By Dan Plouffe
The moment the Gloucester Celtic had been dreaming of materialized on Thanksgiving Monday when they captured the Challenge Trophy for the fourth time in club history but only time at home as Ottawa welcomed its first-ever Canada Soccer National Championships from Oct. 8-12.
Veteran Celtic captain Joey Kewin was named tournament MVP after scoring three goals in three matches to earn his third Canadian men’s amateur crown with Gloucester in the space of five years (2022, 2024 and 2026, while the Celtic earned one earlier title in 2013).
“To do it in front of the fans, family, our support, our club, the alumni, it’s been incredible,” the former Carleton University Ravens player told CBC Ottawa sports reporter Emma Weller at Julian de Guzman Park.
With his mom in the 1,000-strong crowd proudly holding a poster with three faces cut out of her son in different phases of his career including one from childhood, Kewin opened the scoring off a feed from Kelvin Asabre just five minutes into the Thanksgiving morning final against Vancouver ICSF Columbus FC.
Kewin was front-and-centre again in the 16th minute when he would have had a clear break towards the goal before he was fouled and a Vancouver defender received a red card.
Cristopher Malekos doubled the lead off a Luca Piccioli corner kick in the 29th minute, and then Piccioli converted a penalty kick to spring Gloucester to a 3-0 half-time advantage before Vancouver got one back in the second half.
The Celtic beat CS Trident-Ouest de Québec 3-0 and Winnipeg Lucania FC 5-1 earlier in the tournament to advance to the final.
“It’s everything we’ve been waiting for all year,” Gloucester goalkeeper Anton Favre told Weller. “This is what we’ve always dreamed of – having everyone here and winning it for the fans.”
Hosting the nationals spared the Celtic from having to fundraise significantly for flights and accommodations when they’d travel to other sites, although the organization of the event of course required a large time commitment as well.
“We didn’t know there was this much to do when we said we’d host, but it’s been great,” Ottawa Gloucester Hornets technical director Jason Da Costa told the Ottawa Sports Pages. “It’s nice to have home fans support it, and hopefully we can host more nationals, even at the youth levels or other levels. Once they see our facilities and see that we can do it and do a good job, hopefully we can host more of these.
“It’s great for the city of Ottawa. You know, it’s never usually hosted here, and we’re a big soccer community and we’ve got a lot of good soccer players here, a lot of good clubs.”
A member of the organizing committee, Da Costa also served as head coach for the Gloucester women’s team. His side had exited Ontario Cup playdowns early and relied on the host berth to enter nationals, but the Hornets more than proved they belonged.
Gloucester won their opening match in penalty-kicks after dominating CS Lasalle but emerging tied 1-1 after regulation, and then lost 1-0 to Northwest United / St. Albert Impact FC en route to sixth place overall.
The regular Gloucester women’s premier team lineup included roughly three-quarters university players, who were not available to play at the nationals. In stepped a collection of the club’s competitive-1 Ottawa Carleton Soccer League players and some top Hornets youth players to field a roster that ranged in age from 17 to 35.
“It’s such a mixed group, but they’ve all been so positive, so understanding,” Da Costa highlighted. “They’ve just all been very supportive of each other, and just a small little group, like family, that really came together.”
Hornets goalkeeper Mia Leclerc got to experience a dream moment of her own when she stopped three consecutive penalty kicks in Gloucester’s tournament opener to set off a swarm of happy Hornets.
“I didn’t want to get trampled. I just saw them coming and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m not a big person,’ so I thought I was gonna get crushed there, but that’s just the best feeling in the world,” recounted the former University of Ottawa Gee-Gee. “It’s not something that people get to do often – to host a national tournament in your hometown. I’m really happy to be able to do it in front of our friends, family, and just with such an incredible group of girls.”
Aside from the Celtic’s four titles, two other local clubs have captured men’s national crowns – the West Ottawa Warriors in 2023 and St. Anthony in 2006.
Ottawa won its first-ever national soccer crown in 1997 when the Nepean United Spirit captured their first of two Jubilee Trophy women’s titles.
GABY DABROWSKI EARNS FIFTH WTA TITLE OF SEASON, 25TH OF CAREER
Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski won a milestone 25th WTA doubles tournament title of her career in China and a career-best fifth title of a season on Sunday.
Dabrowski and Brazilian partner Luisa Stefani stormed to a 6-1, 6-2 victory in less than an hour in the China Open final, topping Czech player Katerina Siniakova and Zhang Shuai from the host nation.
“Obviously [Sunday]’s performance was a really great culmination of the entire week, which was awesome for us,” Dabrowski said on-court after the match. “We brought a really high level. Our opponents forced us to do that with their reputation, the number of times we’ve played them.”
WATCH CBC SPORTS | Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski captures 25th WTA Tour title of her career at China Open
GEE-GEES LOSE CLOSE FIRST GAME OF YEAR IN WOMEN’S RUGBY, WOMEN’S SOCCER STILL UNBLEMISHED
The University of Ottawa Gee-Gees came within one score of upsetting the Université Laval Rouge et Or in a battle of the unbeaten to conclude the Quebec conference women’s rugby regular season.
From inside uOttawa’s 22-metre line, Grace Dingwall dashed almost the full length of the pitch to bring the Gee-Gees within a try in the 75th minute, but the host Rouge et Or held back their top rivals to complete an RSEQ-record 11th perfect season.
Dingwall was named player of the game for the 5-1 Gee-Gees as the FISU Games champ scored a pair of tries in the 34-29 defeat, while Brinten Comeau, Erica Osei and Madigan Stock also scored tries for uOttawa and Claire Bennett booted two converts.
The Carleton Ravens earned the first win of their women’s rugby season with a 45-40 win at Bishop’s.
Led by two tries from Ben Holahan and 14 points from kicker Nate Phillips, the Gee-Gees men’s rugby team improved to 4-0 in RSEQ play with a 49-24 victory at McGill, while Carleton dropped to 0-4 with a 40-21 loss at Bishop’s.
SOCCER
The Gee-Gees women’s soccer team romped to a 6-2 home victory over Nipissing to extend their unbeaten record to 9-0-1 atop the OUA east standings.
Sabrina Mangiaracina scored a hat trick to boost her OUA-best goal-scoring total to a tidy dozen on the season, three better than any other players. Gracie Somers scored a brace and Nipissing gave up an own goal.
Carleton is the only team to take a point from uOttawa this season in a 0-0 draw, but the 3-5-2 Ravens will want to take maximum points from their two remaining regular season games in the chase for a playoff position.
The Ravens men also pounded Nipissing on home turf, improving to .500 at 4-4-2 with a 5-0 win. John Aldiban and Caden Tomy each scored two goals, while Omar Darwish had the other and goalkeeper Nathan Frans played 87 minutes to get the clean sheet.
FOOTBALL
Fresh off a Panda Game triumph over Carleton, the Gee-Gees dropped to 4-3 with a 19-12 loss at York, which earned just its second win this year. Ottawa could muster no more than a pair of rouges in the final 39 minutes of the match as York trudged ahead from a 10-10 tied game.
The Gee-Gees had 339 yards of total offence compared to 233 for York. Devaughn Blackwood scored a touchdown on a 47-yard pass from Josh Janssen and Zachary Copeland kicked a field goal but also had many rough moments, going 1-for-3 on field goal attempts and averaging 27.6 yards punting.
TENNIS
The University of Ottawa Gee-Gees men’s tennis team placed fourth at the OUA championships in Toronto. The Gee-Gees topped Waterloo in the quarter-final round before falling 4-3 to Queen’s in the semis and 5-2 to Toronto in the bronze medal match.
Filip Popadish was named an OUA all-star for uOttawa, while Zhenya Kandratovski took men’s coach of the year honours. The uOttawa women lost to Western in the quarter-finals.
BASEBALL
The Carleton baseball team could hardly have had any closer matchups at the OUA championships in Welland. The Ravens opened with a 5-4 win over Laurier and then fell 7-6 to Toronto and 8-5 to Waterloo in a game that went five extra innings to miss the final round.
END NOTES
• Ottawa’s Sam Zakutney will compete with Team Canada at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships Oct. 17-25 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The 28-year-old helped the Canadian men to their best-ever Olympic performance in the team event at the Paris 2024 Games when they reached their first final, placing eighth.
• Five Ottawa swimmers have been named to Swimming Canada’s 2026 National Development Program Identification Teams – Jordyn Richardson of the Ottawa Y Olympians (2011-born female), Lucas Yao of the Greater Ottawa Kingfish (2012 male) and Jessica Duford (2013 female), Arthur Galiano (2009 male) and Levi Yam of the Nepean Kanata Barracudas.
• Three local athletes and their coaches have been selected to receive $10,000 per pair to fund training, equipment, education and travel costs through the Petro-Canada Fuelling Athlete and Coaching Excellence Program. They are canoe-kayak’s George Nor (coached by Tyler Lawlor), para alpine skiing’s James Budrow (coached by Nick Kwansiak) and wheelchair curling’s Reid Mulligan (coached by Gerry Peckham).