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Maybe a Mazda commercial that airs dozens of times a night on sports broadcasts and a country’s infatuation with memories of her at the London Olympics will do that: unknit the brow, let the eyes sparkle a bit.

Whatever causes it, this business of letting the public just a little way inside that fiercely competitive shell is not a bad thing. Not bad at all.

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Why should I care about Christine Sinclair?

She is the most successful soccer player this country has ever produced, male or female, and is among the best to have ever played in the women’s game. Now 31, Sinclair made her international debut as a 16-year-old, and has scored 153 goals while wearing a maple leaf on her chest. Only two players have scored more, and both of those players had the benefit of playing on American teams blessed with deeper, more talented rosters: Abby Wambach (182 goals) and Mia Hamm (158). No other Canadian player is close. Off the field, Sinclair is quiet, polite and pathologically humble. “You see her interacting with the young fans, she’s never turning them away for an autograph,” said long-time soccer analyst Dick Howard. “Really, you probably wish that everybody had a daughter like Christine Sinclair.”

So, she is pretty good, then?



Even Pellerud is the former Canadian team coach now working the sidelines for Norway, and Sportsnet magazine recently asked him how he would stop Sinclair if the teams met on the field at the World Cup. “I will tie a rope around Christine,” he said. “I’ve already packed it.” Sinclair can change the air in a stadium with the ball at her feet, thickening it with anticipation, or jolting it with electricity. She is thin and strong, with piercing blue eyes that can deaden, like a shark’s, when she attacks. In 2012, Sinclair scored 23 goals, which is a good career for some of the best Canadian players. That was the year she was awarded the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s top athlete, becoming the first soccer player to win. Sinclair has filled a room with awards. She is on Canada’s Walk of Fame. She is on a postage stamp. And in 2013, she received an honorary degree from Simon Fraser University. “Soccer is my vision,” she told the crowd. “And it is my joy.”