The Games are coming.

Sure, the 2026 Winter Olympics are nearing their end, as most people well know. But no sooner will the festivities from Milano-Cortina subside that the fun begins in earnest in Orillia and surrounding areas, host to the 2026 Ontario Winter Games.

And while curler Tracy Fleury, Paralympic nordic skier Logan Lariviere and NHL linesman David Brisebois carry the Sudbury torch in Italy, the much closer to home multi-sport competition will provide the stage of opportunity to a much larger array of young athletes from the Nickel City as 18 different sports are contested this time around.

Unfortunately, there is no easy and sure-fire way to identify all of the locals who will be in the middle of the action of OWG 2026 - but we have taken a best-effort basis to try and locate as many as possible (and hopefully all), tapping into an exhaustive array of contacts within the Sudbury sporting network.

It’s a process that can be tricky to navigate, especially where the landscape shifts, at times, with each and every two year cycle in which the Games return.

For the ringette community, we have seen the provincial body move from more regional teams (typically along with a catch all) to now following more of a standard talent identification model, where a large pool of talented teens from all corners of the province are invited to OWG tryouts, with that group ultimately narrowed down to some 85 athletes broken into five teams.

Two players (Jenna Provincial and Yasmine Ahmed) and a coach (Shelley Ahmed) will be proudly representing our city at Rotary Place Arena, though all three find themselves on different teams. “I’m there to win,” quipped Shelley Ahmed with a smile, recognizing that this will be the first time in her memory that she finds herself coaching against her own daughter.

“I am hoping that she’s successful, but I am there to learn, to learn from all of these great high performance coaches and bring that knowledge back to the north,” added the woman who is serving as an assistant coach with Team Black. Where many a winter have been spent guiding Sudbury ringette teams strewn with youngsters that she knows very well, the Winter Games experience presents something a little different, for coach and athlete alike.

“This is about getting to know players that you have never worked with before and building those relationships, building that trust.”

Clearly, this environment cuts both ways.

"For me, this is about stepping out of my comfort zone and being willing to try new things,” noted Jenna Provincial, a 16 year-old grade 11 student at St Charles College who will be entrusted with the responsibilities that come with being a defender with Team Green.

“Coaches will have different strategies. The level of play is going to be so much different and playing with players that I have never played with before will be a whole new experience.”

A strong skater blessed with solid ring possession skills, Provincial knows that the decision-making involved when one is competing against a collection of “AAA” ringette talent is not all that similar at all to the bulk of her tournament play this winter with a Sudbury U19 A Storm squad.

“Being able to skate the ring out of my zone has always been part of my game but with the high level of play here, I need to move the ring,” she said.

The concept applies, with a slightly different twist, to forward Yasmine Ahmed, also in grade 11 (Lasalle Secondary) and a member of the Team Blue roster. “I need to be a lot more strategic with what I can do,” said the swift-skating sniper who also shines in track and field sprints and flag football.

“I can’t get away with things that I can at “A” (ringette), where I might get away with slacking off my man or breaking into the triangle.”

For as much as her offensive attributes allow her to shine while representing the GSRA (Greater Sudbury Ringette Association), Ahmed fully grasps the notion that she will need to assert herself in all areas of the ice at this level.

“Every single practice that we have done has been focused with man-on and goal-side inside defense,” she said. “It’s about staying closer to your net and on the inside of your player. Whenever we don’t have the ring, we are defending.”

Ringette action begins this weekend as the Ontario Winter Games find themselves split over a pair of three day brackets (February 20th - 22nd; February 27th - March 1st), with only weightlifters Alexi and Sam Moulton (Sudbury Weightlifting Club) also competing in Week 1 among the Sudbury delegation.

With weight classes broken down into just two categories, the siblings who recently took part in the Ontario Junior Championships in Ottawa will be in tough. At ages 14 and 16 respectively, the Moultons are also facing adversaries ranging all the way up to 19 years of age.

“I explained to them that this is a mini Olympic Games,” said coach Alex Fera. “Enjoy the atmosphere and all of the other sports and athletes. Try and concentrate on their own performance and have fun.”

Week two sees a much larger influx of competitors from Greater Sudbury, including bowlers Landon Zelonko and Matthieu St Onge, the latter having also qualified to compete at Youth Challenge Nationals.

The nordic ski community will be well represented as no less than eight skiers, an all-time club high, will be donning the Laurentian Nordic Ski Club colours at the Ontario Winter Games at Hardwood Ski & Bike in Oro. The L.U. octet features Eden Abols, Julian Luoma, Julia Masters, Alice Westby, Ryan Pineau, Nicholas Long, Georgia McShane and Effie Godwin.

The alpine ski delegation is even larger, albeit split between a pair of regional clubs as the Adanac Ski Club sends Anna Corsi, Ella Prosperi, Emily Massimiliano, Malin Hunt, Kathryn Pegues and Rohan Saidi-Smith to the multi-sport extravaganza while Cohen Grieve, Joe Zito, Evan Ayers, Jackson Jost-Noob and Mauro Frescura are all present on behalf of the Elliot Lake Ski Racers.

While it has proved challenging to try and track down a complete listing of Northeastern Ontario wrestlers who are heading to Orillia, we do know that Dexter Mailloux and Kiera Harvey are heading up a group that also welcomes Bailey Sutton, Danika Rayan, Gabby Menard, Blake Haight and Karthikeya Kancherlapalli to the fold.

Finally, the Sudbury Artistic Swim Club will also be present, but in the form of an officiating capacity as club alumnus Stephanie Westphal heads to her second set of Games as a judge, this time in a more senior capacity.

“I really enjoyed going back to Thunder Bay (in 2024), since it was my first time going back as an official since competing there,” said Westphal, a Level 2 judge in the sport and OWG gold medal winner in 2004 in London with partner Lindsay Wandziak. “It just felt surreal, having last been at that meet as a swimmer and now being on the other side of the pool.”

Not that this transition comes without challenges.

“I think I am a little more critical than the average official, especially the ones who haven’t been swimmers,” added Westphal.

That said, it’s a pathway that she intends to pursue, to see how far it might lead her.

“When we do our debrief at the end of an event and you’re discussing things with other officials, especially the senior officials, being in the same ballpark as them, being on the same page feels good,” said Westphal. “It is very reassuring to know that I am seeing what they are seeing.”