Dec. 17, 2025
Photo by Jurij Kodrun – International Skating Union/International Skating Union via Getty Images
Ivanie Blondin continues to perform at the highest international levels of speed skating, leading Canada’s long track team at the World Championships and claiming the World Cup title in team pursuit for 2025.
Canada won a total of four medals at the 2025 World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships, and Blondin was part of three of them. Individually, she won silver in the Mass Start. She added a silver in team sprint and bronze in team pursuit and was the only member of both teams. At the Four Continents Speed Skating Championships she won gold in the Mass Start, gold in team sprint, and bronze in both the 1500m and 3000m.
In World Cup competition, a gold medal finish in Norway paved the way for Blondin and her team pursuit teammates, Valérie Maltais and Isabelle Weidemann, to claim the overall World Cup title for the event in 2025. Blondin also won a World Cup gold medal in Mass Start at the event in Calgary in November. To date, she has earned 12 total podium finishes at World Cup events in the calendar year of 2025.
This is Blondin’s seventh selection as an Ottawa Sports Awards Athlete of the Year, making her the winningest athlete in the history of the event.
Photo Credit : Hockey Canada Images
A mainstay of Canada’s National Para Hockey Team, Tyrone Henry added another World Championship medal to his case in 2025. The veteran defenceman helped Canada to a silver medal at the 2025 World Para Hockey Championship, including a 3-0 shutout of Czechia, the host team, in the semifinal.
Henry and the National Team also earned silver medals at the 2025 Para Cup and the International Para Hockey Cup, part of a busy season of preparations for the 2026 Paralympic Games. For Henry, who is an alternate team captain, competing in Milan Cortina would mark his third Paralympic Games, having won silver at both the 2018 and 2022 Games.
This is Henry’s second straight Athlete of the Year Award at the Ottawa Sports Awards, and the third in his career. Locally, he is a member and volunteer with Sledge Hockey of Eastern Ontario.
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The Coaches of the Year and Teams of the Year were also announced on December 17. The national record-breaking Ottawa Lions 4x400m U20 men’s relay team and provincial championship-winning Capital Courts Academy basketball team were selected as Teams of the Year while Capital Courts head coach Fabienne Blizzard and Glenroy Gilbert of Ottawa Lions and Athletics Canada are the Coach of the Year award winners.
The recipients of the Ottawa Sports Awards Lifetime Awards and Mayor’s Cup for 2025 were announced on December 9, with longstanding contributors to the sports of volleyball, soccer, ice hockey, and the Ottawa Sport Council being honoured.
These outstanding members of the community will be celebrated at the 2025 Ottawa Sports Awards Dinner, which will be held on February 4, 2026 at the Infinity Convention Centre. Tickets for the event are on sale now.
Further award announcements will include the individual sport award winners in over 65 sports, over 60 championship-winning teams from local clubs, and the Spirit of Sport Award, Special Recognition, and Community Sport Endowment recipients.
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The Ottawa Sports Awards honours the finest in the Ottawa amateur sports community. Click here to view our past winners!