On Wednesday afternoon, Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe announced that Senators vice-president of communications Ian Mendes would be one of 15 inductees to the 2026 Order of Ottawa.
Mendes will become the fourth member of the Senators organization to receive the honour, following the late Bryan Murray (2015), former player and current vice-president of business operations Chris Phillips (2016) and president and CEO Cyril Leeder (2017).
“When you say those names back-to-back-to-back, and then you put my name in there, you feel like you don't belong there,” said Mendes on Wednesday evening.
“Because those are three people, ‘Cy’ as an executive, ‘Philly’ as a player, and Bryan as a coach and general manager, who really, I think, set the foundation and the template for what it is to be an Ottawa Senator, and what it is to be like a contributor to our community. So, the idea that my name would even be associated with those three is such an honor for me.”
Mendes learned earlier in October that he would receive the honour from Mayor Sutcliffe, a former colleague with whom he used to call baseball games on Rogers TV.
“Sometimes [Sutcliffe] will text me or call me, it’s not totally unusual for him to call me. But when he phoned me in the beginning of October, to tell me this is why he’s calling, I was honestly really flattered, and really floored,” said Mendes, who could only tell his wife, Sonia, and his daughters, Lily and Elissa, about the honour at that time.
Originally from Vancouver, Mendes moved to Ottawa at 17 to pursue his dream of working in sports media. He enrolled at Carleton University, expecting he’d stay in the city for four years. 32 years later, Ottawa is home.
“It doesn’t even feel like my adopted home. This just feels like home,” said Mendes. “It’s been three decades of just, you know, falling in love with the community, really feeling like this is home. It’s crazy. Like, if you told the 17-year-old version of me that I’d be staying here for three decades and getting an honour like this, I never would have believed it.”
Like many of the other inductees, Mendes has been a longtime supporter of charitable endeavours in the region, such as CHEO, the Roger Nielson Children’s Hospice, Ronald McDonald House, and the Capital City Condors. He credits his involvement to the care that Elissa, his eldest daughter, received after being born with a significant cyst in her brain.
“I think as a parent, when you have a child who had serious underlying medical health issues, it opens up a valve of empathy that I don't think ever stops flowing, and I think for me, that's all it was, was understanding how fortunate we are,” said Mendes.
“The Condors are a great example, because you see all these families who have kids with developmental delays or social delays, and that could have easily been us. We got really lucky with our surgery, but that could have been our reality, and not very many days go by that we don’t think about that. I think the catalyst is having a child with complex medical needs, and then feeling like you won the lottery, because she ended up having a really fortunate outcome.”
Now in his third season with the Senators, Mendes describes his career as a “really unique arc.” After graduating from Carleton with a journalism degree, he worked in public relations for the Ottawa Lynx (the former AAA affiliate of the Montreal Expos), then spent parts of two seasons in a similar role with the Senators.
After his first stint with the Senators, he became a television reporter with Sportsnet. Then, he joined TSN 1200 as a radio host. He later wrote for The Athletic before returning to the Senators as the vice-president of communications.
“I like to joke that I got to hit for the cycle, where, you know, you do PR and comms, you do radio, you do TV, and you do writing, and you do them all individually. It's given me a great appreciation [for every medium]. But more than anything, I think it's given me relationships in all of those mediums,” said Mendes.
“I’m still in a group text with all my old colleagues at TSN 1200. It might be the most active group chat I’m in. You’re just able to form those great relationships, same with Sportsnet. I have so many great friends from Sportsnet, same with The Athletic, too. Anytime an Athletic writer rolls in, there’s a good chance it was somebody who was my teammate.
“That’s the thing that I love the most, or I’ve taken the most from sticking my foot in all these different pools of media, is you make these great relationships and friendships that are going to last for your entire life.”
Today, both of his daughters are pursuing a career in media. Elissa graduated from Carleton and is interning with the Toronto Star. His younger daughter, Lily, is attending Toronto Metropolitan University and working towards a media production degree. They were the impetus for his decision to step away from his national reporting role at Sportsnet in the fall of 2013.
“If I look back on my career, I really think one of the things I'm most proud of is, at the height of my television career, I walked away because I knew that I needed to spend more time with my family,” said Mendes, who quickly grew to love the connection with the city that he developed while hosting sports radio.
“Our girls were 9 and 6 at the time, and I knew if I just kept working 150 or 170 days a year on the road, I was never going to have that impact on them in that relationship. I think my kids, whether they consciously knew that or not, I think they probably appreciated that. And then it also allowed me to become more invested in the community because I wasn't traveling more.”
In 2022, while he was with The Athletic, Mendes returned to his alma mater as a professor and now teaches a fourth-year sports journalism class. It’s there that he tries to identify and help future talent, keeping the door open for the next generation.
“I think you're obligated to give back. I think if I won $80 million in a [Lotto] 649 jackpot, I would turn around and try to spread that wealth, and that's what I'm trying to do with the influence that I've been fortunate to get, is how do I how do I share that?” said Mendes.
“So to me, one of the most satisfying things is rolling in on Wednesday nights to Carleton and getting an opportunity to work with 20 to 25 young students who are so eager to work in the industry.
“That’s what I want my legacy to be, is years from now, all these young reporters think, ‘Ian opened the door for me, I’ve got to open the door for someone else’. To me, that’s legacy, is when you can impact the generation that comes up behind you.”
Out of all the thousands of sporting events that the 49-year-old has covered, including World Series, Stanley Cups, and Olympic Games, Mendes describes his favourite as something a little closer to home.
“My favorite, sort of, endeavour that I've been involved with was coaching my daughter in ringette, and [coaching] the Nepean Ravens ringette program,” said Mendes.
“There's nothing more satisfying I've ever done in my sporting life than being behind the bench for my daughter. So that, to me, is the best part of community stuff I've ever done in Ottawa, was volunteering my time to coach young athletes who wanted to play again.”
