Ottawa Sportspage cover story: Bring us the Games!

Diverse members of local sports community unite behind Ottawa’s bid to host 2021 Canada Summer Games

By Sarah Ferguson, Chad Ouellette & Victoria St. Michael

Ottawa officially submitted its bid package to the Canada Games Council’s Riverside Dr. head office on Jan. 31, with those behind the push to host the 2021 Canada Summer Games in the nation’s capital confident that they’ve put together a winning formula to be selected come the formal announcement Mar. 30.

“I think we can host not only something that will be unique, but something that will be remembered for years to come,” says city councillor Mathieu Fleury, an Ottawa Sport Council director.

Featuring 4,600 athletes, coaches and managers across 17 sports, the Games are the largest multi-sport competition in Canada for young athletes. The 2021 edition of the quadrennial event will take place in Ontario, either in Ottawa, Niagara Region, Sudbury or Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge.

Ottawa’s comprehensive bid proposal outlines key venues to be used such as Carleton University – site of the athletes’ village – Lansdowne Park, the University of Ottawa and Nepean Sportsplex, plus many more facilities where national championships have been held, including Terry Fox Athletic Facility, the Rideau Canoe Club, Ottawa Tennis and Lawn Bowling Club, and cycling routes in Ottawa and Gatineau.

“The story at this stage is just how people are coming together to contribute to the bid,” underlines Lindsay Hugenholtz, the general manager of the bid team.

Ottawa 2021 has received support from likes of politicians, sport leaders and volunteers, the athletes themselves and a wide range of community members. The Ottawa Sportspage shines a spotlight on some of those involved.Sue Holloway/Alexandra Joy
Sue Holloway’s Canada Games experience has just about come full circle.

Before she became the first woman to compete in both the Summer and Winter Olympics in the same year (1976), the two-time Olympic medallist competed at the 1971 Canada Winter Games in Saskatoon.

“(The Games) were one of the defining moments in my life as a 15-year-old little skier,” recalls Holloway, the co-chair of the Ottawa 2021 bid alongside Cyril Leeder. “Suddenly I was more than just an individual competing in cross-country skiing. I was part of something much bigger – something really important.”

In 2013, Holloway got to watch her daughter, Alexandra Joy, follow in her footsteps and compete at the Canada Games in Sherbrooke. Joy won two medals in the canoe-kayak competition.

“The Canada Games were a great experience because it is like a mini-Olympics,” highlights Joy. “I was surprised because I didn’t know what to expect going into it. You feel like a superstar.”

Holloway has maintained a prominent role in Ottawa’s sports community in a wide range of volunteer roles, and will receive the Mayor’s Cup for outstanding contribution to local sport at the Feb. 1 Ottawa Sports Awards. That includes involvement in Ottawa’s bid for the 2001 Canada Games, which ultimately were awarded to London.

The only thing left to fully complete her Canada Games circle would be to chair the winning bid.

“If I put myself in the shoes of an aspiring young athlete, I’d know I hit the jackpot, coming to Ottawa for the Canada Summer Games,” adds Holloway.

Derek Kossatz
Derek Kossatz, Ottawa 2021’s sport chair for wrestling, says hosting the Games would be life-changing for the competitors and that Ottawa’s legacy for amateur sports would be “fantastic” should the bid be successful.

Kossatz, who coached one of his athletes at Sherbrooke 2013, works with high school-age athletes seeking to excel nationally and earn university scholarships.

“The problem is that once you get good enough (in wrestling), you have to leave Ottawa,” explains the Tsunami Academy director. “We produce such good athletes, but they all end up moving away because there’s nothing here for them.”

Kossatz hopes that hosting the 2021 Games would change that.

“We’d be getting equipment. We’d be getting mats. We’d be getting everything Ottawa needs to host a national competition,” underlines the part-time coach of the University of Ottawa’s wrestling club. “We need that more than anywhere else.”

Colin Walker
Involved in the Ottawa volleyball scene for 40 years, volleyball sport chair Colin Walker leads a well-oiled local team ready to once again step up and run a major volleyball competition come the Canada Games.

“In our region, we’ve run a lot of national championships, national team exhibition matches, and regional matches,” notes Walker. “We have the experience of running a multi-sport, multi-day event.”

Amongst those Walker can lean on are the likes of Bob O’Doherty, a member of an all-star Ottawa 2021 board of directors, organizer of the 2009 Canadian Volleyball Championships in Ottawa, and senior vice-president of the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games.

Walker is impressed with the bid Ottawa has put together, particularly with two-thirds of venues within a 5 km radius from Carleton U, including his site for beach volleyball on the great lawn of Lansdowne Park.

“The way they have it structured is exceptional, and it is an exceptional opportunity for the athletes because they’ll all be in the village,” signals Walker, athletes will have the freedom to watch any sport they want thanks to the close proximity of venues. “It’s a great opportunity for Ottawa, but I also think that it’s great opportunity for the (Canada Games Council) to give the (Games) to us.”

Jeff Braddon
Jeff Braddon is the sport chair for canoe-kayak, though that sport hasn’t always been a part of his life.

“I didn’t get to experience it as a kid,” notes the Chatham-Kent native. “But my children played a lot of different sports as they were growing up. At one point, I got involved with the Rideau Canoe Club, and it seemed that as soon as they got into paddling, that was the sport they really enjoyed.”

Both his son, Scott, and daughter, Kate, have been on national development teams and are training with the hopes of taking part in this summer’s Canada Games in Winnipeg.

The Rideau Canoe Club provides an excellent setting to shoot for the top levels of sport, while the Canada Games would offer an opportunity to further upgrade the facility with a new starter’s tower, Braddon indicates.

“Ottawa has one of the best sites for hosting regattas, down on Mooney’s Bay,” highlights the past planning committee chair for the 2015 Canadian Canoe-Kayak Championships at Rideau. “We tend to host a lot of them.”

Isabelle Weidemann
Like the Braddon kids are aiming to do this summer, the local brother-sister duo of Jake and Isabelle Weidemann have a family history of their own when it comes to the Canada Games.

The speed skating pair competed in back-to-back Canada Winter Games – Isabelle at Halifax 2011 and Jake at Prince George 2015. They now live together in Calgary, home to Canada’s national long-track program.

“This year was the first time since we were kids that we’ve been able to train together,” signals Isabelle. “It’s been really nice to be able to skate with him more this year.”

Isabelle has been nibbling at the international podium in her second season on the World Cup circuit, but the 21-year-old says her breakout performance at Halifax 2011 remains a defining moment in her speed skating journey.

One of the youngest in the under-20 event at age 15, she earned an impressive 4th-place finish in the women’s 3,000 metres, and decided then that speed skating was her true calling.

“It’s one of the coolest events that an amateur athlete can attend in Canada,” reflects the 2017 nationals double-gold medallist. “It was actually a pretty big turning point in my athletic career.”

While local athletes brought home over 50 medals from the Sherbrooke 2013 Canada Summer Games, Ottawa is home to a fair share of past Canada Winter Games stars too.

Amongst those is a member of the #1 world-ranked women’s curling rink, Emma Miskew, who was on hand to support the Ottawa 2021 bid at the Jan. 12 public event at City Hall. At the 2007 Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse, Miskew won gold alongside Rachel Homan.

Emily Flynn
Count Emily Flynn as another witness to the Canada Games serving as a launching pad for young athletes on their paths to the highest levels of sport.

The Sherbrooke 2013 cycling competitor now rides for The Cyclery and will be honoured as a member of the female team of the year at the Ottawa Sports Awards.

“(In Sherbrooke), I was able to help Ontario bring home two gold medals, and my teammate for that won nationals last year,” Flynn says of Annie Foreman-Mackey, a Cyclery grad now set to begin her pro career with a World Tour team. “It’s cool to see people grow, and how the Canada Summer Games is kind of a springboard for that.

”The 23-year-old would love to have the Games in Ottawa to inspire children to become the next generation of great local athletes.

“Ottawa’s not that big of a city, but it’s Canada’s capital,” Flynn underlines. “Ottawa already has so much to give in terms of facilities, volunteers and in terms of beauty and scenery, but the Canada Games will give so much in return.”

—with files from Dan Plouffe