Remembering the Queen's brushes with sports

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Queen Elizabeth II, who died yesterday at the age of 96, reigned over Great Britain and the Commonwealth for 70 years. Though she wasn't much of an athlete (that's not really in the job description for a monarch), Her Majesty had many notable brushes with the sports world during her seven decades on the throne — some involving Canadian athletes. Here are a few:

The Queen drops the puck

As part of her Golden Jubilee celebration in 2002 marking 50 years on the throne, Elizabeth II visited Canada and attended an NHL pre-season game between the Vancouver Canucks and San Jose Sharks on Oct. 6. Wayne Gretzky (probably the closest thing to Canadian royalty) walked her out on the red carpet to centre ice, where the Queen performed the ceremonial puck drop with Canucks captain Markus Naslund and Sharks captain Mike Ricci. She was also joined on the red carpet by Ed Jovanovski and Cassie Campbell, both wearing the Olympic hockey gold medals they'd won with Canada earlier that year in Salt Lake City. Gretzky and others autographed the puck, which now lives in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle.

This was Elizabeth II's first time at an NHL game in more than a half century, and her first as Queen. In 1951, when she was still Princess Elizabeth, she attended a game in Montreal and a brief charity exhibition at Maple Leaf Gardens between Toronto and Chicago. Learn more about the Queen's Vancouver faceoff by watching this video:

WATCH | Examining the Queen's famous puck drop at a Canucks game in 2002:

Opposites attract

Brash Canadian swimming star Victor Davis and the stoic Queen didn't