We are just a few days away from the calendar turning to a brand new year and in front of us lies another 12 months of sporting excitement. We have put together a quick diary of some of the dates that you need to know for 2024, not only for sports in Canada but across the world where Canadian athletes will be competing. These events will all be priced up at the betting sites and we will have previews for plenty of them as the year progresses. Let’s see exactly what we have to look forward to.
14-28 – Australian Open – Tennis
The first major event of 2024 is the Australian Open and Felix Auger-Aliassime will be looking to progress further than he did in 2023 when being knocked out in the 4th round. He is still only 23 years old so there is plenty of time for the former world number six to get himself into a major final. 2023 was not a good year for him so he will be hoping that 2024 will start off in a stronger vein of form.
19-2 Feb – Winter Youth Olympics
South Korea is hosting the games where 78 Canadian athletes will be taking part. This will be the 4th edition of the Winter Youth Olympics and is the first one that has been held outside of Europe. Curling has been the most successful sport for Canada so far and hopes in 2024 will be high again.
26-28 – Winter X Games
Aspen, Colorado is the site for the Winter X Games, the 28th edition. Canada won three gold medals in 2023 including a pair for Megan Oldham in the Women’s Slopestyle and Big Air.
2-3 – NHL All-Star weekend
Scotiabank Arena in Toronto will host the 2024 All-Star game. 2012 was the last time it was held in Canada, in Ottawa at that time while 2000 was the last time that Toronto had the honour of being the host of the game.
2-18 – World Aquatic Championships
Generally a July event, it has been moved to February this year, coming from Doha, Qatar. Montreal hosted back in 2005, the only time that the event has been held in Canada. In the overall medals table, Canada has the 11th most gold medals in the history of the championship and 7th in overall medals. They have the talent in the team to add to those in 2024.
2-4 – Speed Skating World Cup
Quebec will host round six of the ISU Speed Skating World Cup, the last round of the competition. After four of the rounds, Canadian athletes are on track for three silver and three bronze medals with chances still there for the gold medals. A home crowd is going to be a big help in that regard.
11 – Super Bowl
We are closing in fast on the NFL Playoffs with Super Bowl LVIII coming from Las Vegas on the second Sunday in February. The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles in 2023 with both teams still in contention to go back, though neither are playing all that well at present.
28 – MLB Opening Day
Spring training starts in February and there are games in Seoul on March 20 and 21 where the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres will take one another on. Opening day will see the Toronto Blue Jays on the road at the Tampa Bay Rays as the road to the fall classic begins.
11-14 – The Masters
The first of the golf majors of the year is always one of the most anticipated four days of the year. Nick Taylor has only played in this tournament once in 2020 when he finished in a tie for 29th. Corey Connors made three successive top 10s before missing the cut last year, he will be looking to get back into the top level in 2024.
10-26 – IIHF World Championships
Czechia is the host of the hockey championships. Canada is the defending champions, their 28th title and will be in Group A in Prague. They will face Finland, Switzerland, Czechia, Denmark, Norway, Austria and Great Britain in that group. The top four teams in the group will progress to the quarter-final stage while the bottom team will be relegated. Canada begins their defence on May 11 against Great Britain.
16-19 – PGA Tournament
The second of the golf majors, the 2024 edition will come from Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods were the last two winners when it was held at Valhalla in past years. No Canadian has ever won this tournament but Corey Connors was on top of the leaderboard at the halfway point in 2023 before an awful Sunday saw him tumble down the standings.
20-9 June – French Open Tennis
Felix Auger-Aliassime has only got to the 4th round in his best finish in Paris but he has the distinction of being one of only three players (Novak Djokovic and John Isner the others) to have forced Rafa Nadal into a 5th set at this tournament.
30-2 June – Canadian Open
Nick Taylor was the first Canadian to win their home event in 69 years in 2023. The 2024 edition will be played at the Hamilton Golf and Country Club. Taylor will be sure to have this as his main target of the year as he looks to double up on his success.
Stanley Cup Final
Always one of the best months of the year as the NHL Playoffs close out with the Stanley Cup Finals. The Toronto Maple Leafs, Vancouver Canucks and Winnipeg Jets have all made strong claims as we close in on halfway through the season but can a team from Canada lift the trophy in 2024?
NBA Finals
We can safely say that the sole Canadian team will not be close to the NBA Finals but Jamal Murray will be hoping that he can guide the Denver Nuggets back to the finals again to give Canada a representation.
6 – CFL kick-off
A rematch of the Grey Cup Final will open the season with the defending champion Montreal Alouettes on the road to face the Winnipeg Blue Bombers who will have revenge on their minds. This should be a superb start to the season which can set the tone for another excellent campaign.
9 – F1 Canadian Grand Prix
Max Verstappen led the field home in 2023 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve from Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton has won the race on seven occasions, tied with Michael Schumacher for the most in the history of the race.
13-16 – US Open Golf
Mackenzie Hughes was in the top 10 after the opening round in 2023 but that was as close as any Canadian golfer got to the title. Pinehurst will be the host course in 2024, 10 years after the US Open last came here when the tournament was won by Martin Kaymer by eight shots.
21-15 Jul – Copa America
Canada will have to play off against Trinidad & Tobago on 23 March to qualify for the main tournament. If they win that game then Canada will enter in Group A alongside Argentina, Chile and Peru.
1-14 – Wimbledon
Into the second half of the year and the lawn tennis season hits full stride in southwest London. Denis Shapovalov was the top Canadian in the tournament last year, making the 4th round.
18-21 – The Open Championship
Troon will host this year, the course on the Western coast of Scotland. Henrik Stenson set the lowest total score ever shot at The Open when he won at Troon in 2016 with a 264 which was -20 to par.
26-11 Aug – The Olympics
The 33rd Olympiad will come from Paris in July and August. Canadian athletes have taken part in 27 Olympic games so far, winning 71 gold medals, 109 silver medals and 146 bronze. There were 24 medals at the 2020 games won by Canada which was an excellent haul and the team for 2024 is built to deliver another successful games.
18-25 – World Rowing Championships
St Catherine’s, Ontario will host for the third time after 1970 and 1999. Canada last won a gold medal in 2019, not picking up a medal of any colour in 2023 so home water needs to turn that around in a bid for a bit of success.
26-8 Sep – US Open Tennis
The final tennis major of the year, Gabriela Dabrowski was part of the women’s doubles winning team in 2023 to give Canada a major winner. A doubles specialist, she also has mixed doubles wins at the Australian and French Open over the years. Felix Auger-Aliassime made the semi-final in 2021 in the men’s singles so he will have hopes of contending.
28-8 Sep – Paralympics
The Paralympics has grown every time there is an Olympic Games since they were first contested in 1988 in Seoul. Canada picked up five golds, 10 silver medals and six bronze medals in the 2020 games in Tokyo.
5 – NFL Kickoff
As is traditional, the defending Super Bowl champion will start the season on a day when they have the sole game. We will have to wait for a while to find out who will play this game but the date is in the diary already.
24-29 – Presidents Cup
Royal Montreal Golf Club will host the Presidents Cup. The US take on the rest of the world (bar Europe) in this, winning when it was last played in Montreal back in 2007. Mike Weir was part of the losing international team on that occasion while there were three Canadian players in the 2022 edition, Corey Conners, Adam Hadwin and Mackenzie Hughes.
NHL Opening Day
The seven Canadian teams will start their season in October looking for the ultimate prize in Lord Stanley’s Cup. 1992-93 was the last time that a Canadian team hoisted the cup and it is well beyond time to get another winning team from Canada, although perhaps we will have one by this point with the 2023-24 cup still a long way away from being decided at the time of writing.
Canadian International
The biggest horse race in the Canadian calendar comes from Woodbine in October. 11 of the last 12 winners were trained outside of North America, the last two by Charlie Appleby for Godolphin.
World Series
The end of the baseball season will start in October and could stretch into November depending on how many games the series goes. The Toronto Blue Jays have made the playoffs three of the last four years and five of the last nine but they still look a few pieces short of the World Series-winning side of 1992 and 1993 in a bid to get back to the fall classic.
17 – 111th Grey Cup
Vancouver will host the Grey Cup in 2024 so the BC Lions will have this ringed in the calendar in the hope that they become the first team since the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2013 to win a Grey Cup in their own stadium. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have made it to four consecutive Grey Cups, winning the first two against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats but losing the last two.
NLL Season Opening Day
There is a long way to go until next December but this is when the next NLL season will get underway. The five Canadian teams have only just started this current season but they will get it all started once more when the calendar turns around to December again.
FINA World Swimming Championships
Budapest will host the 2024 edition of the FINA championships. This will be the 17th edition of the short track swimming in a 25m pool. Canada were the hosts back in 2016 in Windsor with Australia doing those honours at the most recent championships in 2022. Canada won three gold medals, four silvers and seven bronze medals there and will be hoping that they can do at least as well again.
It is hard to think that it was only 26 years ago that women’s ice hockey was part of the Winter Olympics for the first time. The 1998 Nagano games in Japan saw it added for the first time with only six teams participating with the United States and Canada dominating the tournament which was played in February of that year.
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Super Bowl LVIII will be played on February 11 at Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas. The NFC Champion San Francisco 49ers will take on the AFC victors, the Kansas City Chiefs. This is the 4th Super Bowl appearance in the last five years for the Chiefs, arriving as the defending champions.
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The NHL season has reached the All-Star Game with the bye weeks on the horizon for the teams. Things are really starting to take shape now with about 60% of the regular season behind us.
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Quebec City plays host to the final round of the ISU Speed Skating World Cup this weekend from February 2 until February 4. The event is almost 40 years old, with the Quebec event the final of the six rounds that make up the 2023-24 World Cup.
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The countdown to the 2024 Olympics in Paris is under six months and the athletes will be praying that the rest of their preparation goes smoothly as even the smallest setback at this stage could be the difference between a gold medal and leaving the French capital empty-handed.
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