World-class crop emerges as finalists for top Ottawa Sports Awards prizes
January 22, 2015
Ottawa Sports Awards - OTTAWA – A hot race for the major awards is shaping up as the Ottawa Sports Awards today announced its candidates for the Male and Female Athletes, Teams and Coaches of the Year in advance of the Wednesday, Jan. 28 celebration at Algonquin College.
Now officially unveiled and set to collect their honours at the banquet are the city’s top athletes in over 60 individual sports, who are considered for Male and Female Athlete of the Year, while Ottawa teams that won provincial, national or international titles in 2014 make up the hopefuls for Male and Female Team of the Year.
Full biographies on each of the individual sport award winners, as well as the local champion teams, are now available at: https://www.ottawasportsawards.ca/node/1665
Towards the end of her six-year run as Ottawa’s top Female Athlete, speed skating legend Kristina Groves challenged the city’s girls to rise up and challenge her for the trophy that now bears her name. It appears that message was heard loud and clear, as numerous local women put in world-class performances in 2014.
Amongst the top contenders for the Kristina Groves Female Athlete of the Year Award are:
--the reigning trophy holder, Rachel Homan of the Ottawa Curling Club, who skipped her rink to an undefeated record at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts en route to a world silver medal
--the Gloucester Concordes’ Ivanie Blondin, a Sochi 2014 Olympic long-track speed skater, the winner of 5 medals from four fall 2014 World Cup events, and the current world #1 in the mass start event and world #3 out of all distances
--National Capital Wrestling Club-brewed Erica Wiebe, who was also ranked #1 in the world for much of 2014, having earned victories over all the recent Olympic medalists and world champions in a dominant streak prior to the World Championships
--the Ottawa Lions’ Sultana Frizell, the Commonwealth Games hammer throw champion and record holder who carried the Canadian flag at the Glasgow 2014 closing ceremonies and ranked fifth in the world for 2014
--the Ottawa Swans' Aimee Legault, the MVP of the Australian Rules Football International Cup for Canada's first-time-champion Northern Lights national team
--Hylands and Eagle Creek golfer Grace St-Germain, the Canadian junior girls' champion and world junior team bronze medalist
The pool of candidates for Male Athlete of the Year own their share of international accolades as well, including:
--the reigning Male Athlete of the Year, Carleton Ravens national-champion men’s basketball player Phil Scrubb, who was named the top Canadian Interuniversity Sport athlete for all sports in 2014
--Sochi 2014 Paralympic sledge hockey bronze medalist Ben Delaney, Team Canada’s youngest team member by three years
--Canadian track cycling record holder Vincent De Haitre, who made his debut at both the Winter Olympics as a speed skater and the Commonwealth Games as a cyclist at age 19
--the Rideau Canoe Club’s Ben Tardioli, who placed fourth in the first World Cup of his career and made the World Championships ‘A’ final in the C-1 men’s 200 metres
--Sochi 2014 Olympic bobsledder Cody Sorensen, part of the 2013-14 World Cup circuit’s #4-ranked four-man sled
--the Nepean Nighthawks’ Liam Manning, a goalie who won back-to-back shootouts en route to Canada’s best-ever international field hockey result, a silver medal at the Youth Olympic Games
With close to 60 local champions at the provincial level or above, there are no shortage of contenders for the Male and Female Teams of the Year.
World curling silver medalist Team Homan will be after their fourth Female Team honour in five years. Challenging them are the Ontario-champion and CIS bronze medalist University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women’s soccer team, the CIS-champion Carleton Ravens women’s curling team, the first-time Canadian-championOttawa Ice National Ringette League team, the central conference-champion and United Soccer Leagues W-League bronze-medalist Ottawa Fury, and the Galley Girls women’s premiere dragonboat team, winners of two gold medals and a silver at the Club Crew World Championships.
A trio of male Ottawa soccer teams stood out in 2014. Both the Ontario Youth Soccer League and Quebec-Ontario Cup-champion Ottawa South United Force Under-14 boys and the USL Super-Y League-championOttawa Fury FC U15 boys made local soccer history as the region’s first-time winners of those events, while the Algonquin Thunder were Ontario college soccer champs. The repeat Ontario Varsity Football League-champion Myers Riders and the Walkley Bowling Centre's 5-pin junior boys' provincial/national-champion team are also part of the group looking to dethrone the winners of six of the past seven Male Team awards, the Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team, now their sport’s all-time leaders in CIS titles.
The Male and Female Coach of the Year Awards will also be presented at the banquet.
The finalists for Male Coach include Silvesta Ng, coach of the Ottawa district’s Ontario Winter Games gold medalists, Myers Riders OVFL Varsity coach Max Palladino, 2013-14 Team Homan coach Earle Morris, Gee-Gees women’s soccer coach Steve Johnson, Galley Girls coach Bruce Raymond, and the coaches of the Ontario and Canadian-champion university men’s basketball juggernauts – the Gee-Gees’ James Derouin and six-time Ottawa Sports Awards Male Coach winner Dave Smart of the Ravens.
The nominees for Female Coach include the Beaver Boxing Club’s Jill Perry, who guided two local women to national titles, the Gee-Gees’ CIS women’s rugby coach of the year Jen Boyd, the Ottawa Rowing Club’s Kate Gorsline, who directs athletes at the beginner, club and university levels and helped the ORC’s U23 men's lightweight pair win gold at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta, and Special Olympics provincial snowshoeing and track-and-field coach Claudette Faubert, whose Ontario athletes won hundreds of national medals in 2014.
Long-time Sledge Hockey of Eastern Ontario volunteer and two-time Paralympian Angelo Gavillucci will join the previously-unveiled Lifetime Achievement Award honourees as the recipient of a Special Recognition Award.
The reception for the Jan. 28 banquet begins at 6 p.m., dinner is at 7 p.m. and award presentations begin at 8 p.m., running through to approximately 10 p.m. Tickets for the banquet can be purchased throughottawasportsawards.ca until Jan. 23. After this date, tickets are subject to availability.
Last Modified on 22/07/2015 04:25