CFL star Jon Cornish deservedly wins Lou Marsh award

The Lou Marsh Trophy results are in and that can mean only one thing: Let the arguing begin.

For 72 years, the trophy has been awarded to the athlete deemed to be Canada's best and for most of those seven decades the decision has stirred up a hornet's nest of dissenting opinions. (Remember Larry Walker vs. Jacques Villeneuve's car?)

That's not likely to change this year with the naming of Calgary Stampeders running back Jon Cornish as the recipient of the much-coveted award.

But while the likes of Patrick Chan, Kaillie Humphries and Milos Raonic -- especially Milos Raonic -- certainly had a case, it says her the Lou Marsh committee got this one right. It's been four decades since a CFL player won this award and if Cornish didn't top the list time, it might be another four decades before it happened again.

"Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Christine Sinclair, Steve Nash," Cornish tweeted on Monday. "Amazing Canadians have won this award. I'm still speechless…"

Based on numbers alone, the 29-year-old native of New Westminster, B.C., had to be considered a favourite. In winning the CFL's Most Oustanding Player award -- the first Canadian to do so since Tony Gabriel in 1978 -- Cornish was a one-man wrecking crew all season.

He rushed for a league-high 1,813 yards, breaking his own record for the most in one season by a Canadian. He also led the league with 2,157 yards from scrimmage and 14 touchdowns and was named the league's top Canadian for the second year in a row.

While some -- led by those who wear at least one item of green clothing every day -- might argue he wasn't even the best running back in the CFL, the numbers say otherwise. Yes, Saskatchewan's Kory Sheets probably would have taken the rushing title had it not been for an injury. But that only emphasizes Cornish's worth: He's a horse and almost indestructible.

Cornish is just the third football player to win the Lou Marsh award. The others were both quarterbacks: Russ Jackson in 1969 and Joe Krol in 1946.

Cornish narrowly defeated Raonic and Humphries while decathlete Damian Warner, Chan and NHLer Jonathan Toews also were among the finalists. Of the runners-up, Raonic had the strongest case.

The Thornhill, Ont., resident became the first Canadian male singles tennis player to crack the top 10, won two tournaments and registered a 5-1 record in Davis Cup play.

He made the round of 16 at the Australian and U.S. Open tournaments and was a semifinalist in Barcelona and finalist at the Rogers Cup. In Davis Cup play, the 22-year-old native of Montenegro also won match-clinchers against Spain and Italy.

Humphries built on the momentum she established by winning gold in the bobsleigh at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics by claiming back-to-back world championships.

But there was no denying that this was Cornish's time. A finalist for last year's award, won by women's soccer star Christine Sinclair, Cornish excelled in a field dominated by American running backs. Instead of being relegated to blocking duties, as many Canadian backs are, he was the key to Calgary's ground game --and therefore its offence.

With injuries forcing the Stampeders to rotate three quarterbacks all season, they relied on Cornish to carry the bulk of the load. He did it with speed, creativity and often with good old-fashioned brute force.

There are those who will argue that Cornish's accomplishments don't really merit such lofty notice, mainly because he plays in a tiny eight-team league that many consider second-rate. If CFL players were good enough, they'd be in the NFL, the argument goes.

But they would be overlooking the fact that three-down football requires a different set of skills from the American variety and that records are never to be ignored or put down.

We celebrate our women's hockey players, even though they play in what is essentially a two-team league. We celebrate our curlers despite the fact that the curling world is a very small one.

It's time we celebrated a star of our own.