Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame

For further information on Ottawa sporting legends, be sure to check out the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame on the second level concourse at Scotiabank Place.

Founded in 1966, the Hall is open whenever Scotiabank Place is, and has since inducted more than 200 members, including Cyclone Taylor, Larry Robinson, Denis Potvin, Aurel Joliat, Mark Kosmos, Phil Maloney, Franklin Thomas Ahearn, Francis (Frank) Amyot, Marjorie Blackwood, Donald Booth, Sheryl Boyle, Cyril Joseph (Cy) Denneny, Francois Xavier (Frank) Boucher, and John George (Buck) Boucher.

Ottawa Ski Hills

Fortune-ately Ottawa’s best option for a winter ski vacation is Camp Fortune, only a 15-minute drive from downtown. It boasts 20 ski trails, ranging from beginner to experienced. During the off-season it has great mountain biking trails.

Two other options would be Mont Cascades (448 Mont Cascades Rd., 888-282-2722,) in nearby Cantley, Quebec, with night-skiing, snowboarding, and 19 trails; or Mont Tremblant in Mont Tremblant, Quebec (819-425-8681, a farther drive outside Ottawa (about two hours), but it has the highest peak in the Laurentian Mountains and plenty of other winter activities to keep you busy, including dogsledding, horseback riding, ice climbing, cross-country skiing, and a snowboarding snow park (like a skate park, but for snowboarders), which includes an Olympic-sized half pipe.

Other Ski Locations in the Ottawa Area:

Calabogie Peaks Resort: Calabogie (near Arnprior), Ontario, 752-2720

Mont Ste. Marie: Mont Ste. Marie, Quebec, 819-467-5200

Mount Pakenham: Pakenham, Ontario, 624-5290

Vorlage: Wakefield, Quebec, 819- 459-2301

Anne Heggtveit:Ottawa’s Skiing Gold Medalist

Ottawa’s Anne Heggtveit won the 1960 Winter Olympics gold medal in slalom at Squaw Valley, California. Heggtveit, whose father, Halvor, was a Canadian crosscountry champion, first gained acclaim when she became, at 15 years of age, the youngest winner ever of the Holmenkollen Giant Slalom competition in Norway in 1954.

In addition to winning Canada’s first-ever Olympic skiing gold, she was also the first non- European to win the International Ski Federation slalom and overall world championship. She was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1960, and has a ski run named after her at Camp Fortune Ski Resort.

Skiing: a New Idea?

Lord Frederick Hamilton introduced skiing to the Ottawa area in 1887. Brother-in-law of Lord Lansdowne, Governor General, Hamilton brought a pair of Russian skis with him during his stay at Rideau Hall. Though his first skiing demonstrations were booed by some onlookers (not all new ideas are greeted with open arms), the activity soon caught on.

By the late 1930s, when the popularity of the sport soared, roughly a third of the 50,000 skiers in Ontario lived in Ottawa. Once considered one of the great skiing centres of this continent and the world, Ottawa is now home to the Canadian Ski Museum at 200-1960 Scott Street, where you can find a detailed history of skiing, and a collection of old skis and ski equipment from Canada and around the world (open daily, closed holidays; 722-3584).