(Posted 7:30 a.m., Jan. 22)
2012 Ottawa Sports Awards have distinctive Orléans flavour
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

Orléans native Ivanie Blondin has been named among the recipients of the 2012 ACT Ottawa Sports Awards. It is the seventh year in a row Blondin will receive an award for the sport of speed skating. File photo

Orléans will be well represented at this year's ACT Ottawa Sports Awards banquet with area athletes picking up six individual and a more than a dozen team awards, including the Gisele-Lalonde senior girls AA volleyball team for winning the OFSAA provincial championship last spring.

Speed skater Ivanie Blondin will receive the award for long track speed skating, becoming the only person to win the award seven straight years.

Blondin, 22, is being recognized for her success on the World Cup circuit this fall. She won a silver medal in the mass start event in Russia and placed ninth in the 5000-metre event in Kazakstan where she also won a gold medal in the team pursuit event with teammates Christine Nesbitt and Brittany Schussler.

Baseball phenom Demi Orimoloye will be getting an award for the second year in a row. The 15-year-old St. Matthew High School student batted .338 with four home runs and 30 stolen bases playing for the Ottawa Nepean Canadians last summer.

As a result of his success he was named to Team Ontario despite being two years underage, and was one of the youngest players on the Canadian Junior National Team for a Florida tour.

A pick-up player for the Canadian Bantam championships, he was a tournament all-star. One Major League Baseball scout went so far as to call Demi the “finest Canadian prospect he has seen in 30 years” – high praise considering Demi is not eligible to be drafted until June 2015.

Blondin and Orimoloye will be joined by fellow two-time recipient Courtnay Pilypaitis who played on the Canadian national team at the Summer Olympics in London. She last won the award in 2009 in recognition of her senior year at the University of Vermont.

Jake Fox is a first time recipient in the sport of lacrosse. Currently enrolled at Trinity-Pawling Prep School in New York, Fox was a member of the Team Ontario midget team that won the Canadian Box Lacrosse Championship this past year, He also received rookie of the year honours playing for the Gloucester Griffins Junior B team and is commited to playing for John Hopkins University in 2015.

Cody Ceci is another first time winner. The former Cumberland Baron had an outstanding season playing for the Ottawa 67s last year. He was the second leading scoring defenceman in the OHL with 17 goals and 43 assists and was named a second-team All-Star. But the highlight of his year was being selected 15th overall in the NHL draft by the Ottawa Senators.

The sixth individual award recipient is Samantha Morrison in short track speed skating. Despite relocating to Calgary to focus on long track, she managed to win a silver medalist at the Ontario short track championships and she placed 7th overall in the junior women’s category at the national championships.

Besides the individual award recipients, a number of other local athletes will get an award as members of teams that won a provincial or national championships including Chelsea Lanos, Julia Francki and Alexie Morin-Holland who won the OUA championship playing for the University of Ottawa women's soccer team.

Segun Makinde, Devin Biocchi and Tolu Makinde won the CIS 4x200 relay and set a new CIS record with University of Ottawa teammate Michael Robertson.

Former St. Matthew Tigers Tyson Hinz and Gavin Resch were members of the Carleton Ravens men's basketball team that won the CIS national championship, and Kellie Ring and Emilie Vachon played an integral roll on the University of Ottawa women's basketbal team that won the OUA provincial championship.

The 60th annual Ottawa Sports Awards banquet will be held on Jan. 30. Besides the 2012 award recipients, representative athletes from each of the past six decades wll also be recognized.

They include skier Anne Heggveit-Hamilton, ski jumper Pat Morris, the Takahashi Family, Olympic gold medalist Linda Thom, sprinter Glenroy Gilbert, and speed skater Kristina Groves.

(Posted 10 a.m., Dec. 18)

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