By Adam Beauchemin & Dan Plouffe
A big team of four dozen Ottawa athletes are getting ready to make their mark at the 2025 Canada Summer Games in St. John’s, Nfld., and the Ottawa Sports Pages is gearing up to bring you all the action.
Make sure to subscribe to the free Ottawa Sports Pages email newsletter, which will be sent out daily throughout the Aug. 9-24 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.
Ottawa at the Canada Games Daily Newsletter
Ottawa Sports Pages reporter Keiran Gorsky will be onsite in St. John’s to follow our local athletes’ journeys at the Games, and the Sports Pages team of Martin Cleary, Tyler Reis-Sanford, Farrah Philpot and Dan Plouffe will be back in Ottawa helping to make the magic happen.
Ottawa athletes will be competing in 16 sports at the 16-day national youth multi-sport event – artistic swimming, athletics, baseball, basketball, box lacrosse, canoe/kayak, cycling, diving, rugby, sailing, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, volleyball & wrestling.
Eleven of our local athletes will be holding paddles for St. John’s 2025, led by recently-crowned triple canoe sprint junior world champion Isabel Lowry of the Carleton Place Canoe Club. Seven more will compete in athletics, with many of them having just competed at home during the 2025 Canadian Track and Field Championships.
The Opening Ceremonies are Saturday night as over 5,000 participants from all 13 provinces and territories will gather in St. John’s, with just as many volunteers involved. Half of the athletes will compete during the first week, half on the second.
As always, the road to the Canada Games began on Parliament Hill in Ottawa with a torch-lighting ceremony at the Centennial Flame, igniting the journey for over 130 torchbearers to carry the torch at 15 stops across Newfoundland and Labrador en route to North America’s easternmost city.
“This is so exciting,” said host society board member and five-time Paralympian Katarina Roxon, who light the Roly McLenahan Torch in Ottawa alongside returning Team Newfoundland tennis player Declan Walsh.
“I’ve been a part of this entire process since the very beginning,” Roxon told the Ottawa Sports Pages at the June 11 event. “The fact that the flame is lit, it’s the start of it — the real start of it. It’s coming to life, everything is falling into place. I’m so honoured that I get to be part of this process.”
Canadians who aren’t in St. John’s will be able to see more of these Canada Games than in the past.
CBC/Radio-Canada has become the official broadcaster of the next four Canada Games, “ensuring audiences across Canada will have more access than ever before to this uniquely Canadian multi-sport event for elite young athletes, and to the stories of the people and communities behind the Games,” the CBC wrote in a July 31 announcement, while noting that “all 1,250 hours of coverage will be available to stream on CBC and Radio-Canada platforms.”
Keep in mind that Newfoundland is charmingly one-and-a-half hours ahead of the Eastern time zone if you’re looking to follow a particular competition live.
“I’m a really, really proud Newfie,” Roxon highlighted. “This massive event, where I started my career, is coming to my home province, and the world is going to be able to see our little corner of the world and appreciate it as much as us.”
For better or worse, sport and politics are inextricably linked, and many are calling these Games the most important ones yet, with the chance to build national unity in the face of the ongoing trade war the U.S.
Canada’s Secretary of State for Sport Adam van Koeverden steered clear of jeers during his remarks at the torch lighting, but the Olympic paddling champion did underline the power of sport.
“Sport has an incredible ability to bring us together,” said van Koeverden. “It’s not just the races and results that really matter, it’s the people that you meet and the experiences that you have, it’s the pride that you feel wearing the colour of the places you’re from, and the moments that remind you, this country is really special, this country is really big, and we’re all really lucky to call ourselves Canadian.”
Ottawa at the Canada Games Daily Newsletter
A huge team of 46 Ottawa athletes are set to compete at the St. John’s 2025 Canada Summer Games in Newfoundland. The Ottawa Sports Pages will be sending out a free daily email newsletter with recaps, previews and profiles throughout the Aug. 9-24 national youth multi-sport event.
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