Ringette: Bienvenue To A Different Sport

Ringette it would be fair to say isn't a sport that people are familiar with in the UK, but it's a sport that we're interested in. Why is that, you ask?

Sometime in March, on our twitter feed we appealed for people to send us a wierd sport to cover on the blog. This came about after we thought that it would be 'different' to cover something different. As nice as football, cricket, rugby and cycling are, it's always interesting to learn about a sport that's unknown to the majority and one which does not get the exposure in the media.

After only a few people replied back to us including one individual appealing for us to follow his local fishing team, we were only left with one option. David Patterson, Executive Director of Ringette Canada told us about Ringette and the decision was made that Ringette would be the latest addition to our blog.

So what is Ringette? Ringette is a Canadian invention that has become one of the fastest team sports on ice. Sam Jacks, a sports enthusiast from North Bay, Ontario invented the sport in the 1960's when he saw the need for a winter team sport for girls.

Jacks funnily enough was born in Scotland before moving to Canada with his family in the 1920s, so Scots could claim to have invented the sport in an extreme way. The Scot also was responsible for the development and introduction of floor/ground hockey in the 1936, so he has left his legacy in Canada on more than one way.

Since the early 1960s, the sport has continued to grow and currently boasts over 27,000 registered players on over 2000 teams, with over 6500 coaches and over 2400 officials. While it is primarily a female sport, there are currently almost 600 males playing the sport across Canada. The sport is also played Internationally in half a dozen other countries across the world including Finland and Sweden.

Ringette, like hockey, is played on ice with skates and sticks by six players on each of two teams. The mission is to score goals by shooting the object of play into nets at either end of the rink during stop-time periods of play.

But there the comparisons between Ringette and Hockey ends. The stick is straight and the object being pursued by the players (as you've probably guessed) by the name of the sport is a rubber ring - not a puck!

There is no intentional body contact in the sport. And the rules of ringette make it a wide open and dynamic sport, which on those 2 points alone would make it a sport that I'd want to play and watch.

From what I have been told, the emphasis when playing is in creating and skating skills. Players are not allowed to carry the ring across the blue lines on the ice.

Only three players from each team, plus the defending goalie, are allowed in the end zones at the same time. If the term end zone confuses you at all, end zone's are basically the area that's marked around where the net is. Think of it as a six yard box.

The play in the game is generally open and there are lots of sharp offensive moves in the game that means the game often is fast flowing and end-to-end stuff, which means that players have to skate close to their opponents in order to not let them get away.

If you're still confused as to what it is, have a look at this video that our friends at Ringette Canada produced to help explain to people what the sport is. I will have to say that as enjoyable as the sport looks, I would probably need more than my few hours of basic skating training to even keep up to pace with the players. Skating is not exactly my forte!



Thanks to our friends at Ringette Canada, we be following the Canadian national team on their way to the sports world championships held in Tampere, Finland this November. We will be bringing you all the latest squad news as the team prepare to go one better than they did in 2007, when they were runners up to Finland by winning the tournament.

Team Canada announced a squad of 30 athletes a couple of months ago in preparation for the tournament. Girls were selected from all corners of the provinces of Canada, with British Columbia. After meeting up at a training camp in Ottawa on May 21-24, the squad will be cut to 22 with that number going forward to the tournament in the winter. We will be bringing you all the latest news on the national team, as well as finding out more about the people behind the sport including interviews with key players and staff. We hope you like Ringette as it'll be here to stay!

For all the latest news on the sport, head over to Ringette Canada's official twitter account @ringettecanada where you're learn more about the sport. Also head over to Ringette Canada's official website, which offers more information and latest news on the sport http://www.ringette.ca