Jacques Martin, Jo-Anne Polak and ‘D.C.’ among inductees into Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame

The Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame announced its 2025 inductees on Wednesday, and among the distinguished group are a hockey family, a soccer team and a married couple.

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The list to be enshrined at the May 28 ceremony includes Jacques Martin (builder-hockey), Pat Stoqua (athlete-football/basketball), Ervin “Budgie” Budge (builder-billiards), Erica Wiebe (athlete-wrestling), the 2012 Ottawa Fury women’s soccer team, the Barrett family (builders-hockey), Jo-Anne Polak (builder-football) and Don Campbell (builder-media).

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Polak, who became the first female general manager of a pro sports team when the Ottawa Rough Riders promoted her into the position in 1989, and Campbell, a longtime Ottawa Citizen sportswriter and baseball coach, are the first wife and husband to be inducted into the Hall at the same time.

“It’s so cool that we are going in together,” said Polak. “Our stories are so different. He is such a quiet and unassuming guy who never seeks the spotlight.  But what he has done for baseball in Ottawa is next level.”

Campbell, a.k.a. “D.C.”, was the first recipient of the city’s Brian Kilrea Coach Award in 2012 for his decades of work as an Ottawa-Nepean Canadians baseball coach and manager.

“As a kid going to 67’s games, I used to walk around the concourse at intermission and read all the plaques for the Hall of Famers,” he said. “I read them over and over, and thought, ‘Wow they must have been really great people’ to be remembered like that. So it is a great honour to share something with the many Hall of Famers I have admired over the years.”

Martin, a former St. Lawrence University goalie, coached the Rockland Nationals and Hawkesbury Hawks before moving on to coach in the OHL and a 30-year career in the NHL that included two stints (1996-2004 and an interim position in 2023-2024) as the Ottawa Senators’ bench boss.

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Wiebe, a Stittsville native, won 36 consecutive matches in 2014 to become the world’s No. 1-ranked wrestler and earn her first of two Commonwealth Games gold medals. She also won gold at the 2016 Summer Olympics in women’s 75 kg freestyle.

Stoqua, a star athlete at Lisgar Collegiate and Carleton University, spent six seasons with the Rough Riders and was named the player of the game in the 1981 CFL East Final after scoring the winning touchdown on a famous 102-yard play. He went on to coach local boys’ and girls’ youth basketball teams in the region and help revive the Ravens football program in 2013.

Budge, who was born into a family of 13 siblings in Maniwaki, learned to play billiards at the age of seven at the back of a barber shop, in between shining shoes. He went on to become one of the world’s foremost snooker players and a driving force behind the first editions of the national snooker championship held at the Ottawa Civic Centre in the mid-to-late 1970s.

The 2012 Ottawa Fury women’s soccer team captured the W-League championship to culminate a dominant run in which it also won 10 division titles, six conference crowns and made eight appearances in the Final Four. Five former Fury members helped Team Canada to a bronze at the 2012 Olympics in London while the most famous Fury alumna, Diana Matheson, scored the winning goal to give the Canadian women their first Olympic podium.

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From a family farm and the outdoor rink next to Leitrim Public School, the legendary multi-generation Barrett clan has provided leadership and excellence in local hockey for more than 65 years. Fred Jr. won a Memorial Cup with the Toronto Marlboros in 1967 and, during a 14-year career as an NHL defenceman, reached the Stanley Cup final in 1981 with the Minnesota North Stars. John Barrett won a Turner Cup championship in the IHL with the Kalamazoo Wings before a nine-year career with the Detroit Red Wings.

Tickets for this spring’s celebration of inductees at Lansdowne Park’s Horticultural Building are $125 each or $1,200 for a table of 10. They can be purchased through the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame website (ottawasporthall.ca).

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