not requiring extra time, plain and simple. This would solve the problem of teams with losing records hovering around the playoff race. And if I hear another person say a team that 31-30-5 is over .500, I might snap.

So, commish, I hope you were paying attention instead of holding your breath and praying no stars got injured. If you were really watching, your league could make some big improvements in the coming years, instead of looking for new American markets to fail in.

The beginning of Vancouver 2010 was a comedy of errors, from the Georgian luger’s death to the weather being the warmest in Winter Olympic history to the lighting of the cauldron going horribly awry. Weather delays, traffic and seating snafus didn’t lighten up the next few days, but finally, people stopped looking at the negatives and focusing on the positives.

Canada wasn’t on the podium as much as the States were, but they were getting to the top more consistently and ended up setting two records. First, Canada continued its upward trend in number of medals and set a new Games-high with 26. Then, on the final day of the Games, with a win in the men’s ice hockey gold medal game, Canada set the record for most gold medals in Winter Olympics with 14.

I actually had two favourite “scandals” of the Games and both were due to youthful enthusiasm, if nothing else. First, American snowboarder Scotty Lago got into some trouble after partying with his bronze medal from the halfpipe event. He was sent home early because he was photographed with a girl kissing the medal while he was hanging it in front of his crotch. Seriously, if that’s the worst scandal you can come up with, you’re reaching. I can see how that might look slightly offensive, if you’re a complete prude. Since when did a celebration like that start drawing national ire?

The Canadian women’s ice hockey team also got into their share of trouble after winning the gold over Team USA. It seems like a few members thought it would be a good idea to come back out on the ice and smoke some cigars while drinking some beer. The problem here: It’s illegal to smoke inside the arena and one of the drinking party was underage according to B.C. law. But why didn’t they get in any trouble from the law? Partly because officials didn’t really care. Here’s what Regional health protection director Domenic Losito of Vancouver Coastal Health said:

“While the complainant has urged us to process charges against the offenders, it is unlikely that we will because we would be challenged with identifying them, issuing them violation tickets, and successfully prosecuting them should they contest those tickets, given that most of them will have left town by Monday.”

Let me get this straight: You couldn’t identify people wearing uniforms with their names on the back? You couldn’t issue them tickets when you know that they’re all staying at the Athlete’s Village? You couldn’t successfully prosecute them when you have photo evidence of them committing the act? All of this reeks of someone just not caring about their job.

I can guarantee you that had the U.S. team pulled a stunt like that, Losito would have stepped up his investigation. Talk about a home ice advantage.