OTTAWA, ON – The Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame will welcome an acclaimed class of new inductees this year, with the Barrett family of Leitrim, Ervin Budge, Don Campbell, the 2012 Ottawa Fury women’s soccer team, Jacques Martin, Jo-Anne Polak, Pat Stoqua and Erica Wiebe all set to be enshrined.

Tickets are now on sale for the 2025 induction ceremony, which will take place on Wednesday, May 28 at Lansdowne Park’s Horticultural Building.

“We are so proud to honour this really special group,” says Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame Chair Dave Best. “We’ve got some of Ottawa’s best-known athletes and coaches, others from less-celebrated sports, we’ve got influential and inspiring trailblazers in women’s sport, we’ve got exceptional builders who have contributed so much to our community, and of course we’ve got an Olympic champ – how can you get any better than that?”

BARRETT FAMILY (BUILDERS – HOCKEY)

Grown from the family farm of Fred G. Barrett and Doris Kemp – and the outdoor rink next to Leitrim Public School – the legendary multi-generation Barrett family has provided leadership and excellence in local hockey for over 65 years.

While the family’s on-ice accomplishments alone are of Hall of Fame stature, the Barretts will be inducted collectively as builders. Barrett family members fueled the construction of numerous arenas (including Barrett Arena in Leitrim), plus many more ball diamonds, soccer/football fields and tennis courts.

A Gloucester Township councillor of three decades and the City of Gloucester’s first mayor, Fred Sr. was instrumental in securing sponsorship for the regional Ottawa Cradle League, which played out of the Old Ottawa Auditorium and started in the 1950s with registration fees of $1 per player.

His eldest son Fred Jr. played in the Cradle League before winning a Memorial Cup and reaching the Stanley Cup finals with the Minnesota North Stars during his 14-year career as an NHL defenceman. Middle son George was a champion junior and university hockey goalie who followed in his father’s footsteps and became a municipal councillor. His youngest son John was a Turner Cup champion in the International Hockey League for the Kalamazoo Wings before starting his nine-year NHL career with the Detroit Red Wings.

His eldest child Joan held her own against any challenger on the outdoor rink, but didn’t have a chance to show her talents any further in an era where girls weren’t allowed to play organized hockey. While operating the Knippel Garden Centre on the Barrett family farm, Joan supported her sons Kennedy and Marty into junior and university hockey (Marty is now an assistant coach for the Winnipeg Jets).

The family has an immense collective history of coaching, organizing and volunteering in minor hockey, particularly with the Gloucester Hockey Association, and they’ve also made a giant impact as community leaders and fundraisers with the Gloucester Lions Club and Ottawa Senators Alumni Association. They are the backbone behind countless sports and recreation opportunities that Ottawa residents continue to enjoy today.

ERVIN BUDGE (BUILDER – BILLIARDS)

If you’re serious about billiards in Ottawa, then you know him as Budgie. And you also know that there wasn’t a soul in town who could touch Ervin Budge in a snooker match – not many could challenge him in Canada or abroad either.

Born into a family of 13 siblings in Maniwaki, Budge learned to play billiards at age seven in the back of a barber shop, in between shining shoes. He went on to win many International Snooker League tournaments in the U.S., England and around the globe, including a dozen world amateur team gold or silver medals.

Budge was a big-time builder for the sport in the region and in Canada. He helped Broken Cue Billiards open upwards of 20 clean and bright billiards halls in the area.

It helped transform the image of the sport. Budge was a driving force behind the first editions of the national snooker championships, which were held at the Ottawa Civic Centre in the mid-to-late 1970s.

Budgie is also well-known as a tireless philanthropist. A co-founder and CEO of the Elvis Sighting Society out of Moe’s Newport Restaurant, he’s raised funds for piles of community causes, including the Snowsuit Fund, CHEO, the YMCA/YWCA, the Shepherds of Good Hope, the Food Bank and many more.

DON CAMPBELL (MEDIA) & JO-ANNE POLAK (BUILDER)

Don Campbell and Jo-Anne Polak’s contributions to Ottawa sport are a fair bit different, but each very significant, and now the couple of 25 years will be entering the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame together this spring.

Polak was a pioneer in sport. Still in her 20s, she was hired as the Ottawa Rough Riders’ business manager in 1988 and a year later was promoted to become the first female general manager of a pro sports team in North America. Polak had to overcome not only sexist attitudes at the time, but also the challenge of serving during some of darker days for the CFL and the Riders. She recognized that her primary job was to sell tickets and keep the franchise alive, although the team’s on-field performance also improved during her three seasons as GM.

Campbell is a gifted sports writer who has been serving Ottawa newspaper readers for more than four decades. Football and baseball were among his specialties, while some of his most memorable work was done covering the Ottawa 67’s. Perhaps appropriately, Campbell was also the first recipient of the City of Ottawa’s Brian Kilrea Coaching Award in 2012 for his decades of work as an Ottawa-Nepean Canadians baseball coach and manager. Always focused on doing what’s best for his players, Campbell has helped dozens of them land scholarships and tryouts.

2012 OTTAWA FURY WOMEN’S SOCCER TEAM

The 2012 USL W-League champions were the most successful Ottawa Fury squad during the club’s 15-year run in the nation’s capital, although the Fury played a trailblazing role in the success of Ottawa and Canadian women’s soccer as a whole during that time.

Renowned for its professional approach to amateur soccer, the Fury provided a launching pad for over 60 players to compete on senior women’s national teams, while the club was a dominant force in collecting 10 division titles, six conference crowns and eight appearances in the W-League Final Four.

The elusive overall championship finally came to fruition in storybook fashion on July 29, 2012. After trailing California’s Pali Blues 1-0 for almost the entire final, the Fury tied it off a free kick on the last play of the game, and then hometown goalkeeper Jasmine Phillips led the tournament-host Fury to a penalty-kick shootout victory at Algonquin College.

That same summer, five former Fury helped Team Canada to a bronze medal at the London 2012 Olympics. The most famous Fury alumna is Diana Matheson, who scored the goal to give the Canadian women their first Olympic podium, and recently co-founded the Northern Super League. Ottawa Rapid FC will soon debut in the new NSL professional women’s league, with original Ottawa Fury player and Ottawa Sport Hall of Famer Kristina Kiss (Class of 2015) acting as the Rapid’s technical director.

JACQUES MARTIN (BUILDER – HOCKEY)

Jacques Martin is best known as the head coach of the Ottawa Senators during the club’s most successful period, although his contributions to local hockey date back much farther. The former St. Lawrence University goalie and University of Ottawa grad taught in the physical education department at Algonquin College while coaching the Rockland Nationals and Hawkesbury Hawks junior hockey teams.

Martin moved on to Peterborough and Guelph in the Ontario Hockey League and then first became an NHL head coach in 1986 with the St. Louis Blues. He then served as an assistant with Chicago and Quebec before Ottawa called on the coach from Saint-Pascal-Baylon in 1996.

After finishing last in every one of its first four NHL seasons, Martin lifted the Senators to an unforgettable first-ever playoff berth in 1997, and the team kept rising from there. The Sens won their first playoff series the next season and then won their first division title the year after that, as Martin earned the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s top coach. During Martin’s tenure, Ottawa also won a Presidents’ Trophy with the league’s best record in 2002-03 and came within a game of reaching the Stanley Cup final.

Martin later served as head coach for Florida and Montreal, and he won two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016 and 2017 as an assistant. Well recognized for his commitment to defensive structure and holding players accountable, Martin was called on to guide the young core group of current Senators to conclude the 2023-2024 and to help select the team’s next head coach.

PAT STOQUA (ATHLETE – FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL)

From the outdoor basketball courts in downtown Ottawa, to star athlete at Lisgar Collegiate and Carleton University, and a six-season career with the Ottawa Rough Riders, Pat Stoqua was a hometown hero throughout all of his sports career.

At Carleton, Stoqua was a team MVP and conference all-star for the Ravens in both football and basketball. He was the Ontario-Quebec conference football rookie of the year in 1977 and earned All-Canadian honours in 1979, when the Ottawa Rough Riders selected him in the Canadian Football League draft.

Stoqua was named the Player of the Game in the 1981 CFL East final after scoring the game-winning touchdown on a 102-yard catch and run play. The slotback’s second touchdown of the contest – and the Panasonic CFL Play of the Year – gave Ottawa the lead en route to a 17-13 upset victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He then came within a field goal of winning a Grey Cup in his lone appearance in the championship game as Ottawa fell to Edmonton 26-23.

Stoqua later became a coach for local boys’ and girls’ youth basketball teams, he was a long-time volunteer on the Goulbourn Basketball Association executive, and he helped revive the Ravens football program in 2013. A club champion on the links at Eagle Creek, Stoqua also volunteered at the Commissionaires Ottawa Open to help raise hundreds of thousands for charitable partner Soldier On, and he’s also been a key fundraiser for the Ravens’ basketball and football programs.

ERICA WIEBE (ATHLETE – WRESTLING)

On Aug. 18, 2016, Erica Wiebe cemented her place in the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame, but the Rio Olympic champion’s induction is now officially confirmed a year after making her retirement from wrestling official.

Competing in the women’s 75 kg division, Wiebe left no doubt about who was the world’s best when she won all four of her matches by at least three points in Rio, including a 6-0 win in the gold medal final.

The Sacred Heart Huskies/National Capital Wrestling Club product won her first major title at the 2006 Canadian cadet championships, and went on to capture three individual Canadian university crowns with the Calgary Dinos, plus world university gold and bronze medals, and seven senior national championships.

In 2014, she won 36 matches in a row to become the world’s #1-ranked wrestler while earning her first of two Commonwealth Games gold medals. Wiebe was victorious in many more international tournaments during her career, and also earned a 2018 world championships bronze medal.

She earned her second Olympic berth at the continental qualifier in her hometown – just as COVID was shutting the world down – and eventually went on to place 11th at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

Since announcing her retirement last spring, Wiebe has also rapidly been inducted into the Wrestling Canada, University of Calgary Dinos and Stittsville Sports Halls of Fame. Now acting as the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Manager of Athlete Relations, Safe Sport and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Wiebe follows Ray Takahashi to become the second wrestler inducted into the Ottawa Sport Hall.

This year’s celebration of the people and teams that have enriched Ottawa’s sports community will take place on the evening of Wednesday, May 28th, at Lansdowne Park’s Horticultural Building.

Tickets are $125 each or $1,200 for a table of 10. They can be purchased below, or directly at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/2025-ottawa-sport-hall-of-fame-inductions-tickets-1151693278599.

All of the new inductees are expected to be in attendance. Weekly in the springtime leading up to the banquet, the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame will share detailed features on each of the upcoming inductees.