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Newsletter by Keiran Gorsky, Farrah Philpot, Tyler Reis-Sanford, Dan Plouffe & Martin Cleary
Rugby stories have the happy tendency to be covert family stories raked into patches of ryegrass. The Canada Games have been something of a homecoming for Ottawa’s Grace Dingwall, whose father originally hails from Newfoundland.
He played on the field at Swilers Park many times before her – a bustling venue, complete with a bar in the clubhouse out back and a few dozen plaques on the walls.
The elder Dingwall went on to meet his future wife in Ottawa, where they both played rugby. Grace has been surrounded by the sport all her life, having played since the age of six alongside her sister and brother.
“We haven’t been out here in awhile just because there’s a lot of rugby in my life,” Dingwall laughed, in conversation with the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Keiran Gorsky.
Her Newfoundland grandmother, whom she seldom sees, was in attendance to watch her and Team Ontario come from behind to top Quebec 24-5. Dingwall and her Barrhaven Scottish teammate ShonDreya Smardon combined to score all four of Ontario’s tries after they conceded early on.
It was their first semblance of a challenge after they racked up 139 points over their three preliminary games Monday, all without conceding a point. The team moved a sweeper to anchor them at the back in case Quebec managed to beat them out for pace.
“They have a ton of speed on the edge, so we had to fix our defence and try to cover that,” Smardon said of their adjustments after Quebec surprised them early.
Smardon, a former football player, took up the sport only four years ago when a friend at her gym invited her to give it a try. It immediately seemed to her a perfect blend between the unrelenting physicality of tackle football and the agility of flag.
“Honestly, I just fell in love with it,” Smardon said. “I kind of combined my two favourite sports all together.”
It’s a touchingly similar story for South Mountain’s Jack Priestman, who also plays his club rugby for the Barrhaven Scottish alongside Ontario teammate Declan Crew-Gee. He’s part of the second generation of Priestman rugby players alongside two siblings who also play for Barrhaven.
Both Priestman and Crew-Gee came on as substitutes in the second half of their 41-0 thrashing of Alberta, which had been undefeated up to that point.
Ontario’s men’s and women’s teams went on to breeze through their quarter-finals matchups, the men cruising past Nova Scotia 33-5 while the women blanked New Brunswick 46-0, with Ainsley McDonell of the Ottawa Irish scoring a try.
Godson Okokoh clutch as Ontario bests B.C. in basketball nailbiter
Sport has a place as a comforting universal connector in new and unfamiliar environments, transcending countries and continents. For Godson Okokoh and Emmanuel Oko-Oboh, Ottawa’s two towering representatives on Ontario’s men’s basketball team, their love for the sport travels as far as their basketball-crazed siblings.
Standing now at 6’8”, believe it or not, Oko-Oboh wasn’t terribly athletic when his family emigrated to Ottawa from Nigeria a few years ago. It was Nehita, his sister, who persuaded him to take up basketball.
“Before I played basketball, I was just like, a normal kid,” Oko-Oboh describes. “But my sister challenged me every single day to play.”
It wasn’t long before he fell completely in love. His parents, who prized education above all else, were not originally so enthusiastic. Even so, Oko-Oboh has excelled academically at Ashbury College, skipping a grade in high school and committing to Brock University’s computer science program next year, where he will play for the Badgers in the upcoming U Sports season.
Okokoh, meanwhile, plies his trade with Iowa United Prep. It might’ve been a more abrupt change of scenery if his brother Richard wasn’t there alongside him. Wherever he goes, Okokoh maintains, he always feels supported, whether by his brother, his father or his coaches.
“I’m always good wherever I’m at,” he underlined.
Okokoh played a vital role in Ontario’s chippy comeback win over B.C. late in the fourth quarter, when he scored on an and-one and hit his free throw shot to give his team a 75-74 lead. Those three points were the biggest of Okokoh’s 15, and combined with a slew of key defensive plays, buoyed Ontario to a nailbiting 86-84 win and a 2-0 record.
Local canoe-kayak medal haul grows bigger
Ottawa paddlers continued to rack up medals at Quidi Vidi Lake. A quartet of local canoeists in Isabel Lowry, Abbigail Haines, Ruby Muhl and Julia Price took home the gold in the women’s IC-4 500-metre race.
Rideau Canoe’s Frederic Brais-Miklosi and Ryan Naroditsky matched them with a win in the men’s K-4 500 m along with Carson Corey and Owen MacLean.
Kate Osborne won gold in the K-2 500 m with Burloak boatmate Maea Knights. Meanwhile, Madeleine Beauregard won her third medal at the Games, nabbing a silver alongside Haines of Carleton Place in the women’s C2 1,000 m.
Swimmer Jordyn Richardson of the Ottawa Young Olympians won her third medal of the Games with a silver in the women’s 4×100 m freestyle relay, while Deniz Capraz of the Nepean-Kanata Barracudas placed 17th overall out of 42 competitors in the men’s 400 m freestyle.
In tennis, Team Ontario continued their perfect run in the preliminary rounds, winning five of their six matches against Quebec. Josh Adamson is yet to drop a set in St. John’s, beating Quebec’s Antoine Genereux 6-4 7-5.
Sailing events were postponed until Friday for Brodie Sorensen and Evania Lovshin due to ongoing wildfires near the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club.
In men’s soccer, Reinaldo Abraham, Luca Ugarte and Team Ontario lost 2-1 to B.C. at King George V Park to finish second in their group and fall out of medal contention.
And Kyleigh Payne and the Ontario women’s box lacrosse team advanced strongly into the playoff round with a 9-2 drubbing of Nova Scotia to conclude pool play 3-1.
Day 5 Preview: Cadie Geertsema does it all – full-time firefighting student, full-time summertime park ranger & full-time cyclist
Cadie Geertsema already has a top-10 finish in her name from the 2025 Canada Summer Games thanks to her 10th-place performance out of 33 racers in Monday’s women’s individual time trial, but the big event on the cycling schedule comes Wednesday for the road race.
While riders will finish with an individual rank, the road race is very much a team competition, and Geertsema will play a (rather unlikely) key role in Ontario’s race for the podium.
Geertsema’s rise into a national-level cyclist is somewhat unexpected given that she’s only been bike racing for two years, but having to work cooperatively in a team environment is an aspect that permeates every part of the 19-year-old’s life.
There really aren’t enough days in the week for the Algonquin College firefighting student who works full-time during the summer and cycles five to six days a week.
The former Ottawa Bicycle Club athlete who now rides for The Cyclery women’s racing team is only her second season of racing, but last year’s junior national virtual cycling title was one strong sign of her potential.
In an interview with the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Farrah Philpot before the start of the Games, Geertsema said she was looking forward to racing in Newfoundland.
“It will be my first time travelling outside of Ontario or Quebec, so I’m super excited for that,” she noted.
Geertsema made it clear that the goal for her and her Ontario teammates in St. John’s is to beat the province they race against quite a bit back at home, Quebec.
“I think our team’s goal is definitely to beat Quebec, because we know a lot of them and who they are, so it’s kind of just going to be us against them,” indicated Geertsema.
She enjoys the teamwork component of her program at Algonquin, which includes fire simulation and live-fire training practice for the physically-demanding profession.
“[I like] the team atmosphere, we all work together, and you have to push yourself as far as you can,” she explained. “It’s a job that you have to want badly to be able to get in there. I love challenging myself. The fact that you get to be seen as someone who is ready to help on your worst day is just something that I love.”
Gertseema’s inspiration to join the program was simple.
“I’ve always known that I can’t be someone who sits at a desk,” highlighted Geertsema. “I like being the person that’s trained to handle the worst things. I don’t like easy things.”
Firefighting has not only ignited a professional passion in Geertsema, but it has also helped her cycling training.
“They definitely help one another. In firefighting, my fitness from biking was a huge benefit, and then I did a lot of strength training too. I think that helped cycling,” reflected Geertsema.
But it isn’t all pluses for studying and cycling full-time.
“I was tired from school for sure. I’d do a lot of training at school and then I’d have to come home and do three hours on the bike,” recounted Geertsema. “I was absolutely so tired.
“I try to train like five to six days a week. My coach is super great with giving me workouts, because I work full-time too, and he just tries to fit it in around my work schedule.”
In the summer, while Geertsema pauses her studies, she is working full-time at the St. Lawrence Parks Commission at the Woodlands Campground, a provincial park in Ingleside, ON, not far from her family’s home in Chesterville, south of Ottawa.
“I literally do everything around there,” smiled Geertsema. “I just got promoted to an assistant park ranger.”
Her coworkers at Woodlands Campground are also very supportive of her cycling career, she added. Geertsema makes it very clear that everyone in her life is in her corner and supportive of every aspect of her busy schedule.
The afternoon 80 km women’s road race takes place in northeastern St. John’s on a scenic 10 km loop next to the ocean shoreline.
Other local athletes in action Wednesday:
Wednesday is the big day on the rugby sevens pitch, with the medals set to be distributed. The Ontario’s men team featuring Declan Crew-Gee and Jack Priestman will face their top test yet in the semi-finals against Quebec, with an anticipated showdown looming against B.C. should they make it through. Grace Dingwall, Ainsley McDonell, ShonDreya Smardon and the Ontario women take on Alberta under similar circumstances with B.C. on the opposite side of the draw.
Godson Okokoh and Emmanuel Oko-Oboh will play their final men’s basketball pool game in the afternoon against Alberta. Ontario is 2-0 and will have a chance to maintain their unblemished mark. Daniella Appoh‘s Team Quebec is 1-1 and finishes the preliminary round in the afternoon against B.C.
The 11 local paddlers will seek to continue their parade to the podium Wednesday, which includes the first mixed-gender competitions with C-2 and K-2 events.
Goaltender Kyleigh Payne and the Ontario women’s box lacrosse team will face Saskatchewan in the afternoon quarterfinals with a trip to the medal round on the line.
In the pool, Jordyn Richardson is expected to race the women’s 100 m backstroke and there are also 4×100 m men’s and women’s medley relays.
Ottawa at the Canada Games Daily Newsletter
A huge team of 48 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.
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