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More news makers

Part two of two

In Friday's editorial, we explained our votes for the Canadian Press newsmaker of the year (Luka Magnotta) and news story of the year (Northern Gateway pipeline).

As a newsroom, we also cast our vote for the CP male athlete of the year, female athlete of the year, team of the year, business newsmaker of the year and business news story of the year.

In the sports categories, we were able to pick a top three, rather than just a single choice.

On the men's side, Milos Raonic led our lists. He's the men's singles tennis star who currently sits at 13 in the world rankings, the highest ever for a Canadian. He racked up the most aces this year and the highest winning percentage of service games. He turns 22 later this month so look for even better things from him next year.

Our second pick was Ryder Hesjedal, who won the Giro D'Italia this year, the first Canadian to win one of cycling's three major road races.

Finally, we held our nose and picked Jon Cornish. Even though he was born in New Westminister, he plays for the Calgary Stampeders, a serious infraction. The running back set a new league record for rushing yards in a single season and he led his squad to a Grey Cup championship.

On the female side, there was no contest.

Christine Sinclair led the national women's soccer team all the way to the semi-finals at the Olympics. She scored all three Canadian goals in an epic match against the U.S. and the team was 10 minutes from playing for gold, when the U.S. tied the match late, after a couple of controversial calls by the referee, and then won it late in extra time. Sinclair earned a suspension from FIFA for her comments about the officiating, but that punishment was handed out after the women won the bronze medal game.

Rosie McLennan was an easy second choice as the trampolinist was Canada's only gold medal recipient at the London Olympics. Christine Nesbitt rounded out our list for her domination of the World Cup long-track speedskating circuit in the 1,000 and 1,500 metres.

With Sinclair in mind, the Canadian women's soccer squad was our team of the year choice, followed by the men's wheelchair basketball team that took gold at the Paralympics and the Carleton Raven's men's basketball team that went undefeated for its second consecutive year en route to a CIS championship. Didn't hurt that there are three Carleton alumni in the newsroom and one of them is the managing editor.

On the business side, Mark Carney was a fairly easy selection as the CP business newsmaker of the year. Carney so impressed the world during his tenure as the governor of the Bank of Canada that he was lured away to become the new governor at the Bank of England.

Our choice for the business news story of the year was "east-west pipelines," although we thought the category should just have been called "pipelines," since the Keystone XL pipeline project heading south from Alberta into the United States made headlines on both sides of the border, as did the scathing report from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board on Enbridge's "Keystone Cops" handling of a 2010 pipeline spill into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.

Add the Northern Gateway proposal, the Kinder Morgan proposal and the proposed natural gas pipelines through B.C. and it was the year of the pipeline, with plenty more to come in 2013.