OTTAWA, ON – On Wednesday, May 28th at Lansdowne Park’s Horticulture Building, the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame will induct the Class of 2025 into our local sports shrine. Each Wednesday until the ceremony, the Sport Hall will post an article on an aspect of the event. Today’s feature is a profile on 2025 Inductee Jacques Martin.

2025 SPORT HALL INDUCTEE – JACQUES MARTIN:

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.

Martin grew up in Saint-Pascal-Baylon, east of Ottawa, where he worked on his father’s dairy farm and assumed the frigid goalie position on the outdoor rink. He later moved to Vanier and played a year of minor hockey alongside Ottawa Sport Hall of Famer Denis Potvin, before joining the Hull Festivals junior team.

Martin played university hockey for St. Lawrence in Canton, NY and then back at home with the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees. He got his first coaching job while teaching in the physical education department at Algonquin College. He also coached his hometown Rockland Nationals as well as the Hawkesbury Hawks in the Central junior league.

Martin then moved on to coach in the OHL for the Peterborough Petes and the Guelph Platers, who he guided to a Memorial Cup title in 1986.

Martin says he’ll always remain grateful for those initial coaching jobs, even if the paycheque wasn’t so great.

“You learn a lot from those experiences,” Martin told Ottawa Citizen reporter Ken Warren in 1999 after earning the NHL’s coach-of-the-year award. “I don’t think I’ve ever changed, and I don’t want to change. I’m the same individual as I was in St. Pascal. I’ve grown, I’ve improved, but I haven’t changed.”

In 1986, Martin got his first opportunity as an NHL head coach with the St. Louis Blues, who he led for two seasons. He then served as an assistant with Chicago and Quebec/Colorado, including a stint with Quebec’s AHL affiliate, the Cornwall Aces.

On Jan. 24, 1996, general manager Pierre Gauthier tabbed Martin to guide a young Ottawa Senators team chasing a first playoff for the struggling franchise.

After finishing last in every one of their first four NHL seasons, Martin lifted the Senators to an unforgettable first-ever postseason berth in 1997, thanks to a late goal by Steve Duchesne in the final game of the regular season.

The team kept rising from there. The Sens won their first playoff series the next season, followed by their first division title in 1998-99. After that 103-point season, Martin earned the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s top coach. He was also a finalist for the honour in 2003, 2001 and 1997.

During Martin’s tenure, Ottawa also won a Presidents’ Trophy for the league’s best record in 2002-2003 and came within a game of reaching the Stanley Cup final.

Martin’s nine-season run in Ottawa – the longest of any NHL head coach at the time – came to an end in 2004. That length of time “represented an eternity by the cut-throat standards of professional sports,” Warren wrote after Martin’s farewell media conference in 2004.

“I’ve been fortunate to work with some tremendous players. It’s part of my life I’ll never forget,” Martin said. “I appreciate what I had for nine years. I want to thank the fans of Ottawa. I had some great moments that I’ll never forget.”

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. Martin also helped Team Canada to an Olympic gold medal as an associate coach at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

As a coach, Martin was always well-recognized for his attention to detail, a commitment to defensive structure, holding players accountable and promoting consistency.

That made it only natural that the Senators would again call on him to guide the young core of current Sens, at the conclusion of the 2024 season, to help set the stage for their resurgence into a playoff team.

“Hopefully I’ll stay in the organization and try to help them get to where we want to get to and that’s to win a Cup,” Martin, who remains a team advisor, told Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch at the conclusion of his second tenure as head coach.

“I’ve always said that I’ve always been a team-first guy. When I look at back when I coached this team the first time, we had some great scouts that got us some great players.

“As coaches, it was pleasure to mold those young men, to develop and to work with them and bring them to an elite level. Hopefully, the same process and same steps are going to happen with this organization and with this team.”

MAY 28 OTTAWA SPORT HALL OF FAME INDUCTION EVENING

Tickets for the Wednesday, May 28th Induction Ceremony are now sold out!

In the lead-up to the banquet, full-length features on each of the inductees and honoured teams will be posted on the Hall’s website at OttawaSportHall.ca and shared through the Ottawa Sports Pages.

Sponsorship opportunities are still available. See OttawaSportHall.ca/Sponsorship for more details.

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Contact:

Dave Best
Chair, Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame
Chair@OttawaSportHall.ca

About the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame:

The Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame is a non-profit organization, which documents, curates and celebrates outstanding achievement in local sport heritage. The Sport Hall is overseen by a volunteer Board of Directors to maintain and preserve our rich sporting legacies. Each year, the Hall of Fame Board receives nominations from the public and selects new inductees to be honoured in the Hall.