Five years later, the defining faces of New York sports have totally changed, but No. 1 remains the same

It has been five years since the nightmare began.

It was the second week of March 2020 when every major sport suspended play, when the NCAA Tournament was canceled, when life as we knew it was thrown into chaos, into isolation, behind masks. It would be months before sports would return amid the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging in bubbles and empty stadiums, played to crowds of cardboard cutouts.

Somehow, The Post’s sports section continued to fill its pages every day, week after week, month after month. One story during that time selected the top 10 faces in New York sports, as ranked by The Post’s sports department.

But as Mike Vaccaro noted in a companion piece, the 2020 list would likely offer little insight to how the era would be remembered: