 Today we're getting you caught up on a big weekend for Canadian swimmers and some other top performances on the international sports scene. Plus, a look ahead to tonight's sports equinox, featuring Game 3 of the World Series between the Blue Jays and Dodgers.
The Buzzer is off tomorrow. We'll be back in your inbox Wednesday. | | | Weekend recap: Canadian swimmers rack up golds in Toronto | | | Here's what Canadian fans should know from a busy few days in international sports:
Swimming: Liendo, Kharun shine; Summer recuperates
Despite the absence of Summer McIntosh due to a mysterious illness, Canadians piled up 12 medals, including five golds, over three days of competition at the short-course Swimming World Cup finale in Toronto.
Olympic medallists Josh Liendo and Ilya Kharun led the way with four medals apiece in the 25-metre pool at the Pan Am Sports Centre. Liendo struck gold three times, in the men's 100m butterfly and both the 50m and 100m freestyle, and added a bronze in the 50m butterfly. Kharun won a pair of golds, in the 50m and 200m butterfly, a silver in the 100 fly and a bronze in the 50 free.
Mary Sophie-Harvey was Canada's other multi-medallist, winning a silver and a bronze, while Taylor Ruck (silver) and Finlay Knox (bronze) picked up one medal apiece.
Kharun finished with a Canadian-high 12 total medals, including seven gold, on the three-meet World Cup tour, which also had stops in Indianapolis and Chicago. The 20-year-old placed fourth in the men's overall standings, while Liendo (six medals, three gold) was ninth. Hungary's Hubert Kos took the title with nine golds (he won the men's 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke events at all three meets) while adding a silver and two bronze in the 100m individual medley.
Harvey (two silvers, one bronze) was a Canadian-best 14th in the women's overall chase. American Kate Douglass won it with nine golds — she swept the 100m freestyle, 100m breaststroke and 200m breaststroke events at all three meets — and a pair of silvers in the 100m individual medley.
As for McIntosh, the 19-year-old Canadian superstar told CBC Sports' Devin Heroux that she's back in the pool and "feeling great" after a harrowing couple of weeks that caused her to miss the entire World Cup tour.
Summer said she woke up with a severe headache two days before the series opener and was "in and out of the ER a few times" as doctors struggled to diagnose her. After tests for the flu, Covid and mono turned up nothing, she underwent a spinal tap to look for viral meningitis. Thankfully, that came back negative, but "complications" from the procedure put her on bed rest for more than a week.
“[The timing] really sucks because I wanted to compete at the World Cups and especially wanted to do that last stop in Toronto and swim in front of a home crowd,” McIntosh said. "But I'm just so happy to be back in the water now and slowly getting back into things.” Here's more from Summer on her strange illness.
Curling: Jacobs wins, Homan loses final at Pan Continentals
Reigning Brier champion Brad Jacobs and his Canadian team closed out an undefeated tournament by defeating 2018 Olympic gold medallist Josh Shuster 7-3 in the men's final at the Pan Continental Curling Championships in Minnesota.
Jacobs, third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert went a perfect 7-0 in round-robin play and beat defending champ Xu Xiaoming of China 5-4 in the semifinals. By reaching the playoffs, the Jacobs rink clinched Canada a berth in the 2026 world championships.
On the women's side, back-to-back world champion Rachel Homan lost the gold-medal game 7-6 to China's Rui Wang, who avenged her defeat to Homan in last year's final. Wang also came out on top in their round-robin meeting. Canada was already guaranteed a spot in the women's world championship because Calgary is hosting.
Homan and her teammates Tracy Fleury, Emma Miskew and Sarah Wilkes will try for their third consecutive Grand Slam title next week when the series continues in Nevada. Then the Homan and Jacobs rinks will turn their focus to the Canadian Olympic trials in Halifax, beginning Nov. 22. Skips Jordon McDonald (men's) and Selena Sturmay (women's) earned the final two spots by winning their respective pre-trials tournaments in Wolfville, N.S. on Sunday.
Other key results:
* Canadian Ellie Black placed fifth in the balance beam on the final day of the gymnastics world championships in Indonesia. Canada finished with one medal — a silver in the women's vault on Friday by 16-year-old Lia-Monica Fontaine. American Simone Biles and several other stars from last year's Olympics did not participate.
* Canada lost 3-0 to the United States in the final of the International Para Hockey Cup in the Czech Republic. Declan Farmer scored twice for the Americans, who have won this tournament all four times since its creation in 2022 and will try for their fifth consecutive Paralympic gold medal this winter in Italy.
* For the first time in five years, Canada finished without a medal at the track cycling world championships. Dylan Bibic, who won gold in the men's scratch race at the 2022 worlds and reached the podium in the elimination race in each of the last two years, placed 11th in the scratch, 13th in the elimination and 18th in the omnium over the weekend in Chile. Canada's highest finisher for the week was 2021 Olympic bronze medallist Lauriane Genest, who reached the quarterfinals in the women's sprint and was eighth in the keirin.
* The top Canadian in alpine skiing's World Cup season-opening giant slaloms in Austria was Val Grenier, who finished 11th in the women's race. Austria's Julia Scheib dominated that one, while Olympic champion Marco Odermatt of Switzerland won the men's event as he eyes his fifth consecutive giant slalom and overall Crystal Globes.
* No Canadians competed at the Grand Prix of Figure Skating stop in China, where back-to-back-to-back ice dance world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States won their season debut while reigning Grand Prix champion Amber Glenn outduelled world champ (and fellow American) Alysa Liu in the women's event. A full slate of Canadians will be in action at this week's Grand Prix in Saskatoon, beginning Friday night. | | |  | Canada's Ilya Kharun won two more events at the Swimming World Cup finale in Toronto, giving him seven golds across the the three tour stops. (Chris Young/Canadian Press) | | | Quickly… | | | Some other things to know:
1. Max Scherzer takes the mound as the World Series shifts to Los Angeles.
After the Blue Jays' electrifying 11-4 win in the series opener on Friday night in Toronto, Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto cooled the Jays off with a four-hit gem Saturday to give L.A. a 5-1 victory. Coming off his three-hitter against Milwaukee in the NLCS, which was baseball's first post-season complete game in eight years, Yamamoto struck out eight, walked none and retired the Jays' final 20 batters to become the first pitcher in a decade to go the distance in the World Series.
The best-of-seven matchup now moves to Dodger Stadium for Games 3 through 5, beginning tonight at 8 p.m. ET. Toronto is turning to 41-year-old Max Scherzer for the start tonight against 6-foot-8 righty Tyler Glasnow, who boasts a 0.68 ERA in this post-season. The fiery Scherzer stepped up in Game 4 of the ALCS against Seattle, striking out five over 5⅔ innings for the win and refusing to be pulled at one critical point in the game.
The pitching matchup for Game 4 on Tuesday night will be Toronto's Shane Bieber against two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, who's 2-0 with a 2.25 ERA in his two post-season starts.
2. The CFL playoff matchups are set.
After Hamilton secured first place in the East with a 35-15 victory over league-worst Ottawa on Friday night, the 11-7 Tiger-Cats will enjoy a bye this weekend along with West winner Saskatchewan (12-6) before they host their respective division finals on Nov. 8.
Hamilton will face the winner of the first-round matchup between visiting Winnipeg (10-8) and Montreal (10-8) on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET. Calgary (11-7) visits B.C. on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. ET for the right to travel to Regina next week.
Week 8 of the NFL season saw the league's last remaining winless team get its first victory as the New York Jets outgunned Cincinnati 39-38 despite 106 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns by the Bengals' Canadian running back Chase Brown. Surprising Indianapolis improved to a league-best 7-1 by beating up on Tennessee as star back Jonathan Taylor scored his 12th, 13th and 14 touchdowns before the halfway point of the season. Super Bowl champion Philadelphia upped its record to 6-2 by trouncing the Giants as New York lost exciting rookie back Cam Skattebo to a gruesome dislocated ankle, while Buffalo rebounded from two straight losses to thrash Carolina and get to 5-2. In the Sunday nighter, Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love threw for 360 yards and three TDs to beat Pittsburgh 35-25 and spoil Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers' first game against his former team.
In some sad NFL news, former Jets All-Pro centre Nick Mangold died at the age of 41 from kidney disease. | | | And finally… | | | Celebrate the sports equinox tonight.
In what's become an annual (or sometimes multi-annual) tradition over the last decade, all four major North American men's pro sports leagues have games tonight. While the so-called sports equinox has become increasingly common as the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball continue to stretch out their seasons, this is the only time it happens in 2025.
Luckily, this one is a doozy. Game 3 of the World Series between the Blue Jays and Dodgers will obviously be the focus for most Canadian sports fans, but you can flip over between innings to watch the Raptors face Spurs sensation Victor Wembanyama, or Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs vs. Washington on Monday Night Football. If you have the right cable/streaming package, you can choose from 10 other NBA games, including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder against No. 1 draft pick Cooper Flagg's Dallas Mavericks, or catch the two NHL games on tap tonight: Blues vs. Penguins and Bruins vs. Senators.
Here's a handy guide to tonight's sports equinox from the Athletic. | | | That's it for today. Talk to you later. | | | | Not subscribed? Sign up here to get the Buzzer delivered to your inbox. Got an idea, question, comment or other feedback on the newsletter? Drop us a line at thebuzzer@cbc.ca. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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