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Ottawa Sports Pages a finalist for 2 national awards
We’ll begin our year in review by sharing some great news for the Ottawa Sports Pages – we’ve been selected as finalists for a pair of Canadian Online Publishing Awards!
In his 53rd year of sportswriting in Ottawa, Martin Cleary continues to rack up top-flight achievements for his High Achievers columns. Among five finalists for the media category’s Best Patriotic Story is Martin’s story on Wendy Alexis’ experience at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Florida shortly after Canada was ambushed by U.S. tariffs (which makes an appearance in the list below as well).
Yes, this was a story about Alexis winning gold medals and setting age group world records on U.S. soil, but it was about much more than that. It was about how the best Canadian character traits – humility, compassion and friendliness – triumphed over division.
After American leadership nailed its neighbours, many victorious foreign athletes might have turned to chest-pumping and waving the flag as a weapon of sorts, but Alexis was instead kind and generous, offering little Canadian flags to the women who joined her on the podium, which brought them to tears. In turn, she received great warmth and affection from her American hosts.
You can read that full story here, and check out the other finalists via the 2025 COPA Awards webpage.
And the second finalist nomination comes in the Feel Good Story media category, for Dan Plouffe’s article on how soccer provided a “bridge to a new life” for four refugee families who never knew each other in Ukraine but all ended up with boys on the same U12 soccer team with the Ottawa South United Force.
Thanks to the efforts of a community coming together to support them, as well as the universal language of soccer, the boys’ feelings of devastation and depression finally gave way to camaraderie, belonging and hope. You can read that full story here.
We’re in good company with fellow finalists from Radio-Canada, The Narwhal, the Toronto Star and Toronto Today, but the Ottawa Sports Pages hopes to continue a streak we started last year with our Ottawa at the Paralympics coverage earning a silver award for Best Continuing Coverage of a story come February’s announcement of the COPA winners.
Now we’ll move on to our own quasi-awards as we present you with:
The Ottawa Sports Pages’ Top-25 Local Sports Moments of 2025
25. Snowboard sensation
It’s no simple feat to make it on this list, as demonstrated by our first selection, which includes nothing less than a provincial and national champion. Caily Lemmex made the most of her final year in the under-15 division with a triple-crown of snowboard cross championships for Ontario, Quebec and Canada.
24. Dazzling diver
Ella Lindsay of the Nepean-Ottawa Diving Club flew to the top of the podium five times at the Dive Ontario Summer Provincials at her home pool in Nepean, and the 15-year-old followed that up by collecting a medal of each colour at the Speedo Junior Elite National Diving Championships in Edmonton.
23. Wildcat wins
In perhaps the greatest two-hour period in the 47-year history of the Nepean Girls’ Hockey Association, the Wildcats U13 ‘A’ girls’ hockey team celebrated a provincial title at the OWHA championships, and then dashed across the concourse to watch the final minutes of the Nepean U13 girls’ ‘AA’ Ontario gold medal triumph.
22. Grappling gold
Dexter Bates delivered a dominant Grade 11 season with the Holy Trinity Tornadoes wrestling team as he went undefeated without having a single point scored against him en route to OFSAA gold. The National Capital Wrestling Club athlete later helped Ontario to the team title at the Canada Summer Games, and finally added an individual CSG silver medal to his haul.
21. Capital Courts queens
There could not have been a better ending for Capital Courts Academy’s seniors when they completed the first perfect season in CCA history with a 72-57 Ontario Scholastic Basketball Association championship game victory over Crestwood, which had plowed past CCA 94-57 in last year’s final. CCA later went on to post a runner-up finish in its first appearance in the Women’s National Preparatory Association.
20. Overtime ovation
The top-20 ushers in a series of moments where overtime decided it all in championship finals. It couldn’t have been a wilder or more perfect finish for the home team at the Ontario ‘AA’ Ringette Championships. The host West Ottawa Wild under-16 team gave up the tying goal with under two minutes left in their gold medal game, but won the right to wear the Team Ontario jerseys at a hometown nationals with the winning goal less than two minutes into OT.
19. Playoff pill
After earning the Canadian junior boys’ title last season, Isaiah Ibit very narrowly missed upgrading to a Canadian men’s amateur championship this year. The 19-year-old rocketed into a tie atop the leaderboard with a triple-birdie finish before faltering on the second playoff hole at the Royal Ottawa Golf Club.
18. St. Mark muscle
Powered by potluck dinners, the St. Mark Lions first took down the two-time reigning champion St. Joseph Jaguars in double-overtime in the high school football city final, and then went on to win the school’s second OFSAA National Capital Bowl championship in Guelph.
17. Soccer supremacy
Edward Rizk scored the equalizer in the final minute of added time and Eric Frederico made three consecutive diving penalty-kick saves to win the Ontario Player Development League Charity Shield championship for the U15 boys from Ottawa TFC, which was Ontario’s only club to win multiple Charity Shield crowns, coupled with its U15 girls’ triumph.
The Ottawa South United Force U16 boys also won a provincial crown for the third year in a row, while their club also celebrated a U14 boys’ OPDL league title and bronze medal performances for both their U15 girls and boys at the Canadian Player Development Program Soccer Championships. The Gloucester Celtic settled for silver with a penalty-kicks defeat at the Canadian men’s amateur club championships.
16. Great goodbye
In Dave Heinbuch’s final year of an 11-season run as head coach of the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees swim program, breaststroke specialist Hugo Lemesle gave his coach a grand farewell gift by winning two gold medals and a silver at the Canadian U Sports championships, while Ottawa’s Olivier Risk also won two gold and a silver for the national-champion University of British Columbia Thunderbirds in the men’s distance freestyle events.
15. Mighty Mavs
Canada’s lone representatives in the 17U boys’ division, the Ottawa Maverick Marshalls went to Minnesota and came away with a historic USA Volleyball national championship title. That served as another great retirement reward for a pair of local legends in Chris and Kerry MacLean, who founded the Maverick Volleyball Club 40 years. Kerry is also set to soon receive one of four Lifetime Achievement honours from the Ottawa Sports Awards.
14. Firth first
Playing in front of 32,511 spectators at the home of the NFL’s New England Patriots, Willem Firth became likely Ottawa’s first NCAA lacrosse champion when his Cornell Big Red won the final at Gillette Stadium. The first-line midfielder from the Nepean Knights scored four goals in four playoff games and was his team’s #4 scorer over the course of the season.
13. Super cyclist
It was a superb season throughout 2025 for 16-year-old cyclist Carter de Veer. He started by winning seven gold medals at the Canadian U17 track championships in the spring and then he won gold and silver medals at the Canadian road cycling championships.
De Veer then went on a tour of Europe alongside fellow young Canadian riders, with his dad behind him as a member of the Team Canada crew, and caught the eye of the Team Bahrain Victorious UCI World Tour team, which signed him to its U19 development program.
12. Taekwondo triumphs
Another local father-son pair enjoyed a highly successful summer as well, with coach Radomir and athlete Nikola Samardzic of Capital Taekwondo Martial Arts Academy winning Canada’s first-ever silver medal at the World Taekwondo Cadet Championships.
They weren’t the only Ottawa athletes to made their mark in international taekwondo this season. After being denied a chance at the Paris 2024 Olympics, Leonarda Andric made her multi-sport games debut at the FISU World Student Games and captured a bronze medal. The 22-year-old later made her Taekwondo World Championships debut alongside 18-year-old Phoenix TKD teammate Laila Khan, who won two matches to reach the quarterfinals.
11. Repeat rewards
Just on Dec. 19, Jonathan David and Vanessa Gilles were named Canada Soccer Players of the Year following unmatched soccer seasons. Gilles missed a number of Canada’s matches this year due to injury, but still made her presence on the back line known in her appearances, including a goal in her 50th international appearance. David scored six goals for Canada this season to bring his all-time career national men’s scoring record to 37.
It was the second year in a row that the Louis-Riel grads earned the honour. Both changed club teams this season – David joining Juventus from Lille, and Gilles going from Lyon to Bayern Munich. A year after the Olympics, the Canadian women didn’t have any major international tournaments, while the men were mostly in preparation mode prior to the grand daddy of them as Canada gets set to welcome the FIFA Men’s World Cup next summer alongside USA and Mexico.
10. Basketball brothers
The BGC Thunderbolts became the first back-to-back champions of the North Pole Hoops Showcase League for 2024-2025 and spring/summer 2025, but this was more than a victory on the court for a great of youth primarily from low-income communities and challenging backgrounds.
The Thunderbolts, self-admittedly, were a bit of a rag-tag bunch that initially came together simply because they were starving for recreation during COVID. It was a group that no one on the outside really believed in, but their coach had full faith in their potential, having grown up with similar circumstances to many of his players, raised by a single mom and newly-arrived in Canada.
Many Thunderbolts are now graduating into university programs, and along the way, they’ve picked up a pile of life lessons while building a bond stronger than any of their opponents.
“We all take care of one another,” underlined 6’5″ guard Geoffrey Okol. “No other team that I’ve known, that I’ve seen, or that I’ve been on, really has a bond like we do on and off the court.
“We really are a family. We really are brothers, and the first person to initiate that family energy would be the coach, and we just carried that on throughout our lives.”
9. Worlds winners
Team Canada was victorious in both the men’s and women’s events of the IIHF U18 World Hockey Championships in 2025. After missing games due to injury during two stretches of his season and missing the playoffs with the OHL’s Guelph Storm, Quinn Beauchesne was grateful to “end the season on a positive note” and experience the “surreal feeling” of becoming a world champion.
Alex Therien and fellow defender Kate Viel, who will return for this year’s U18 women’s worlds, couldn’t have got a better way to kick off their careers wearing the maple leaf than by beating USA for the gold medal in the final.
“It was just a dream come true and something we have all been dreaming about for so long,” Therien said.
8. Ravens rise
Following a silver medal last year, the Carleton University Ravens reached the top of the world with their triumph at the 2025 FISU 3×3 Basketball University World Cup in Brazil.
Gatineau’s Ingrid Matteau and Dorcas Buisa, along with Ravens teammates Tatyanna Burke and Noelle Kilbreath, pulled off a pair of two-point victories en route to a perfect 5-0 mark against opponents from Iran, two from Spain, China and Ukraine. It was the first time a Canadian school won the University World Cup title.
Burke, who earned world silver alongside Buisa last year, said that they wanted to win in honour of the others who were runners-up in 2024, and for their supporters back home.
“I’m really proud of us and I love these guys,” she underlined.
In U Sports basketball play, the Ravens and University of Ottawa Gee-Gees were stung to miss out on gold in 2025, but nonetheless made national capital history as they won three medals across four competitions at the nationals – Carleton taking women’s silver and uOttawa’s men and women both earning bronze.
7. Athletics amity
Wendy Alexis had the experience of a lifetime at the 2025 World Masters Athletics Indoor Championships, but it wasn’t all centred around her winning three medals and earning her first two world-record times.
When the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club sprinter registered for the worlds in Gainesville, Florida, the relationship between Canada and the United States was good, but that all changed under the startling governance of the Donald Trump administration.
Alexis weighed whether she wanted to go and was ultimately glad she did.
“The reception was unbelievable. We were so graciously welcomed and warmly embraced,” Alexis recounted. “The Americans were incredible. Everyone who met us hugged us and apologized for their government’s treatment of us.”
Her competitors were touched when she gave them little Canadian flags.
“There was no grandstanding,” she explained. “There wasn’t any need for that. We’re all friends.”
Alexis won gold medals in the 60 metres and women’s 4×200 m relay in age group competition at the worlds, and later in the season improved her world-record time in the women’s 100 m for the 70-74 age class on her home track at Terry Fox Athletic Facility.
6. Curtain call?
Perhaps competing for the final time in a World Cup speed skating race on Canadian ice in November, Ivanie Blondin came through for a meaningful victory in her signature mass start event in Calgary, edging a skater from the Netherlands to the finish line by 0.03 seconds.
“It felt pretty incredible,” the 35-year-old said. “The crowd was insane, and my parents were here as well. It’s most likely my last World Cup here at home, so I’m a little bit emotional.”
It was another standout year overall for the Gloucester Concordes product who’s stayed among the world’s very best for many years. Blondin earned 2025 world championships silver medals in the mass start and the team sprint and a bronze medal in the team pursuit alongside Isabelle Weidemann.
The local pair combined with Valérie Maltais to earn this season’s World Cup circuit overall title in the team pursuit, and finished off the calendar year by winning a record-breaking seventh Ottawa Sports Awards Female Athlete of the Year honour.
5. Paddling prowess
Gold. Gold. Gold. There was no more succinct way to describe Isabel Lowry’s three-race performance during her International Canoe Federation world junior sprint canoe championships debut in Portugal. That commanding world-class performance was just the start for the 17-year-old Carleton Place Canoe Club paddler.
Thanks to that accomplishment, Lowry was chosen to carry the flag for Team Ontario at the St. John’s 2025 Canada Summer Games opening ceremonies.
“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,” she reflected shortly after being given the news of her flag bearer selection. “It really is an honour.”
Lowry delivered another dominant performance in winning three more gold medals and a silver as part of local paddlers’ astounding 37-medal haul, including five gold from Frederic Brais-Miklosi and Ryan Naroditsky, six medals from Kate Osborne, five from Madeleine Beauregard, and four from Abbigail Haines and Ruby Muhl.
Lowry later scored yet another triple-gold regatta at the Olympic Hopes event in the Czech Republic, while Beauregard of the Rideau Canoe Club captured four U17 women’s canoe gold of her own.
At the senior level, Brianna Hennessy and Zoe Wojtyk both won silver medals to lead the national capital’s seven-representative paddling team at the 2025 ICF Canoe Sprint & Paracanoe World Championships in Italy.
And the Ottawa River Canoe Club celebrated its first-ever national burgee with an overall title in the PaddleAll category.
4. Golden Games
The Ottawa Sports Pages’ Ottawa at the Canada Games series followed 48 local athletes who competed at the St. John’s 2025 Canada Summer Games and won 76 medals in Newfoundland.
The paddlers (highlighted in the item above) were dominant in the first week of the Games, as was tennis player Josh Adamson, who extended his winning streak that began earlier with Canadian U16 boys’ singles and doubles titles to 15 consecutive national-level matches en route to a team gold medal with Ontario.
Ottawa athletes capped the Games with a spectacular final day where they won gold medals in all four of their team competitions – in women’s volleyball, men’s softball, women’s soccer and in the first-ever women’s Canada Games competition in baseball.
A local athlete was chosen to carry the Ontario flag once again at the closing ceremonies. Will Batley missed his high school track-and-field season due to injury, but the 17-year-old showed he was back in top form when he set a new Canada Games record time in the under-24 men’s 200 metres and then melted hearts by running right over and hugging his mom.
“Just being able to have this experience, this young too, I was overjoyed to be announced to the team because I thought I wasn’t going to because of injuries early on this season,” Batley said. “I wasn’t expecting it. I was in shock, so I knew when I came here, I was just gonna give my all.”
3. Trapeau triumph
It was a golden homecoming for Maeliss Trapeau as her Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club hosted the 2025 Canadian Track and Field Championships at Terry Fox Athletic Facility.
“I’m really happy to be back home. It’s like I never left,” Trapeau reflected. “A lot of people are cheering me on. It’s really nice to hear my name.”
Eight years after three-time Olympian Melissa Bishop from the Lions wowed the crowd with a victory in the women’s 800 m, Trapeau stormed to a first-place finish of her own in the 800.
That same year, Trapeau had an unspectacular eighth-place finish for Lycée Claudel at the 2017 OFSAA high school provincials. But after winning an OUA bronze medal as a University of Ottawa Gee-Gee, her career took off while living in France, where she became the French under-23 national champion in 2021 and then a sparkling new personal-best time of 1:59.09 at a race in Toulouse this May.
It was one of several highlight moments for local athletes at the nationals and launched Trapeau onto Canada’s World Athletics Championships team alongside Eliezer Adjibi and Jacqueline Madogo, who helped Canada to a new women’s 4×100 m relay national record at the worlds.
Thomas Becker, who later went on to upgrade his silver medal from the Niagara 2022 Canada Games with a gold in St. John’s on a cold late fall-type day in late summer, also won senior high jump gold at the nationals, while Jorai Oppong-Nketiah led local U20 athletes with a repeat women’s 100 m title, and the Lions earned new national club relay records in the U20 men’s 4×400 m and the women’s open 4×400 m.
2. Underdog uprising
The University of Ottawa Gee-Gees wrote a classic Cinderella story as they hosted the 2025 U Sports men’s hockey championships at TD Place.
Facing the top-seeded and back-to-back defending national-champion University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds in the opening round, the Gee-Gees scored the overtime winner 16 minutes into a nail-biting extra session that stretched past midnight after the previous quarter-final went to quintuple-overtime.
The semi-final round produced an epic storyline of its own as Mitch Martin scored the game-winning goal with 42 seconds left in the third period to down the Toronto Metropolitan University Bold. Martin’s starring role was unexpected as a rookie forward, but even more so because he’d missed over half of the season after having open heart surgery in October.
The championship game featured another heart-stopping finish as the Concordia Stingers drew within a goal after uOttawa built a 3-0 lead, but there was no denying the Gee-Gees and their star goalie Franky Lapenna.
The Gee-Gees were outshot every game – 44-22 against UNB, 33-29 against Toronto Metropolitan and 33-14 against Concordia – but won each contest by one goal.
“These guys are my family. It’s really special to share this with my brothers,” Lapenna underlined, as his teammates chanted ‘MVP’ down the hallway.
“This is what I mean when I say I’m lucky,” explained the goalie who won FISU Games gold earlier in the season. “We’ve got an awesome group of guys, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else I’d want to share it with. We created 26 new winners.”
1. Supreme sweepers
Team Homan was simply the best in 2025. The Ottawa Curling Club rink once again raised the bar in all kinds of curling competition.
At the 2025 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Ottawa’s Rachel Homan and Emma Miskew won their fifth career national women’s title, playing alongside Tracy Fleury and Sarah Wilkes, and recording several first-time feats.
Having already earned the distinction of becoming the first team to go undefeated through the full tournament when they won the national women’s curling title last year, Team Homan again repeated that perfect record to extend their winning streak at the Scotties to 22 straight games.
And for the first time in championship game history, skip Homan curled a perfect 100% on both hits and draws.
On the eve of representing Canada at the 2025 World Women’s Curling Championship in South Korea, Team Homan had their eye on more than winning, they also wanted to inspire the next generation.
“Some of my best friends have come out of (curling),” Miskew said. “(We’d like) young girls to know that you can find not only a really cool sport to play, but also (find) some of our closest friends and meet lots of great people.”
Call it mission complete as Team Homan went on to become the first Canadian rink in 30+ years to win back-to-back women’s curling world titles, downing the hosts in an extra end semi-final and prevailing 7-3 over Switzerland despite trailing after six ends in the championship match.
In the new fall season, Team Homan picked right up where they left off, winning their record-breaking 19th career Grand Slam of Curling title.
And then they finished their sparkling 2025 with a victory at the Canadian Olympic women’s curling trials in Halifax to clinch a trip to the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games.
“We’ve had such dominance for the past three seasons. We feel like we are at the top of our games. We were the favourites. We had targets on our backs. We always try to bring our best. Trials week is what we were working for. Definitely, there was extra pressure, extra nerves,” Homan indicated. “We put this team together four years ago and that (2026 Olympics) was our dream. We’ve realized that dream.”
Happy holidays!
Keep an eye out for a couple more features in the coming days on OttawaSportsPages.ca, but we’ll soon be taking a break from typing until we return recharged on the week of Jan. 5.
Thank you so much for joining us this year. We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and we look forward to connecting with you come the new year – an Olympic and Paralympic year!