Two days before his death, Quentin Dorsainvil was at the Nepean Sportsplex, cheering on his friend and former teammate Zander Stevens as he had done many times before.
“You’d always hear him in the crowd cheering when something big happened,” Stevens said.
Stevens couldn’t know that Friday would be the last time the two childhood teammates would be together.
On Sunday evening, Dorsainvil was shot and killed near Percy and Nepean streets in Centretown, leaving Ottawa’s football community in shock.
No charges have been laid for his death. Police said he was 18, while his former Kanata Knights football club and people who knew him from football said he had just turned 17.
“He was always a very joyous person to be around,” Stevens said.
Dorsainvil joined the Knights in 2017 and played as a lineman, said president Tina Stevens.
After his first year of varsity in 2023 with the Cumberland Panthers, Dorsainvil moved to Miami to pursue his football career. Friends say he was back visiting when he was killed.
“We will be missing you Big Q … Rest easy and know your football family will be with you forever,” reads an Instagram tribute from the Panthers.
“It’s a huge loss,” said Adam Gilmour, who coached Dorsainvil in 2023 with the Knights. “Kids lost a friend, coaches lost, you know, a great player. The community as a whole lost a wonderful person.”
Gilmour described Dorsainvil as always kind, respectful and easy to coach.
“It’s an absolute tragedy that he is not no longer with us,” Gilmour said. “He’s going to be missed.”
He said the young football star would always laugh at his jokes — even if they weren’t funny.
“His hands were massive and I’d always joke with him. I would put my tiny little hands up to his which would be at least twice the size of my hands, and that was when he was 15,” Gilmour said.
The Kanata Knights plan to take donations for Dorsainvil’s family at their game this Friday.