By Martin Cleary
Kwesi Loney attended the 2025 Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame induction ceremony last May to help celebrate the special recognition for the 2012 Ottawa Fury W-League women’s soccer champions.
Loney was an assistant coach on that remarkable Fury team, which won its first North American title in the club’s fourth championship final appearance.
While he had time to reconnect with his former players, recharge his soccer battery and remember the highlights of an unprecedented season, it also got him thinking in another direction.
As the Carleton University high-performance director, Loney also plays a vital role in the Carleton Ravens Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame started in 1996 and has inducted 51 members, including 38 athletes, eight builders and five athlete-builders during nine separate ceremonies.
Besides the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame, which will welcome its ninth team (the 1976 Rockland Nationals junior hockey team) after inducting its first in 1998 (the 1948 RCAF Hockey Club), Loney also was well aware that the annual Ottawa Sports Awards Dinner regularly paid tribute to the success of Carleton’s athletic teams.
The Ottawa Sports Awards dinner, the largest banquet in Canada to celebrate excellence in amateur sports, has presented the male team-of-the-year award to the Carleton basketball team a record 14 times and the female team-of-the-year honour to the Carleton basketball team three times.
Since it started in 1985, the Nepean Sports Wall of Fame has recognized four teams at its induction ceremonies.
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
Loney looked at what was happening around him and thought it was time to expand the Carleton Ravens Hall of Fame borders by adding a team category.
The university certainly has enough quality teams in a variety of sports to deserve consideration for a berth in the Ravens’ Hall for outstanding athletics, builders and athlete-builders.
“In sports, you have exceptional athletes and part of being an exceptional athlete is being part of a team,” Loney said in a phone interview on Wednesday.
Instead of inducting all the members of a team one by one, it’s much simpler to do it as a team, reasoned Loney.
When the Carleton Ravens Hall of Fame stages its next induction ceremony in the fall of 2026, it will unveil its first, and maybe even a second, team along with a number of honoured athletes and builders.
The deadline to nominate a team, athlete or builder via GoRavens.ca is March 31. Eligible teams must have competed for Carleton before the 2021-22 season.
Candidates not selected in 2026 will be reconsidered for induction in 2028. The seven-member selection committee is comprised of alumni, faculty staff across the university and former athletics department employees.
During its 84 years as a college and university, Carleton has had hundreds of teams wear the Ravens’ uniforms. Some of those teams have risen to the top at the provincial and national levels. Here’s a sampling of teams that might be nominated and considered as the inaugural team or teams for the Carleton Ravens Hall of Fame:
· The Carleton men’s basketball team recently won its 18th U Sports national championship, but it will have to wait its turn for Hall of Fame recognition. Nine Ravens teams boast perfect OUA conference records, which includes three squads at 22-0 in the regular season and 6-0 in the playoffs. Head coach Dave Smart’s 2011-12 group may hold a slight edge for selection as it was 22-0 in the OUA regular season, 6-0 in the playoffs and 34-0 against all national university teams. The 2003-04 and 2004-05 Carleton teams were undefeated in league play and playoffs and were 34-1 against all national university teams as well as 39-3 and 35-7 respectively overall. Those three teams finished their seasons as national champions and were three of Carleton’s 12 OUA playoff winners.
· The Carleton Ravens women’s basketball team had an unblemished 2017-18 OUA season – 23-0 in league, 6-0 in playoffs, 36-2 against U Sports teams and 38-2 overall – which ended with its first U Sports national title.
· The Ravens women’s nordic ski team has captured two Canadian College and University Nordic Championship titles as well as 17 OUA trophies. The men’s nordic team has earned the OUA point title 10 times. Maybe the selection committee will strongly consider the Ravens’ 2020 and/or 2017 teams, which swept the men’s and women’s OUA team titles in the same season.
· The water polo program also has produced some great teams as the women’s squad won nine OUA championships from 1989 through 2012 and the men captured four titles from 2007 through 2015. In 2007, the Ravens swept both the men’s and women’s provincial gold medals.
· The men’s and women’s fencing teams gave Carleton its first and only double overall OUA team titles in 2010. The men’s team has won six OUA overall titles, while the women have been the best in the province four times.
· The Carleton football team had its best run under head coach Ace Powell and running back Mark Brown, when the Ravens won the 1985 Ontario-Quebec Interuniversity Football Conference title and its only Dunsmore Cup 46-21 over the Concordia University Stingers. Carleton lost its national semifinal 56-16 on a bitter cold night to the host University of Calgary Dinos, the eventual Vanier Cup champions.
Ever wonder who is in the Carleton Ravens Hall of Fame? Here’s your answer:
2022: Athletes Matthew Fournier (rowing), Mike Smart (basketball), Scott Alexander (football), Megan McTavish (nordic skiing) and builder Sandy Mackie (soccer).
2020: Athletes Alyson Bush (basketball), Cameron Legault (football), Ray Mowling (hockey and golf), builder John Ruddy and athlete-builder Paul Armstrong.
2018: Athletes Earl Cochrane (soccer), Harry Van Hofwegen (football), Marianne White (Illing) and Terry McCarthy (hockey) and athlete-builder Robert Laughton.
2016: Athletes Michael Lanos (soccer), Nicky Yardley (Majid) (basketball), Wayne Dustin (nordic skiing), Wayne Small (hockey) and builder Duncan Watt.
2014: Athletes Marc Lavoie (fencing), Osvaldo Jeanty (basketball), Waneek Horn-Miller (water polo) and builder Paul Correy (hockey).
2003: Athletes Brian Hedges (football), Karen O’Connell (Anderson) (soccer), Kathy Lisson (Johnstone) (volleyball), Marilyn Johnston (volleyball), Patrick Stewart (basketball) and Rick Powers (basketball) and builder Terry Wheatley-Magee (field hockey).
2000: Athletes Janet Podleski (soccer), Jean Prebble (basketball), Michael Trought (basketball), Robert Eccles (hockey and football), athlete-builders Ernie Zoppa (basketball) and Gail Blake (volleyball) and builder Keith Harris.
1997: Athletes Rhonda DeLong (nordic skiing), Johnathon Love (basketball), Beverley McAskin and Denis Schuthe (basketball), Tom Timlin (football), Marinus Wins (tennis), builder Mavis McArthur and athlete-builder Patrick O’Brien.
1996: Athletes J. Ross Robertson (football), George House (basketball), Tom Gorman (basketball), Bob Amer (football), Pat Stoqua (basketball and football), Marilyn Atkinson (nordic skiing), Bill Holmes (basketball), Mark Brown (football) and builders Norman D. Fenn and James M. Holmes.
Martin Cleary has written about amateur sports for over 52 years. A past Canadian sportswriter of the year and Ottawa Sports Awards Lifetime Achievement in Sport Media honouree, Martin retired from full-time work at the Ottawa Citizen in 2012, but continued to write a bi-weekly “High Achievers” column for the Citizen/Sun.
When the pandemic struck, Martin created the High Achievers “Stay-Safe Edition” to provide some positive news during tough times, via his Twitter account at first and now here at OttawaSportsPages.ca.
Martin can be reached by e-mail at martincleary51@gmail.com and on Twitter @martincleary.
