HIGH ACHIEVERS: Gord Butler, Amanda Valiquette, Janet Lawless receive Ontario Coaching Excellence Awards

By Martin Cleary

Gord Butler has hit the pause button on his competitive curling coaching career.

After 20-plus years of guiding girls’ and boys’ curling teams at local, provincial and national competitions, he has stepped back for the 2025-26 season to recharge his batteries.

But at the same time, he hasn’t completely abandoned coaching for this season as he plans to complete the required work to earn his competitive development coaching certificate. Butler currently owns a competitive coach certificate.

He also will continue coaching at the junior recreational and adult learn-to-curl levels at the Navy Curling Club.

Butler just won’t be in the thick of things this season as junior curlers experience their circuit games, playdowns and various Ottawa Valley Curling Association, provincial and national championships.

His decision was made a little easier as the RCMP rink of skip Ava Acres, Aila Thompson, Izzy McLean and Mya Sharpe graduated from the women’s U18 level and disbanded as they headed for university.

While Butler was altering the direction of his volunteer coaching path for this season, he received a huge, unexpected pat on the back for his work over the past two decades.

The Coaches Association of Ontario has recognized 15 individuals with the Ontario Coaching Excellence Award, including three from Ottawa. The awards were presented last Saturday in Toronto before a CFL game at BMO Field to kick off the 11th annual National Coaches Week.

“I was very pleased and humbled to be recognized after 20 years,” Butler said about receiving the coaching award in a phone interview earlier this week. “I was surprised.”

Woodroffe High School teacher-coach Amanda Valiquette and 6Tigers Academy owner and karate coach Janet Lawless also were honored for their commitment to developing athletes of all ages.

Butler, Valiquette and Lawless will receive “funding for new equipment to keep their athletes safe and their respective sports affordable and accessible,” according to the Coaches Association of Ontario media release.

For the past three seasons, Butler has guided the Acres rink and watched them qualify for three Canadian championships. The Acres rink competed at the 2024 national U18 and U20 championships as well as the 2023 Canada Winter Games.

The Acres rink won the bronze medal at the Canadian U18 championship at the Ottawa R.A. Curling Centre of Excellence, was seventh at the national U20 junior championship and placed fifth at the Canada Winter Games.

“I’m taking a year off competitive coaching,” Butler explained. “All the players have graduated U18, have gone to university and have gone their separate ways.

“Frankly, I’m looking forward to a quiet year to recharge. I will still coach at the junior recreational level at the club and the adult learn-to-curl program.

“I could have been coaching the last three weekends (with youth rinks), but instead I was sitting out back on my patio. It was nice not to be sitting in a cold rink.”

Previously, Butler coached rinks skipped by Jordan McNamara and Melissa Wong for multiple years.

Butler, who says he will return to coaching in the future, entered the ranks of a volunteer coach the way many parents get started. When his daughter Erin began the sport, Butler wanted to try coaching. He has stayed with it for more than two decades.

Being a curling coach is one way Butler gives back to his community. His wife Dawn also is big on volunteerism as she has been a longtime Girl Guides leader and has been a coach in the Little Rocks program at the Navy club for 20 years.

For Butler, coaching is a lifetime experience filled with learning.

“I learn from my mistakes. When I look back, I’m always learning. I’m open minded to new ways to do things and tactics,” Butler said.

“To be a good coach, you need to know that you don’t know everything. Keep learning and you’ll get better and your athletes will get better.”

When Butler isn’t coaching, he also is a recreational curler, playing on three different teams and usually at the skip position.

Amanda Valiquette can relate to Butler stepping away from his role as a coach, since she is doing the same as a teacher-coach at Woodroffe High School for 2025-26. She is expecting to deliver a baby this week.

A coach for multiple high school sports teams, she has spent a long time with the school’s volleyball program and is recognized for her energy, positivity and dedication to her student-athletes.

Valiquette also has organized inclusive, low-cost tournaments to allow every student an opportunity to experience and develop through sport. She blends fun with team structure to motivate her players.

Janet Lawless was presented the Hydro One Safe Pay Award for “dedication to inclusivity and empowering women through self-defence.”

As owner, head instructor and coach at 6Tigers Academy, Lawless has trained and sent her athletes to national championships in karate and to represent Canada at the international level. Her dojo in Manotick is open to everyone regardless of age, ability or background.

She also instructs women and girls in personal safety and self-defence.

“I am so honoured to receive this award,” Lawless said in the media release. “The power of sport in connecting us to our whole selves and to each other never ceases to amaze me.

“Through coaching karate and through empowerment model self-defence training, I have the opportunity to elevate all ages, genders and abilities, to create communities of people, who see the possibility of breaking down the structures that separate us, to raise young people who challenge and who refuse to accept inequality and discrimination.”