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We’d like to start this Ottawa Sports Pages end-of-year review with some great end-of-year news for the Ottawa Sports Pages: we’ve been named a finalist for three Canadian Online News Publishing awards!
We have been chosen among the final five in a trio of categories honouring media work for 2024:
• Best Feel Good Story
for 35-year-old mother of 3 Gen Morrison chasing an Olympic wrestling berth
• Best Multicultural Story
for an Inclusion in Sport story on Ottawa’s BGC Thunderbolts making big noise through basketball
• Best Continuing Coverage of a Story
for our Ottawa at the Paralympics coverage
“I’m so pleased with all of our team’s amazing work this year,” shares Ottawa Sports Pages executive director Dan Plouffe. “It’s especially nice to be recognized in categories that aren’t necessarily sports-specific. We love the drama of a great game of course, but we definitely take pride in telling stories that dig deeper than the boxscore.”
Among the other COPA finalists nominated in those categories are CBC British Columbia for their Asian Heritage Month coverage, The Narwhal on how Nipissing First Nation is healing environmental damage, and the Investigative Journalism Foundation of Canada’s investigative series and database on government procurement.
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It’s been an award-winning year already for OSP, with High Achievers columnist Martin Cleary earning the Ontario University Athletics’ Media Member of Distinction honour.
But of course we’ve still got some competitive fire burning for more – we’ll find if we’ve made the podium for COPA gold, silver or bronze awards in February.
Now, on with the show as we present:
The Top-24 Local Sports Moments of 2024!
Maybe our hardest job of the year is getting this list down to just 24 items when Ottawa’s athletes continue to do bigger and bigger things in the province, the country and around the globe (and please forgive us in advance for sneaking a few related stories into one moment…)
The first four moments on our list go to national champions from Ottawa, which speaks to the quality of our local athletes’ accomplishments in 2024. It was of course an Olympic and Paralympic year, and we loved following 26 Ottawa athletes as they competed at the Paris 2024 Summer Games. Let’s take a look at some of those standout stories:
24. Historic Hawks
In advance of flag football’s debut at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, the young Ottawa Hawks girls’ flag football teams earned Ontario and Canadian championships, and their local girls’ and women’s programs attracted more that 500 players.
23. Great golfer
Isaiah Ibit concluded his junior golf journey with the biggest prize of his budding golf career when he celebrated a comeback win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Boys Championship. The Camelot Golf and Country Club player also made his international golf debut for Canada in 2024 before heading to Kent State University to play NCAA golf.
22. Lacrosse craziness
Nepean Knights product Connor Nock got the revenge he never wanted in winning a Minto Cup Canadian Jr. ‘A’ lacrosse title this summer. After he and several other local players were banned from playing in Ontario this season under “really filthy and disappointing” circumstances (in the view of their old Nepean coach), Nock joined the Coquitlam Adanacs and wound up beating the team that lodged a complaint about a clerical error that led to the ban. Nock was one of several local lacrosse champs this year, including a Gloucester Lady Griffins pair who won provincial gold and national bronze in back-to-back weeks.
21. PK King
When Ottawa South United Force goalkeeper Aidan De Hartog won a national championship in penalty-kicks this summer, he said “it was a crazy feeling that I don’t think I’ll ever feel again.” It turned out that he makes a better goalie than a prophet, because in the fall, he wound up winning two more provincial championships in penalty-kicks, on the same day no less.
De Hartog was behind three of the many crowns won by OSU this season, including the first all-Ottawa Ontario Player Development League Charity Shield final between the Force U17 girls and Ottawa TFC. The Gloucester Celtic also became Canadian champions in soccer this season when they won the Challenge Trophy as national men’s amateur champs.
20. Fab Summer
Ottawa’s Fabienne Blizzard brought back experience, a silver medal, a top coach award and led Canada to its best-ever performance at the FIBA U17 Women’s World Cup in Mexico. “Let’s make history” was the team’s rallying cry from the start of the summer, highlighted Blizzard, who had two of her Capital Courts Academy players along for the ride in Rachael Okokoh and Jahda Denis.
19. Rugby runners-up
It was already a special season when four local rugby products helped power the Canadian women’s team to its first-ever 15s victory over the vaunted New Zealand Black Ferns to win the 2024 Pacific Four Series. And then as hosts of the WXV world championships, they made it to the final before falling to England. Ottawa hosted a Canadian men’s team match against Scotland this year, which was a full-circle moment for Stittsville’s Conor Keys, a Major League Rugby champion with the New England Freejacks who watched his first rugby game nearly 20 years ago between Canada and Scotland in Ottawa.
18. Magic Mom
“If I really liked running, maybe I would have just signed up for a marathon,” said Gen Morrison. But wrestling was in her blood, so when Morrison wanted to get back into shape after the birth of her third child, returning to the mats in her sport of choice sparked a fire in the 35-year-old and it led her to the doorstep of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games after she reemerged as a Canadian champ, having travelled a completely different road than she did eight years earlier in pursuit of the Rio 2016 Olympics.
17. Back-to-back
Early in 2024, Hannah Schmidt won back-to-back World Cup ski cross races on home snow in Nakiska, AB. “It’s awesome coming down with the home crowd cheering,” Schmidt said. “I don’t think there’s anything like it in the world.” Despite missing the last three tour stops due to injury, Schmidt nevertheless earned a career-best fourth-place overall finish in last season’s World Cup standings.
16. Legends’ legacies
Ottawa bid farewell to two of its most accomplished athletes of this generation, as both skeleton slider Mirela Rahneva and wrestler Erica Wiebe officially retired in 2024. Rahneva scored the last of five career World Cup wins in February and retired with two Olympic appearances, a world championships medal, and a legacy of advocacy for the next generation of Canadian sliders.
Wiebe was a Rio 2016 Olympic champion, and once she formally retired in the spring, the career accolades followed quickly. She was honoured in her hometown as Ottawa hosted the Canadian Wrestling Championships, and then was part of the first class of inductees into the freshly-rebranded Stittsville Sports Hall of Fame.
Canadian women’s goalball team veteran Whitney Bogart also retired this year following her fourth appearance at the Paralympics.
15. Olympians overcome injuries
Sam Zakutney and Regan Rathwell compete in totally different sports – gymnastics and swimming, respectively – but what links the local athletes together is the serious injuries they overcame just a short time before making their Olympic debuts in Paris.
Zakutney missed the Olympic qualifiers with a ruptured pectoral muscle, but the Canadian men’s artistic gymnastics team earned an Olympic berth and the 25-year-old from Ottawa wound up returning in time to help the Canadian men to their best-ever Olympic finish.
Rathwell surprised many – including herself – when she claimed an Olympic berth at the Canadian team trials, not long removed from undergoing four surgeries in 14 months. The 20-year-old made her Olympic debut alongside 18-year-old Julie Brousseau, also of Ottawa.
14. Single-arrow shootout
Ottawa archer Eric Peters earned a victory of the most epic variety during his Olympic debut in Paris. Tied after the regulation portion of his elimination match with Dhiraj Bommadevara of India, the 27-year-old ate up the energy of an enthusiastic crowd and an in-stadium announcer who fully embraced the opportunity to build the suspense of the single-arrow, closest-to-the-centre shootout to decide who moves on. Peters stepped up and fired his shot from 70 metres away, and landed just 36.1 mm from the middle to move on. The Olympics were “an experience of a lifetime” for Peters, who went on to finish in a tie for ninth.
13. Grand entrance
Trinity Lowthian turned many heads with her history-making debut on the Paralympic stage, but the 22-year-old wheelchair fencer from Stittsville wasn’t certain if she’d be back for a future Games. The Paralympic rookie who continues to battle a myriad of health challenges recorded Canada’s best wheelchair fencing result of all-time at the Paralympics when she made an improbable charge at a podium placement before taking fifth – just two years into her fencing career.
12. Fantastic fourth
Nineteen-year-old Nepean-Ottawa Diving Club product Kate Miller was both pleased and heartbroken to finish fourth in her Olympic debut as she and partner Caeli McKay were part of a nail-biting finish to the women’s 10-metre platform synchronized diving event. Miller and McKay gave a teary interview with CBC after the event, as they felt the full sting of finishing one place off the podium, but still acknowledged what an accomplishment it was for the pair who only joined forces last year. For Miller, making it to the Olympics was already a wild feat.
11. High school heroes
Ottawa high school athletes and teams earned a pile of provincial prizes in 2024, but we’ll have to give the top moment of the bunch to Daniel Cova for his hometown victory in the final race of his high school cross-country running career. The Grade 12 Louis-Riel Rebelles runner took the lead within the first kilometre of the senior boys’ 6 km provincial final and never gave it up, to conclude the OFSAA Cross-Country Running Championships in spectacular fashion.
It was a big year for the Rebelles as they captured OFSAA titles in girls’ hockey (in overtime against the tournament hosts), in boys’ volleyball, and in alpine skiing. Also making high school headlines were Béatrice-Desloges for their school’s first OFSAA girls’ volleyball victory, new Canadian Vedant Sardeshpande schooling the competition at OFSAA badminton, Merivale winning its first OFSAA girls’ field hockey medal, and Ashbury’s boys’ basketball brothers standing strong together despite their OFSAA championship game defeat in town.
The Ottawa Sports Pages’ 2024 High School Best Series also highlighted some great local grads headed on to the next level in their sports.
10. Hometown hosts
As we enter the top-10, we bring you another compilation category full of memorable moments from Canadian championships held in the nation’s capital in 2024, made that much more special thanks to the success of the hosts. Ottawa ultimate players helped Canada capture silver and bronze at the World Junior Championships, and then completed the full colour set of medals with a golden sweep of both the open and women’s nationals on their home field in Manotick.
Bolstered by repeat medal wins from Owen Siderius and Clara Hegan on the final day of competition, Nakkertok Nordic cruised to a 13th-straight Canadian club title on its home course at the 2024 Nordiq Canada Ski Nationals.
The final rock delivered at the Canadian Under-18 Curling Championships was about as storybook as you could have scripted it, as Ava Acres made the deciding shot to achieve her RCMP Curling Club rink’s goal of a podium performance.
Ottawa athletes also earned medals at hometown orienteering nationals, gymnastics provincials and wrestling nationals.
9. French feast
Derek Gee slots in on our list at #9, but we’ll have to concede that his ninth-place finish at the Tour de France was probably the one he savoured a bit more. In his debut on cycling’s grandest stage, Gee finished third in the seventh of 21 stages and was remarkably able to maintain a top-10 standing in the general classification come the finish of the epic endurance test.
The 27-year-old later rode alongside fellow Ottawa cyclist Mike Woods at the Olympics in the men’s road race. Woods experienced “a big moment of catharsis” when he won a stage at the Vuelta a España later in his challenging season. Carter deVeer also made his mark in cycling as the Grade 10 student won the U17 Canadian Cyclo-cross Championships title.
8. Ravens heroines
A repeat national championship season for the Carleton University Ravens women’s basketball team headlined a slew of success for local post-secondary schools in 2024. The Ravens, who had an all-guard starting-five roster, rallied from a four-point deficit after three quarters to defeat the University of Saskatchewan Huskies 70-67 in the national final.
Dani Sinclair (coach of the year) and Kali Pocrnic (tournament MVP) earned national awards, and were also part of a four-player Ravens team that represented Canada and won the FISU America women’s 3×3 basketball championship in Argentina.
Also hitting the national podium this year were the Algonquin College Wolves men’s soccer team (silver), the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women’s rugby and women’s soccer teams (both bronze), and several Ottawa athletes at the U Sports swimming and track-and-field championships.
7. Mind-blowing Blondin
Ivanie Blondin likes to be busy at all times, and that’s certainly the case whenever she competes in World Cup or World Championships speed skating meets. With an always-packed schedule of individual and team events, multi-medal weekends have become the norm for the 33-year-old.
This year, Blondin got to compete at a World Cup close to home in Quebec City for the first time, and told the Ottawa Sports Pages that the more time she spends racing, the less time she spends worrying, and it’s proven to be a winning formula, alongside years of training of course. Blondin went on to win a trio of medals on home ice at the World Championships in Calgary, while Isabelle Weidemann earned a pair herself to put a bow on a tough season.
6. Overthrow on ice
Tyrone Henry and Rob Armstrong celebrated their 100th international appearances for Team Canada and savoured their first victory over the United States in a big number of them as they helped Canada to a gold medal at the May 4-12 para ice hockey world championships in Calgary. Fellow Sledge Hockey of Eastern Ontario product Anton Jacobs-Webb scored the tournament-winning goal in the 2-1 championship game as Canada ended USA’s streak of three consecutive world titles and a pair of Paralympic crowns.
Jamie Lee Rattray also celebrated a world women’s hockey championship victory over USA this year. Jessica Cheung earned a bronze medal at the U18 women’s hockey worlds, while her Ottawa Lady Sens teammate Grace Outwater had a 50-goal season in the Ontario Women’s Hockey U22 Elite League.
5. Rally the nation
In a review of Canadian sports in 2024, it’s impossible to avoid mention of the drone scandal that engulfed the Canadian women’s soccer team at the Olympics. But in the face of their staff’s betrayal, a disheartened fanbase and a six-point penalty, Vanessa Gilles reminded Canada of the players who were impacted most by the scandal. After scoring the deciding goal in a must-win game against host France, the Team Canada defender shed led on the whirlwind she and her teammates has endured.
“We haven’t slept in the last three days. We haven’t eaten. We’ve been crying,” Gilles detailed in an unforgettable post-game interview with CBC. “I wouldn’t say they are ideal performing situations, but we’ve held each other through it and we’ve had absolutely nothing to lose.
“What’s given us energy is each other and our determination and our pride to prove people wrong, our pride to represent this country when all this sh** is coming out about our values, about our representation as Canadians. It’s not us. Like I’ve said time and time again, we’re not cheaters. We’re damn good players, we’re a damn good team, we’re a damn good group and we’ve proven that today.”
But one heroic game winner at the Olympics was not enough for Gilles, who reprised her role in the next match, the 28-year-old hammered home a header to break a scoreless tie against Colobmia. Canada advanced to the playoff round against all odds before falling to Germany in penalty-kicks in the quarter-finals.
On Friday, Gilles was named Canada Soccer’s women’s player of the year, while fellow Louis-Riel high school grad Jonathan David was named Canada’s men’s player of the year (look for more coverage on that this week).
David hit a milestone 100 goals for pro club Lille and retook the lead as the Canadian men’s national team’s all-time leading scorer. Annabelle Chukwu also made history this season when she overtook legend Christine Sinclair as Canada’s all-time youth leading scorer.
4. Sprint sensations
Ottawa had its fingerprints all over an unforgettable night for Canadian track and field at the Stade de France on Aug. 10. Lauren Gale ran the critical leg that launched the Canadian women’s 4×400-metre relay team into its third consecutive Olympic final, Jacqueline Madogo helped the young Canadian women’s 4×100 m relay team to a solid finish, and 1996 Olympic men’s 4×100 m relay champion Glenroy Gilbert guided a new group to Olympic glory 28 years later.
With Ottawa’s Eliezer Adjibi as alternate, the quartet of Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney and Andre De Grasse produced the most memorable moment in the mind of many Canadians from the Paris Olympics as they became the first Canadian team to win the men’s 4×100 m since their coach did it alongside Robert Esmie, Bruny Surin and Donovan Bailey 28 years ago in Atlanta.
“Being in the stadium, being able to see that, I couldn’t believe what I was watching,” Gilbert smiled during an interview with CBC. “These guys believed in each other. The plan was just to come out here and go after it, full-tilt, no excuses, leave the track having poured everything out on the track.”
Madogo’s meet kept on getting better and better. The 24-year-old entered the Paris Games with only four seasons of competitive sprinting under her belt, and wound up setting two individual personal-bests and contributing to a new national women’s 4×100 m relay record.
Jorai Oppong-Nketiah, 16, also served notice this year that she’ll be one to watch for the next Canadian Olympic relay team. The Ottawa Lions athlete won the Canadian U20 championship in 11.39 (and she ran faster at 11.38 in heats) – a time would have placed her third in the senior women’s category at the Canadian Olympic team trials.
3. Paris podium
It was a history-making year on multiple fronts for Gaby Dabrowski, who won the lone medal out of Ottawa athletes at the Paris Olympic Games. Dabrowski and her partner Felix Auger-Aliassime won the mixed doubles bronze medal game against the Netherlands’ Wesley Koolhof and Demi Schuurs in straight sets 6-3, 7-6 (2), to fulfill a childhood dream.
Dabrowski noted that the Olympics were “everything” in her household growing up, and that she treasures the opportunity to play for Canada.
“It means a kid like me, growing up with an immigrant parent who’s pushing them to do as well as they can in their sport, but for what reason? To have exposure to a different life, to make friends from all around the world,” reflected Dabrowski, who won a Billie Jean King Cup world team title with Canada last year.
“It’s just so much bigger than yourself,” she added. “To be in a position where I can give back and represent and do it alongside some unbelievable athletes, I can’t ask for anything more.”
The Olympic appearance was the middle event of three big ones for Dabrowski. In the space of a month, Dabrowski played in the Wimbledon final in London, won the first Olympic medal of her career in Paris, and then rushed home to make it to another final at the National Bank Open in Toronto, although she fell ill by the end of it.
Before the year was done, Dabrowski became the first Canadian to win a Women’s Tennis Association Final as she and women’s doubles partner Erin Routliffe won five straight matches to capture the top prize of $1.125 million in Saudi Arabia.
Dabrowski finished 2024 – her 25th year since she first picked up the sport in Blossom Park – ranked a career-high No. 3 in the world for women’s doubles.
And then on New Year’s Eve, she revealed in a lengthy Instagram post that she’d been battling breast cancer throughout the year, but she was now healthy thanks to early detection and treatment.
2. Maple leaf model
In November 2014, Brianna Hennessy was crossing the street in Toronto while at a work conference when she was struck by a taxicab and knocked unconscious.
When she woke up, she learned that the highest vertebra in her neck was broken, one of the main arteries to her brain was severed, and that she was tetraplegic.
“I had to choose to survive when I was in the hospital,” Hennessy recalled. “When something bad happens, you only have three choices: you can let it define you, you can let it destroy you, or you can find a way to let it strengthen you.
“And for me, the third was my only option. The resiliency – I’ve learned through sports.”
On Sept. 8, 2024, Hennessy’s decision to live on was rewarded in a way that she could have never even dreamed of while in hospital.
A day removed from capturing Canada’s first-ever para canoe Games medal, the 39-year-old paraded the maple leaf flag at the Stade de France as the Canadian Paralympic team’s Closing Ceremonies flag bearer – an inspiration to young paddlers, female athletes, people with disabilities, 40 million Canadians, and the human spirit.
Hennessy was “bawling my eyes out” at the news of such a “meaningful” honour, and to “even be considered for this among so many incredible athletes,” she recounted to the Ottawa Sports Pages.
Despite unfavourable conditions on race day, Hennessy paddled confidently to the podium in the women’s va’a canoe 200 metres by a very safe margin, earning the silver medal.
Back in Ottawa, Hennessy inspired a group of three dozen supporters to rise out of bed in the wee hours to gather in a portable at the Ottawa River Canoe Club, and when the Tim Hortons coffee gave way to the celebratory champagne at 6 a.m., the early rise was more than worth it.
“It’s pretty exciting to see this place packed at 5:30 a.m.,” smiled L.A. Schmidt, who co-founded ORCC with husband Bevin 22 years ago. “Bri is such an inspiration at our club – for anybody really, but in particular our young women have supported her, driven her, and she’s included them in everything in her journey.”
On the 10th life-versary of her injury, Hennessy was en route to the Pan American para canoe championships in Argentina, and just after being honoured by Parliament, she went back to Paris and won a silver medal at the Women’s Cup international wheelchair rugby tournament.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever stop,” laughed the 40-year-old.
1. Highest Homan
In a Summer Games year, when an Ottawa athlete carries the maple leaf at a Closing Ceremonies, how on earth can anybody possibly top that on our list? Well, it takes just about the best curling season anyone’s ever had to do it.
The Rachel Homan Ottawa Curling Club rink set a new standard for excellence in their ever-increasingly competitive sport in 2024, winning just about everything there is to win, including Grand Slam, Scotties and world titles.
In early December, Team Homan increased its record for career Grand Slam of Curling titles to 17 when they won their 23rd game in a row to bring their season record to 40-2 at that point.
That came on the heels of a 67-7 season in 2023-24 for Homan, who plays with fellow Ottawa native Emma Miskew alongside teammates Tracy Fleury and Sarah Wilkes.
The big highlight was winning Canada’s first world curling title since 2018, when Team Homan won 11 consecutive games to start the tournament and downed four-time reigning-champion Switzerland in the championship game.
In contrast to their last world title in Beijing, Team Homan enjoyed getting to celebrate with many family and friends in front of a full house of over 4,000 Canadian fans in Sydney, N.S.
“Unbelievable. I can’t describe the feeling,” Homan said. “The work we put in and the success we had to finish up the season (like this) means everything to us.”
Season’s greetings
That’s a wrap on our review of 2024, although Homan will be back in action before year’s end to potentially get started on some more big feats for 2025. She’ll be competing in the 2025 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials from Dec. 30-Jan. 4 in Liverpool, N.S., as will fellow two-time Olympian Lisa Weagle of Ottawa.
Homan will be competing with Brendan Bottcher, while Weagle is paired with John Epping. Streaming for the Trials will be available on Curling Canada’s YouTube channel.
Of course, the World Junior Hockey Championships are also a favourite for holiday viewing, and this year Ottawa fans can watch it live at Lansdowne and the CTC. As noted in the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame’s Ottawa Sport History Highlight feature, there are several local players to cheer on in Team Canada colours too.
And if you’re looking for some holiday reading (or a last-minute gift for the local sports lover on your list), may we suggest a memoir by five-time Paralympic medallist Jason Dunkerley called Visions of Hope: Running Towards My Own Truth.
OK, full disclosure, that endorsement comes without haven’t actually read the book yet, but we’ll look forward to bringing you a review in the new year.
Our Ottawa Sports Pages team will be giving the keyboard a little holiday rest until the week of Jan. 6, but in the meantime, our full daily coverage of Ottawa at the Olympics and Ottawa at the Paralympics is also worth reliving if you can’t get enough of our year in review.
Thank you so much for joining us this year – happy holidays and best wishes for 2025 to you and yours!