Dec. 09, 2025
The 2025 Ottawa Sports Awards will mark the 73rd annual event to celebrate the finest in Ottawa’s amateur sports community. One hallmark of the celebration is the Lifetime Awards which recognize coaches, technical officials, and sports volunteers and/or administrators, as well as the Mayor’s Cup for longstanding overall sport contribution.
The 2025 recipients are: record-setting uOttawa Gee-Gees women’s soccer coach Steve Johnson, a Hockey Eastern Ontario Life Patron official John Butcher, founder and president of Maverick Volleyball Club Kerry MacLean, and past executive director of the Ottawa Sport Council, Marci Morris.
These remarkable 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 Athletes, Coaches, and Teams of the Year, the individual sport award winners in over 70 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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Credit: @timaustenphotography
With thirty-one seasons leading the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women’s soccer program, Steve Johnson has left an impressive legacy of success. Two-time national champions, first in 1996 and again in 2018, Ottawa is firmly cemented as the winningest university women’s soccer team in Ontario with twelve total national medals.
The team, which began varsity competition in 1994 with Johnson as its first head coach, holds the Ontario University Athletics conference record with twelve championships, and has qualified for the postseason in all 31 seasons. Johnson earned his 400th career win with the Gee-Gees during the 2025 season, with his overall record now standing at 404-74-71.
Three of Johnson’s Gee-Gees alumni have represented Canada in international matches as part of the senior women’s national team program, and he has been part of Canada’s coaching staff at five FISU Universiades. In 2019, he guided the Gee-Gees to gold as Canada’s entry at the inaugural FISU World Cup, and followed up by winning the FISU Americas Cup in 2022.
As the profile of women’s soccer has risen in Ottawa, Johnson has been a key figure for over 30 years.
John Butcher’s officiating career in Ottawa started as a linesman in 1976, having moved to the capital that year. Soon, he was lining at Ontario Hockey League games and refereeing at the junior and university levels. Recruited to join the Board of Directors of what is now Hockey Eastern Ontario, he took the position of Vice-President, Rules and Officials, and his on-ice officiating experience was much appreciated.
Butcher’s resume includes serving as an instructor in the National Referees Certification Program, presenting at Hockey Canada National Supervisors workshops, being a member of a Hockey Canada ad hoc committee reviewing its Constitution, Regulations and By-laws, and a member of Hockey Canada’s Return to Hockey Officiating Task Team.
His biggest impact with HEO has been as a referee supervisor, now referred to as the coaching and mentoring of officials. Working first with Junior and University level hockey officials and later with U15, U16, and U18AAA Minor hockey officials, he has helped generations learn and prepare for the next level of the game.
Forty years after co-founding Maverick Volleyball club in 1985, Kerry announced his retirement from the board of directors this summer. The announcement came on the heels of his induction into the Ontario Volleyball Association’s Hall of Fame in the builder category, recognizing his role in shaping Maverick into one of Ontario’s largest and most successful volleyball clubs.
For four decades he served as club president while coaching within the club as well as at Colonel By high school, where he was a physical education teacher for 29 years. In the high school system he served as Chair of the OFSAA Sport Advisory Committee and lead convenor for high school volleyball in the Ottawa area.
He was presented with the Mayor’s City Builder Award by Jim Watson in 2015, is a two-time recipient of the OVA Recognition Award, and received the OFSAA Leadership in School Sport Award.
As the executive director of the Ottawa Sport Council, Marci Morris had an impact across almost every amateur sporting organization in the City. From 2013 when the OSC was founded, to December of 2024, she acted as an advocate, leader, and passionate supporter of the collective approach to community sport.
Prior to her leadership role with the OSC, Morris worked professionally within the national offices for the Canadian Paralympic Committee, True Sport, and Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, and locally with Ottawa Internationals Soccer Club. Keeping local, she’s been a board member of the Ottawa-Carleton Ultimate Association, along with Ringette Canada. She has also represented Ottawa Rowing Club as an athlete at the RowOntario Masters Championships.
This wealth of experiences allowed Morris to build a solid foundation for the Ottawa Sport Council which has proven to be an essential resource for the sport community. Projects such as concussion education, safe sport and the Belonging Playbook created tools which are considered nation-leading in the community sport space.
The Mayor’s Cup recognizes those outstanding individuals who have a longstanding association with the City of Ottawa and have contributed many years of direct support and dedication to amateur sport in a variety of contexts. It is presented annually by the Mayor of Ottawa.
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The Ottawa Sports Awards honours the finest in the Ottawa amateur sports community. Click here to view our past winners!