Ottawa Champions | |||||
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Information | |||||
League | Can-Am League | ||||
Location | Ottawa, Ontario | ||||
Ballpark | Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park | ||||
Founded | 2014 | ||||
Disbanded | 2020 | ||||
Nickname(s) | Champions, Champs | ||||
League championships | 1: (2016) | ||||
Colours | Blue, red, white
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Mascot | Champ | ||||
Playoff berths |
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Manager | Sebastien Boucher | ||||
Media | Ottawa Citizen, Le Droit, CKDJ-FM, CJFO-FM | ||||
Website | www.ottawachampions.ca |
The Ottawa Champions Baseball Club (French: Les Champions d'Ottawa) were a professional baseball team based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The Champions made their debut as a member of the Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball (Can-Am League) in 2015.[1] They won their first league championship in 2016 defeating the Rockland Boulders 3-2 after being down 2-0 in the series, winning game 5, 3-1 with a complete game win by Austin Chrismon. They played their home games at Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park. The Champions mascot was Champ.
After the 2019 season, the Can-Am League merged with the Frontier League and five of the six teams remaining in it joined the latter league. The Champions were not invited to take part, but it was not immediately clear if they would fold or go on hiatus as owner Miles Wolff, the former Can-Am League commissioner, looked to sell the team. He could not find a buyer, however, and the team folded operations. Eventually, the Frontier League decided to expand to Ottawa anyway, announcing in September 2020 that the league would be granting a franchise to a group led by Sam Katz, the former mayor of Winnipeg and owner of the Winnipeg Goldeyes of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, and Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, who owns the Ottawa 67’s junior hockey team and the Ottawa Redblacks of the Canadian Football League; the league considers this to be an expansion team and not to have any connection to the Champions. The new team are the Ottawa Titans, which started their season in May 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.