A huge team of 47 Ottawa athletes competed at the 2023 Canada Winter Games in Prince Edward Island from Feb. 18-Mar. 5. Our coverage of their journeys is all posted here on our Ottawa at the Canada Winter Games central webpage.
Ottawa at the Canada Winter Games Daily Newsletter
Make sure to sign up for the Ottawa Sports Pages email newsletter, which was sent out daily throughout the PEI 2023 Games. With recaps, previews and profiles delivered to your inbox each day of the Games, it’s your easiest way to keep track of our local athletes in action.
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Daily Coverage
The content from our newsletter was also posted on our website later each day:
Final Day: Female hockey team rallies for bronze
Hardly 12 hours after being on the wrong side of the upset of the Games, the Ontario female hockey team claimed a spot on the PEI 2023 podium with a solid 3-1 victory over Quebec in the bronze medal match. “We were really happy to get that bronze,” said Ottawa forward Ashley Allard. READ MORE…
Day 15: Archer wins gold, redemption in team event
Kanata’s Durvishan Thananchayan became a Canada Games archery champion yesterday, but he was the last one to know. That’s because everyone knew that he’d won the recurve mixed team competition but him. “If my opponent was shooting, I’d direct my gaze somewhere else,” he explained. READ MORE…
Day 14: Ontario plows through to hockey medal round
Ottawa’s Mackenzie Clarke, Ashley Allard and Naomi Baechler are moving on to the medal round of the Canada Winter Games female hockey tournament, carnage strewn in their wake. Team Ontario assumed its rightful spot in the final four yesterday in Charlottetown. READ MORE…
Day 13: Rookie wins Canada Games para-alpine silver
The first day James Budrow of Barrhaven got back on skis following the amputation of his foot, he figured he’d go for one run, hopefully learn what he’d need to do to adapt to skiing with a prosthesis so he could get back into the sport he loved, and then come back another day to try again. READ MORE…
Day 12: Barely qualified, skier hits second alpine podium
Louis-Riel high school student Luka McKinlay snuck in as the final qualifier for Quebec’s Canada Winter Games team, but he’s proven to be among the nation’s very best with back-to-back bronze medal wins from a field of 50+ athletes in the male alpine skiing competition. READ MORE…
Day 11: Local skier bags bronze in Quebec’s podium parade
A blue wave swept over Crabbe Mountain near Fredericton, N.B. yesterday as Team Quebec claimed every one of the top-6 positions in the 61-athlete male super-g alpine skiing competition at the 2023 Canada Winter Games, including Ottawa’s Luka McKinlay in third place. READ MORE…
Day 10: Female hockey team seeks to follow golden footsteps
Hockey, hockey and more hockey – that’s the life for a pair of Nepean Wildcats on Ontario’s female hockey team. If not for the Sunday plane ride that forced them to miss one Wildcats contest, it could have been 10 consecutive days of hockey games for Ashley Allard and Noami Baechler. READ MORE…
Day 8: Hockey wins gold after epic 28-minute 3-on-3 OT
A packed house of close to 4,000 fans. The Canada Games gold medal on the line. A comeback from two goals down with 10 minutes left. TWENTY-EIGHT minutes of 3-on-3 overtime. The game that never wanted to end had it all as Team Ontario celebrated an unforgettable championship. READ MORE…
Day 7: Gymnast completes Canada Games with 3 medals
When Cléante Théorêt was 10 or 11, she told her coach her goals. Her coach told her about an event that could be a good fit for what she had in mind. That was the 2023 Canada Winter Games. “I was so young and it was in 2016 – I couldn’t even imagine 2023,” Théorêt reflected seven years later. READ MORE…
Day 6: Freitag surprises everyone with short track silver
When Ottawa Pacers short track speed skater Matthew Freitag passed Alexis Bélanger, then Samuel Darveau, then crossed the line with a scream and hug for teammate and now-gold medalist Adam Law, he hadn’t just surprised everyone watching. He also surprised himself. READ MORE…
Day 5: Gold medal dreams come true for gymnast Théorêt
When Cléante Théorêt was 10 or 11, she told her coach her goals. Her coach told her about an event that could be a good fit for what she had in mind. That was the 2023 Canada Winter Games. “I was so young and it was in 2016 – I couldn’t even imagine 2023,” Théorêt reflected seven years later. READ MORE…
Day 4: Iman Shaheen brings home Ottawa’s first medal
Ottawa athletes landed on the podium twice on the second day medals were awarded at the PEI 2023 Canada Winter Games, with gymnast Cléante Théorêt earning team gold and squash player Iman Shaheen breaking the ice with bronze. Shaheen, 17, won her medal in the female individual event. READ MORE…
World champion curler Craig Savill gives back as volunteer
As a financial advisor, Craig Savill knows about diversification. It’s the same on the athletic side of his life today, as he remains an athlete, continues to be a coach and has gladly assumed the role of volunteer. He is a four-time world curling champion, with two junior and two senior men’s titles. READ MORE…
Day 3: Poor conditions threaten biathlon, freestyle skiing
Yesterday was a bad day for outdoor winter sports. Thanks to a storm system dumping rain and elevating temperatures in PEI, Canada Games organizers had to postpone multiple events, including freestyle skiing. Speed Skating practices at the Halifax oval were also cancelled. READ MORE…
Day 2: Ottawa athletes get first-day jitters out of the way
Despite all her family’s accomplishments, none of Aila Thompson’s relatives had ever been to a Canada Winter Games. Her entire family plays curling, a trend that started with her grandpa on her dad’s side. Cousin Lindsay Dubue is currently competing at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. READ MORE…
Day 1: Ottawa overload on Team Ontario as PEI 2023 begins
Ottawa’s contingent is huge. We’ve got 2.5 times as many representatives on Team Ontario as you’d expect. Based on population, we should have 18 members of the 252-athlete delegation, but instead we’ve got a whopping 46 (plus a Mont-Tremblant club skier on Team Quebec). READ MORE…
Pre-Games Profiles
Read our Series of pre-Games stories on participating local athletes by clicking on the links below.
Squash: Second Canada Games a big step in Iman Shaheen’s evolving squash career
Medals and memories will be two of the most important measuring sticks for athletes at the Canada Winter Games. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most, but if you’re Ottawa squash player Iman Shaheen, the Canada Games will be a significant achievement in her life for a second time. READ MORE…
Archery: Once imaginary play, archery takes Kanata athlete to Canada Games
One of the best periods in life is when we are young and our creativity is bursting with energy. Our imaginations dart this way and that way and our minds are in constant motion. Kanata’s Durvishan Thananchayan knows what that’s all about – that’s how his pursuit of archery started. READ MORE…
Wheelchair Basketball: Des O’Shaughnessy fast breaks to Canada Games
As a young boy, Des O’Shaughnessy experienced more than his fair share of concussions. Some of those head injuries came from hockey. Other times, he would get concussed during other activities, such as taking a ride on an amusement park rollercoaster. READ MORE…
Curling: Ava Acres curling rink on upswing entering Canada Winter Games
Welcome to Ava Acres’ rollercoaster curling season. A first-year skip of the RCMP Curling Club’s women’s U18 rink that she inherited from her sister Emma, Acres has experienced plenty of highs and lows of winning and learning this season, with more to come next week in PEI. READ MORE…
Cross-country skiing: Kanata Nordic’s Helen McCulligh started late, but comes on strong
The racing was tough. The wait was even worse. After cross-country skier Helen McCulligh of Kanata had completed her Ontario trials races early last month, the waiting, worrying and wondering filled that void. Did she ski well enough to qualify for her first Canada Winter Games? READ MORE…
Biathlon: Biathletes’ journeys to Canada Games began as 7-year-old jackrabbit classmates
Ella Niedre describes biathlon as a sport of polar opposites. She’s skiing at full speed one moment, then stopping to precisely shoot a rifle the next. Her body is shaking, but when she stops to shoot the target, everything else needs to stop. It’s like jumping from a hot tub to an ice bath. READ MORE…
Hockey: Mackenzie Clarke out to avenge brother Brandt’s loss at last Canada Winter Games
To call the Clarkes a hockey family would be an understatement. Graeme Clarke, 21, is a New Jersey Devils draft pick. Brandt Clarke, 19, was claimed by the Los Angeles Kings. Their cousins play. Their dad played. Their grandparents played too. Naturally, Mackenzie Clarke laces ’em up as well. READ MORE…
Freestyle/Alpine: Mogul skier goes from wowed spectator to Canada Games competitor
Aaron Turnau was a wide-eyed nine-year-old when he first saw a moguls skiing competition taking place at Calabogie Peaks, but he decided right then and there that that was the sport for him. He signed up with Freestyle Calabogie and began competing two years later. READ MORE…
Speed Skating: Lifelong speed skating friends headed to Canada Winter Games together
They met in Ottawa, then all headed west. Now, after 10 years of friendship, they’re headed farther east to the Canada Winter Games. Long-track speed skaters Rachel Mallard, Daria Vogt and Brielle Durham seem to do everything together and these Feb. 18-Mar. 5 Games are no exception. READ MORE…
Ringette: 10 Ottawa ringette players form majority of Ontario’s Canada Games team
It was only six years ago that Rachel Steckly stopped playing ringette. Now 18, Steckly was forced to bow out of her favourite sport at age 12 after suffering too many concussions. Her parents put her in other sports, like swimming and horseback riding. She even tried her hand at synchronized figure skating. READ MORE…
Team Ottawa
Meet the 47 athletes from Ottawa competing at the PEI 2023 Canada Winter Games:
