It was a spectacular year for Ottawa’s athletes and we are proud to look back on the biggest local sports moments in the Ottawa Sports Pages’ top-23 of ’23.
Several local athletes showed they were the very best in the world in their sports, and nine of the top 10 items on our list featured athletes who reached the international podium at pinnacle competitions, with plenty more sprinkled in between.
We have to start our list by saying it was a darn difficult task to get this list down to just 23 with so many magnificent moments to choose from. And the first item is emblematic of that challenge as we sneak in a bunch of loosely-related moments featuring female athletes excelling on ice (but really because they’re just too good to exclude).
Join us in raising a glass to Ottawa’s best of 2023! Here goes:
23. Ice Queens
Lindsay Eastwood won what proved to be the last Premier Hockey Federation championship with the Toronto Six, as Ottawa was later unveiled as one of the original six franchises in the new Professional Women’s Hockey League. Kelsey Youldon was named MVP of the National Ringette League and Rachel Homan won her record-extending 14th Grand Slam of Curling title last weekend as her rink rose to second in the world rankings.
22. Ruckers rise
A number of Ottawa players have emerged onto rugby national teams, and that’s perhaps no surprise given the enthusiasm the nation’s capital showed for the sport in setting a new attendance record for a Canadian women’s 15s game. Maddy Grant, Olivia De Couvreur, Cody Nhanala, Elias Hancock, Claire Gallagher, Alex Ellis, Conor Keys, Gabe Casey and Sarah Schonfeld were among those who wore the maple leaf this year, while injured Pam Buisa is primed to return in time for the 2024 Olympics.
21. Soccer stars
Annabelle Chukwu scored two extra-time goals to propel Canada to the 2024 FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup, while Vanessa Gilles helped Canada qualify for the Olympics on home soil to headline Ottawa’s international soccer feats this season. The West Ottawa Warriors men’s team also earned the first national title in club history as they captured the Canadian amateur crown, while the Ottawa South United Force will get a chance to play for the first-ever Canadian development leagues title next summer following their Ontario under-14 boys’ title this summer.
20. Narrow Nakkertok win
Trailing heading into the final event, the Nakkertok Nordic Ski Club climbed into the top spot in the standings to claim its 12th consecutive club title at the Nordiq Canada Ski Nationals. It was the club’s smallest margin of victory during that run, but allowed Nakkertok to keep the stream alive heading into the 2024 nationals, which they’ll host in Cantley, QC. Many Nakkertok racers also helped the Carleton University Ravens to a dominant OUA women’s championship win.
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19. Eagles soar at home
The stakes couldn’t have been higher for relief pitcher Reid Maika. His East Nepean Eagles were clinging to a 3-2 lead and their opponents had a runner in scoring position, with a berth in the Little League World Series on the line. It had been more a week since the battle for a national title began, and weather delays had stretched their seventh game to over 3.5 hours. When Maika fielded a tough hopper and threw it to Owen McBane at first for the final out, the Eagles and their hometown crowd exploded for the long-awaited championship victory.
18. 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. But when it did end, all the drama they’d lived through made the triumph just that much more special for the Team Ontario male hockey team, which featured six Hockey Eastern Ontario U18 ‘AAA’ players. That epic hockey finish was the highlight moment of the PEI 2023 Canada Winter Games, where Ottawa athletes won a total of 3 gold, 8 silver and 2 bronze medals.
17. Sharp shooter
The FISU World Student Games kept getting bigger and bigger for University of Ottawa biathlete Shilo Rousseau. Competing nearby in Lake Placid, NY, Rousseau won gold for Canada’s first medal of the Games and added two more podiums before she was finished. She’s since earned a position on the senior national team.
16. OFSAA champs
Students taking a detour on the way back to class from the bathroom is often cause for detention. For Beni Nkongolo, it was the recipe for OFSAA gold. The Immaculata Saints athlete’s unlikely journey to the top of the high jump provincial podium – after only finding out his school had a track team midway through the season, not long after moving to Canada from South Africa – was a standout moment among the 20 local medallists from the OFSAA Track and Field Championships, held in town. Ottawa also hosted OFSAA wrestling, and local teams won several more Ontario crowns elsewhere – Glebe senior boys’ cross-country running, Nepean junior boys and Glebe senior girls nordic skiing, Osgoode Panthers girls’ basketball, and Pierre-Savard curling.
15. Geero d’Italia
Tokyo Olympic track cyclist Derek Gee enjoyed a breakout performance at the Giro d’Italia, earning second-place finishes in four different stages over 21 days of racing at the grand tour event. The 25-year-old also earned the Giro’s Combativity Award for being part of seven breakaways, and was given a hero’s hometown welcome back at the annual Preston Street Criteriums.
14. St. Moritz champagne
Two-time Olympian Mimi Rahneva won the first individual Skeleton World Championships medal of her career on her favourite track at St. Moritz, Switzerland, leaping ahead of two sliders into the bronze medal podium position on the final run. Rahneva also earned the third crystal globe of her career, after finishing third overall in last season’s World Cup standings.
13. Big jump in big air
Matthew Lepine left Canadian summer behind to tackle the snow in New Zealand for the 2023 FIS Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships, and he returned with a huge silver medal performance in the big air event. The 15-year-old is often among the youngest athletes entered in competitions, but his breakout performance at the U19 worlds loudly announced his arrival as a global talent.
12. Paddling prowess
Brianna Hennessy won a pair of medals and secured a Paralympic qualification position at the ICF canoe sprint world championships in Germany. It was a tough season for Hennessy following her mother’s death, but she’s now trying to let her mom’s “superhero spirit” live on. Hennessy joined Sophia Jensen and Maddy Schmidt as the region’s medallists at the worlds, while Zoe and Abby Wojtyk were world junior paddling champions and Ruby Muhl earned the 10th medal of her career at the renowned Olympic Hopes regatta.
11. Momma Morrison
After a 7-year absence from the sport, Gen Morrison made a triumphant return to wrestling and won the Canadian Championships, celebrating atop the podium with her three young children. Nursing injury, she decided to stay home from international competition this season, but the National Capital Wrestling Club athlete recently topped the Canadian Olympic team trials and will take her shot at qualifying for Paris 2024 at the continental championships in the new year.
10. Decorated Special Olympian
With 12 medals already in her possession from two previous Special Olympics World Games appearances, rhythmic gymnast Kimana Mar served as a veteran leader of the Canadian contingent for the 2023 World Games in Berlin. The Ottawa Rhythmic Gymnastics Club athlete went on to add plenty more hardware to her collection at the Games, finishing first overall in the Level 4.1 all-around competition.
9. Boundless Blondin
Ivanie Blondin had her best-ever performance at the world long-track speed skating championships with two gold medals and a silver, pushing Canada to victories in the team sprint and team pursuit along with her second-place performance in the mass start. The 33-year-old continues to win multiple global medals pretty much every weekend she laces ’em up. Now and then, she gets giant trophies too, like when she won the World Cup series overall crown for the mass start.
8. Inspirational Achol
Achol Akot overcame enormous hurdles to represent Canada and earn an NCAA basketball scholarship. The Capital Courts product spent four hours on the bus every day to get to and from Cairine Wilson Secondary School. Akot grew up in low-income housing and nearly left the sport during COVID, not long after her cousin was murdered and her brother was nearly killed too. But she’s since earned an Ontario Scholastic Basketball Association title and bronze medals with Team Ontario and then Team Canada at the U19 world championships. This fall, she’s started all 10 games in her rookie season for the 9-1 University of Central Florida Knights, posting a team-best field goal percentage (52.3%) out of players who have played more than 50 minutes, and she leads the team in rebounds by 40 with 98.
7. Bewildering Brousseau
Julie Brousseau swam circles around the World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships with a sparkling seven-medal performance and propelled herself into Olympic team consideration with a qualifying standard time. The 17-year-old Nepean-Kanata Barracuda led her team with her two-silver, five-bronze haul and contributed to more than half of the 13 Canadian medals won at the junior worlds. She later made her Canadian senior team debut at the Santiago 2023 Pan Am Games, where she pretty much dove straight from the podium into the pool to win another medal minutes later.
6. Peters on point
Eric Peters made a magical run to a silver medal at the World Archery Championships one year outside of the Paris Olympics, to which he secured a Canadian berth thanks to his breakthrough performance. Peters had been slowly climbing the international ladder with four top-10 World Cup performances since 2021, but took down many of the sport’s best en route to the final of the World Championships men’s recurve competition, which featured 167 archers.
5. Bianca breakout
Double medallist Bianca Borgella was Canada’s breakout star of the World Para Athletics Championships just two years after entering competitive track-and-field and one year ahead of the Paris Paralympics. The 20-year-old Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club athlete loudly announced her arrival as one of the best in the world with her women’s 100 metres bronze medal and 200 m silver medal in the T13 category for athletes with visual impairments. “I am stoked. I’m ready to go ahead strong and take home all the medals (at the Paralympics),” Borgella said. “This year I’m happy with bronze and silver, but next year I plan to take home gold.”
4. Goalball gold
Ottawa’s Emma Reinke scored a pair of penalty-throw goals in a 24-second span in the second half to spark Canada to a 4-3 win over the United States in the women’s goalball gold-medal game at the Parapan-American Games in Santiago, Chile. With the win, Canada also seized its last opportunity to qualify for the 2024 Paralympic Summer Games in Paris when it claimed the Americas’ lone Paralympic berth. The Canadians took down a pair of world-class rivals in the playoff round. Brazil, Canada and USA finished 3-4-5 at the International Blind Sports Federation World Games prior to the Parapan event. “This is what we came here to do,” said four-time Paralympian Amy Burk, who was a starter alongside Reinke and fellow Ottawa resident Whitney Bogart. “We’ve been working so hard over these past couple of years and to finally have it all come together is amazing.”
3. Ravens double
The Carleton University Ravens men’s and women’s basketball teams swept their respective U Sports basketball titles within about an hour of each other for the first time in their history this year. The Ravens women upset the Queen’s University Gaels 71-59, while the men prevailed in a thrilling 109-104 record-breaking, double-overtime victory against the St. Francis Xavier University X-Men. Ottawa’s Aidan Warnholtz solidified his spot as one of Carleton’s all-time greats with his performance in the championship game, which included a lunging, three-point basket with three seconds left in regulation as part of his 23-point effort. “He needed to be the go-to guy,” Warnholtz’s former coach Tony House said of the senior guard. “For Carleton to win, he needed to score 20 to 25 points a game. He knew this year was his and he had to step up. I’m definitely not surprised.” The University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women and Ravens men won Ontario titles, the Gee-Gees rugby teams won Quebec championships, Ottawa’s Katie Newlove won the cross-country running race and the Gee-Gees men’s swimmers earned their first-ever national team podium to complete this year’s university sports highlights.
2. Super Schmidts
Hannah and Jared Schmidt had a spectacular finish to 2023 on the World Cup ski cross circuit. The Dunrobin skiers became the first siblings to win World Cup races on the same day at the same site when Hannah claimed her first career title in Arosa, Switzerland and Jared followed moments later with his second consecutive crown. “I screamed, I cried, times two,” reported the Schmidts’ mom, L.A. “It’s just amazing! What a feeling! It’s been such a journey. I need to write a book some day!” Once upon a time, both Schmidts were struggling big-time to break into the top level of the alpine ski world. That started to change once Jared tried his hand at ski cross and later drew his older sister into the sport that originated in the X Games. Jared was fresh off his first World Cup victory coming into the double-triumph day, and in the next race, he and Hannah hit the podium together again.
1. Golden Gaby
Gabriela Dabrowski won all three of her doubles matches to help Canada to its first-ever Billie Jean King Cup world tennis team championship in Spain. Dabrowski had represented Canada in the competition since 2013. “It’s a really great moment for us,” Dabrowski said. “I think playing for a country like Canada, we’re all very proud to do so. We come from a really great nation, we have a lot of great backgrounds and ethnicities. And we’re really grateful to have the chance to play on this stage in front of Billie Jean and in front of everyone who’s come.” The Cup crown came two months after Dabrowski captured her first women’s doubles major championship at the U.S. Open alongside Erin Routliffe. Winning a Grand Slam women’s doubles title represented a major career goal fulfilled for the 31-year-old veteran. “I can retire happy,” Dabrowski indicated. “That’s what it means to me. Not now, but at some point, I can retire relieved.”
Editor’s note: The Ottawa Sports Pages will take a holiday break from publishing, but we look forward to bringing you more great local sports moments come the second week of January. Happy holidays to all our readers and best wishes for a tremendous 2024!