Sudbury has long been a breeding ground for talented sports stars who have progressed to representing Canada from the ice to the water and on the field. These top athletes have all left indelible marks in their respective sporting disciplines through the annuls of Canadian sports.
With the recent legalization of online casinos and sportsbooks in Ontario paving the way for similar legislation in other parts of the Great White North, sports betting has become an integral part of Sudbury's sporting culture.
Residents of Nickel City can now freely partake in activities such as online gambling, meaning they can place wagers on betting markets featuring their favourite sporting sons and daughters. For those wanting to do so, Techopedia's gambling expert Vlad Grindu has a little advice:
"Make sure to choose from the best licensed gambling sites in Canada so that you have access to premium products, secure banking, fair games, professional support, and other benefits."
While Sudbury natives can now use these sites for their sports betting endeavours, benefitting from the performances of local and international Ontarian achievers, this wasn't always the case. One has to wonder how some of The Big Nickel's erstwhile sporting names would have fared in the odds on offer by online gambling sites had they been available throughout history.
Let's look at nine of Sudbury's best, past and present, who have excelled in their chosen sporting disciplines, starting with one of the most renowned.
Alex Baumann's family moved from Prague in Czechoslovakia to Sudbury when he was only nine. Bauman made waves in international swimming during the 1980s, with his prowess in the pool resulting in two Olympic gold medals in the 200m and 400m individual medley events at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Like Baumann, Robert Esmie grew up in Sudbury after relocating at a young age from his birthplace of Kingston, Jamaica. Esmie was part of the Olympic gold medal-winning Canadian 4 × 100 m track relay team at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta alongside Donovan Bailey, Bruny Surin and Glenroy Gilbert. The quartet were the top team in the world from 1994 to 1999.
Cloé Lacasse was born in Sudbury and started playing soccer with the Sudbury Canadians aged five. She excelled at the sport throughout college at the University of Iowa and subsequently moved to Europe, playing for Benfica in Portugal before joining Arsenal in England's WSL last year. Now 30, Lacasse has been a part of the Canadian national team since 2021, winning 34 international caps.
Now well-known in Canadian Field Hockey administrative circles, Sudbury-born Reg Plummer represented Canada in field hockey at two Olympic Games - Montreal in 1976 and Los Angeles in 1984 - before travelling extensively with the Masters/Veterans international club The Fighting Haddocks.
Moving to the ice, Rebecca Johnson from The Big Nickel has excelled in the CWHL and internationally for Team Canada. She has represented Canada's ice hockey team 76 times, winning three Olympic gold medals and two World Championships between 2010 and 2022. Now 34, Johnson has elected to sit out the first season of the newly formed PWHL.
Fellow Sudbury native Devon Kershaw also excelled on the ice in cross-country skiing. In the Oslo 2011 World Championship, Kershaw and teammate Alex Harvey finished first in the team sprint, earning Canada its first-ever gold medal and its second World Championship medal ever.
Susan Carscallen and figure-skating partner Eric Gillies won the gold medal in the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. The Sudbury-born ice dancer, again with Gillies, followed the achievement by taking gold at the 1977 Canadian Figure Skating Championships.
Born in Sudbury in 1960, Eli Pasquale is widely considered one of the best basketball players to don Canadian colours. The Seattle Supersonics drafted Pasquale as the 106th overall pick at the 1984 NBA draft. The point guard represented Canada for 15 years, notably co-captaining the team in the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games. Before that, Pasquale helped Canada to its first Basketball gold medal at the 1983 World Student Games in Edmonton.
Last but not least, Tracy Fleury is a current Canadian Curling international, having represented her country since the 2018 Curling World Cup. She began her Curling career at Lockerby Composite School in her home city of Sudbury, winning three consecutive Northern Ontario junior provincial championships from 2005. Fleury has won six grand slam titles and the gold medal at the 2024 World Women's Curling Championship.