Ottawa has a long and proud sport tradition, and in this ongoing series, we present highlight moments and figures from our local sport history. The Ottawa Sport History Highlight series is produced collaboratively by the Ottawa Sports Pages and the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame, which has welcomed almost 300 inductees dating back to its establishment in 1968.

In this edition of the Ottawa Sport History Highlight Series, we look back on five Ottawa players who earned gold medal wins with Team Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championships, with the 2025 world juniors set to return to town.

Looking back at 5 players from Ottawa who won gold with Team Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championships

A pair of Ottawa natives and the head coach and captain of the Ottawa 67’s will have the chance to become the first local representatives to earn a World Junior Hockey Championships title in their hometown when the nation’s capital hosts the 49th edition of Canada’s favourite holiday season classic.

Team Canada of course captured the gold medal the last time Ottawa hosted the world juniors in 2009 – after Jordan Eberle scored the indelible final-seconds tying goal to pull the home side through the semi-final – but no players from Ottawa were part of that team.

Chasing history will be Oliver Bonk – who returns to the national junior squad after the team’s quarter-final defeat to Czechia last year – Kanata’s Cole Beaudoin, Luca Pinelli and Team Canada head coach Dave Cameron of the 67’s, and assistant coach Sylvain Favreau of Orleans.

In this edition of the Ottawa Sport History Highlight Series, we look back at five Ottawa players who have won gold with Team Canada over the years, in chronological order:

Luke Richardson (1987)

Our list actually begins with an honourable mention to Luke Richardson, although many would say any talk of the Punch-up in Piestany is a dishonourable mention of WJHC history.

At the 1987 World Junior Hockey Championships in Czechoslovakia, the Canadians had the chance to finish at the top of the standings of the round-robin-only event and claim the gold medal with a win in the tournament’s final game. With just over six minutes left in the second period, they were leading 4-2 against the Soviet Union, which was out of medal contention. But then an unprecedented bench-clearing brawl erupted between the pair of hockey powers.

A two-handed slash by the USSR’s Pavel Kostichkin on Theo Fleury ignited the first fight, and once Evgeny Davydov left the Soviet bench to intervene in another battle, chaos ensued. Practically every player on both teams was involved in a scrap. As fists continued to fly left and right, the referees eventually left the ice and the arena’s lights were turned out to try to restore order. Both sides were ultimately ejected from the tournament, and Canada went home empty-handed, with Finland awarded the gold medal.

Richardson, who hadn’t even taken a minor penalty up to that point, had earlier helped Canada gain steam over the course of the tournament. After starting with a win, a tie and a loss, the Canadians had earned three victories in a row to put themselves in position to win the gold that never came, lost in the most unusual fashion.

Richardson went on to enjoy a 21-season NHL career until he retired with his hometown Ottawa Senators in 2008. The rock-solid blue liner from the Ottawa West Golden Knights was officially inducted into the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame earlier this year.

Chris Phillips (1996-1997)

Like Richardson, Chris Phillips recorded no points and no penalties in his first of two WJHC appearances in 1996, but nonetheless made his presence felt as a reliable, shutdown defenceman.

Canada allowed just one goal in five of its six wins en route to gold at the 1996 world juniors in Massachusetts.

At the 1997 event in Switzerland, Phillips was chosen to the tournament all-star team as Canada shutout USA 2-0 in the final, and he even recorded an assist on the game-winning goal in Canada’s 3-2 semi-final victory over Russia.

Phillips celebrated his 1996 title with fellow blueliner and Ottawa Senators great Wade Redden, who’d also won in 1995 alongside Alexandre Daigle during Canada’s record-setting run of five-straight championships from 1993-1997.

Inducted into the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame in 2019 after a 20-year NHL career exclusively with the Ottawa Senators, Phillips didn’t grow up in the nation’s capital, but he’s made Ottawa his home ever since he joined the team that drafted him first overall in 1996.

Many more Canadian world junior champs have gone on to play for the Sens, including Team Canada captain Curtis Lazar, who won the 2015 Montreal/Toronto tournament alongside Nick Paul. Craig Billington, Shean Donovan, Clarke MacArthur, Dean McAmmond, Dion Phaneuf and Kyle Turris are other former Sens who were Canadian world junior champs.

Michael Blunden (2006)

Michael Blunden was part of one of the more dominant performances in Canadian WJHC history, and he got to do it in front of a home crowd in Vancouver.

Team Canada won four of its six games by four goals or more at the tournament, but this was not a group that was initially expected to dominate at all.

Gone from the previous year’s squad that kickstarted another run of five straight Canadian titles from 2005-2009 were future Olympic champions Patrice Bergeron, Jeff Carter, Sidney Crosby, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Mike Richards, Brent Seabrook and Shea Weber.

In many ways, Blunden was emblematic of Canada’s 2006 entry as a hard-nosed, physical presence who plays a straightforward and effective game. The big right-winger brought energy to the squad by skating hard, crashing into bodies along the boards and parking himself in front of the opposing team’s net.

At no time was the former Gloucester Ranger’s impact felt more than in the gold medal game. The “big tree who can out-muscle people” (the commentators’ description of Blunden) scored back-to-back powerplay goals in the second period to push his team ahead 4-0, and Canada carried on to trounce Evgeny Malkin and the Russians 5-0.

Blunden went on to carve out a successful 14-season professional hockey career, mostly in the AHL. He made his last of 127 NHL game appearances for his hometown Ottawa Senators in 2017-18 before finishing his career in Europe.

Claude Giroux (2008)

It’s been 17 years since Ottawa Senators assistant captain Claude Giroux celebrated a WJHC title with Team Canada on an overtime golden goal in the Czech Republic.

Canada had to battle its way to the top in this edition of the tournament, without any blowout victories in its seven contests.

Giroux provided key offensive contributions for Team Canada over the course of the competition. Registering two goals and four assists, the past Cumberland Grads and Gatineau Olympiques star tied for second in team scoring behind Kyle Turris.

His most important goal came in the gold medal game. Giroux scored to give Canada a 2-0 first-period lead over Sweden, but it still wound up taking an overtime winner by Matt Halischuk for Team Canada to triumph.

Passed over in the OHL draft once upon a time, Giroux has gone on to become one of the most consistent and durable NHL talents of this generation. He’s scored over 1,000 points in 1,200+ games to place within the top-70 scorers of all-time.

Giroux has only been selected to wear the maple leaf at one other best-on-best international tournament since the world juniors, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, although he’s scored the third-most NHL points by a Canadian since he joined the Philadelphia Flyers in 2008-09 (behind only Sidney Crosby and Steven Stamkos).

Brandt Clarke (2023)

Brandt Clarke is the most recent local player to experience WJHC glory, and like Giroux, he got to experience the thrill of an overtime championship-winning goal.

Just a few months after the COVID-delayed 2022 edition was played, Clarke and Team Canada revelled in the energy of a capacity Canadian crowd as the holiday tournament returned to Halifax.

Along with fellow defencemen Jack Matier of the Ottawa 67’s and Gatineau’s Tyson Hinds, Clarke showed off his offensive talents to lead Canada’s back end with nine points over seven games.

Canada escaped a quarter-final showdown with Slovakia thanks to a Connor Bedard OT winner, and then drubbed USA 6-2 in the semis to setup the dramatic finale with Czechia.

Again mirroring Giroux’s experience 15 years earlier, Clarke and Team Canada built a 2-0 lead in the championship game before their opponents roared back with a pair of third-period markers.

But all ended well for the home side when Clarke started the play that led to the tournament-winner in 3-on-3 overtime. The Nepean Raiders product banked a pass to Dylan Guenther, who then played give-and-go with Joshua Roy to knock home the golden goal and send the Canadian crowd into hysterics.

The 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship will be contested from Dec. 26-Jan. 5 at TD Place and Canadian Tire Centre, with all games broadcast on TSN.