The future looks bright for the Pembina Ringette Association’s U12 C division team, the Orange Crush.
Recently the team returned home from Calgary where they finished seventh out of 12 teams in Ringette Alberta Provincial Championships on March 16 to 18.
The team qualified for the provincial championships by defeating teams from Red Deer and Edmonton in provincial play downs in late February.
At provincials during the round robin portion the Crush defeated teams from Calgary Northwest and Edmonton before losing to Indus. In the semi-finals they lost to a team from South Calgary.
“It wasn’t how we wanted to end the season, but overall we are happy with how we played and are looking forward to building on our success from this year,” said association president Janice Tymkow.
Besides qualifying for the provincial championships, which they did by defeating teams from Red Deer and Edmonton, during the provincial play downs in late February the Crush finished in third place in the 14-team Black Gold League.
“I know everyone is already talking about next season. I believe all our players from this year’s run will be returning so we should have another strong squad,” she said, adding it also depends on interest.
Like all sport associations, Pembina Ringette is hoping to attract new players. Depending on the number of players that turn out during tryouts in September, the association might have enough players to field more than one U12 team. If that is the case the players on this year’s Orange Crush team might find themselves on different teams.
However, Tymkow said one of the issues the association faces is getting the word out about the sport, one of the reasons being that it is hard to find ice time.
Although the association is based in Westlock and has players from many of the surrounding communities, including four from Barrhead, they rarely play or practice in those communities.
“We play most of games in Thorhild and they are really good to us, but I wish we could have more of our games and practices, where most of our players would come from that way more people could find out about our sport,” she said.
The Black Gold League 16 game season runs from October to February with eight games being played at home. This season the Crush played one game in Barrhead in December.
As for the sport, she said while it has some similarities to hockey, it is a different game.
Players skate and use a stick to control a ring and have the same six positions (centre, two forwards, two defencemen and a goaltender), but that is where the similarity ends.
“It really is quite different than hockey, basically the only thing that is similar is that they both take place on ice,” she said, adding it is the differences in the zoning rules that really sets it (ringette) apart. “There are different lines on the ice. We have a red line at both ends of the ice at the tip of the circles. That is our zone line and because of these lines only certain types of players (skaters) are allowed in any zone at one time. We also have blue lines and the ring has to be passed across instead of carrying it. Having to pass it across those lines really increases the speed of the game.”
