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Newsletter by Dan Plouffe, Keiran Gorsky, Martin Cleary, Adam Beauchemin, Tyler Reis-Sanford & Farrah Philpot
The 2025 Canada Summer Games officially opened on Saturday night in Newfoundland, and proudly waving the Ontario flag at the Mary Browns Centre St. John’s was local athlete Isabel Lowry.
Lowry has rapidly become one of the province’s best-known youth athletes, and not just because she was able to keep pace with Summer McIntosh in the water once upon a time, reports the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Keiran Gorsky in a pre-Games feature.
When there was little likelihood of competition during COVID, it was a special kind of torture throwing herself into the pool following a 4 a.m. wakeup, so she switched her focus to paddling, which had better prospects as an outdoor sport on water.
The 17-year-old’s transition has proven spectacularly successful. Lowry is just two weeks removed from a triple-gold medal performance at the world junior canoe sprint championships in Portugal.
“I have so many big emotions, especially in this last two weeks — from not knowing where I fit on the world stage, to coming here and realizing: you guys actually know who I am? You want me as a flag bearer? What? This is surreal,” the Carleton Place Canoe Club athlete reflected shortly after being given the news of her flag bearer selection. “It really is an honour.”
Lowry carried the flag on behalf of the province’s 514-member delegation (including staff and coaches).
A big team of four dozen Ottawa athletes are among that group, and the Ottawa Sports Pages is all geared up to bring you all the action from the Aug. 10-24 competitions.
Our free newsletter will be delivered to subscribers each night with profiles, recaps and previews and posted later at OttawaSportsPages.ca.
Ottawa at the Canada Games Daily Newsletter
By clicking on the submit button, you consent to receive the above newsletter from the Ottawa Sports Pages. You may unsubscribe by clicking on the link at the bottom of our emails. Ottawa Sports Pages | 21 Kolo Dr., Ashton, Ont., K0A 1B0 | 613-261-5838
All about the Canada Summer Games and what we’ve got in store
Over 5,000 participants from all 13 provinces and territories are gathering in St. John’s, with just as many volunteers involved.
These are the 15th Canada Summer Games and 30th overall (including 15 Winter editions).
The Canada Games alternate between Summer and Winter with a similar quadrennial schedule as the Olympic Games. The first Games were held in 1967 to mark Canada’s centennial.
The road to the Canada Games always begins on Parliament Hill in Ottawa – you can check out Adam Beauchemin’s coverage of this year’s torch-lighting ceremony at the Centennial Flame here.
Half the sports on the programme take place in the first week of the Games, and the other half the next.
The age categories vary by sport, but generally speaking, athletes are in their late teenage years or early 20s. The Canada Games often provide young participants a first taste of a multi-sport games and allow them to gain experience on the road to representing Canada at senior-level games.
Many Canadian Olympians competed at Canada Games before making it to sport’s biggest stage. A pair of local athletes who competed at the Niagara 2022 Games made the Canadian Olympic team just two summers later – swimmer Julie Brousseau and sprinter Eliezer Adjibi – so we’re very excited to see which stars might emerge from the group we’ll be meeting in the coming weeks.
We’re especially excited to have an Ottawa Sports Pages reporter onsite for the St. John’s 2025 Games to follow our rising local stars. Keiran Gorsky will be following our local athletes’ journeys at the Games, while 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.
All about Team Ottawa
In total, Ottawa has representatives in 16 of the 17 sports on the Canada Games programme (golf is the only one missing). Worth noting is that many summer sports – like boxing, fencing and gymnastics, for example – are actually part of the winter event, to keep both Games a similar size.
In week 1, we’ll be following Ottawa athletes competing in baseball, basketball, box lacrosse, canoe-kayak, cycling, rugby sevens, sailing, soccer, swimming, tennis and volleyball.
Our team has put together some fantastic pre-Games coverage on many of the local athletes set to compete in St. John’s, which we’ll look forward to sharing with you as we go along in our nightly newsletters.
You can also check those out on our Ottawa at the Canada Games central webpage, where you’ll also find the full roster of local athletes competing in St. John’s, along with their name, sport, headshot and links to their bios/competition schedules on the Canada Games website.
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.
Canadians who aren’t in St. John’s will also 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.”
On a much more sombre note, CBC wrote a story last month on a member of Ontario’s 2023 Canada Winter Games ringette team who died tragically from a food allergy reaction.
Wilson scored the overtime championship-winning goal for the Gloucester Devils at the 2022 U19 provincials, but she’s remembered for sharing love and kindness every day even more than her heroics on ice.
“I’ll never stop talking about her. I always said that Jules was so good at finding the beautiful things, the littlest moments of life. That’s something I’m going to do now,” Gloucester/Ontario teammate Taylor Forrest told CBC about Wilson, an organ donor who gave three people new life.
Ottawa at the Canada Games Daily Newsletter
A huge team of 47 Ottawa athletes is competing 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.
By clicking on the submit button, you consent to receive the above newsletter from the Ottawa Sports Pages. You may unsubscribe by clicking on the link at the bottom of our emails. Ottawa Sports Pages | 21 Kolo Dr., Ashton, Ont., K0A 1B0 | 613-261-5838