Ringette: A Big Week Ahead For Team Canada!

Those of you may recall a few months ago we had an introduction post to the sport of Ringette and that we announced that we'd be following the Canadian Women's team in the forthcoming Ringette World Championships in November.

Well we're only day's away from the tournament's start in Tampere, in Finland so we thought via our friends at Ringette Canada that it's about time we gave you the low-down on the team and introduced you to the team, as they go in quest for glory.

Ringette is a Canadian invention that has become one of the fastest team sports on ice. Sam Jacks, a recreation director and sports enthusiast from North Bay, Ontario, invented the sport in 1963 when he saw the need for a winter team sport for girls.

Internationally, ringette is played in a number of countries around the world, including Finland, Sweden, the United States, France, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. Since 1990, a world ringette championship has been held on a regular basis, with Canada and Finland being the predominant challengers. Canadian ringette athletes have continuously served as ambassadors of the sport, introducing ringette in countries as far away as Japan, Australia, Germany and New Zealand.

Anyway the 22 girl's in the Canada squad for the Championships which starts in a few days time, is as follows. The announcement was made in May and followed a tough training camp which saw the best girls selected.

Team Canada 2010 Roster:

00 – Vanessa Cowlen – Defence – Cambridge, Ontario
1 – Keely Brown – Goalkeeper – Edmonton, Alberta (Assistant Captain)
3 – Dallas Robbins – Defence – Calgary, Alberta
4 – Jenn Wakefield – Centre – Langley, British Columbia
6 – Kailee Dundas – Forward – Hussar, Alberta
7 – Lindsay Burns – Defence – Starbuck, Manitoba
8 – Abbey Hoes – Defence – Calgary, Alberta
12 – Victoria Russell – Centre – Calgary, Alberta
14 – Andrea Ferguson – Forward – Winnipeg, Manitoba
16 – Katie Lugg – Defence – Ottawa, Ontario
17 – Jennifer Hartley – Centre – Balzac, Alberta
18 – Jacqueline Gaudet – Forward – Cambridge, Ontario (Captain)
19 – Colleen Hagan – Defence – Manotick, Ontario
21 – Barb Bautista – Forward – Edmonton, Alberta (Assistant Captain)
24 – Jenna McBride – Defence – Ottawa, Ontario
30 – Bobbi Mattson – Goalkeeper – Calgary, Alberta
31 – Meghan Pittaway – Goalkeeper – Cambridge, Ontario
64 – Beth Hurren – Defence – Bowmanville, Ontario
66 – Stéphanie Séguin – Forward – Saint-Laurent, Quebec
81 – Erin Cumpstone – Centre – Saskatoon, Saskatchevan
87 – Ashley Peters – Forward – Cardiff Echoes, Alberta
99 - Julie Blanchette – Forward – Montréal, Quebec

So now that you know the girls, here's a good video of them introducing themselves shortly after they were announced in the World Championship Roster.



We thought we'd focus a tad more on the captain, Jacqueline Gaudet, from her profile alone her experience and know-how for Team Canada will be vital. After all every good team needs a good captain.

Gaudet's Stats:
Position: Forward and Team Captain
Height: 5'9''
DOB: 29/5/1982
Hometown: Cambridge, Ontario
Birthplace: Edmonton, Alberta
Date of Birth: 5/29/1982

A interesting fact about Gaudet, is that she has been named a national all-star every year since 1998. Aside from that she was a gold medallist at the 1999 Canada Winter Games, she’s a seven-time national champion, she picked up a gold medal as part of Team Canada in 2002 and silver medals in 2000 and 2007, and in 2008 won gold at the first ever world club championship with the Cambridge Turbos. Just this past season, Gaudet was named the National Ringette League’s Most Valuable Player, an honour she was also awarded during the 2005-2006 season.

Gaudet started playing ringette at the age of five, following in the footsteps of her older sister Jenn. She credits making her debut on Team Canada in 2000 as her greatest ringette accomplishment. When asked the best piece of advice she has ever received Gaudet responds, “To believe in myself, have confidence in my abilities and to never give up. If you always give 110 percent, only good things can happen.”

Anyway the opening games of the Championships start on Monday. With all games taking place at the Hakametsa Ice Hall in Tampere, the venue is set for a fascinating week of action. Canada have won the championship on four occasions and will be going for their fifth title this week.

Here's some action of the girls being put through some last bits of practice over the last couple of days out in Finland. As you can see it may look easy at first, as you have to be super fit to play the game and the pressure is always on.



If the girls are to do so, it would be a magnificient achievement for their coach Lyndsay Wheelans that would be a fantastic achievement. She was an athlete on the only team to ever win two consecutive World Ringette Championships in 1990 and 1992. She was the head coach for Team Canada’s gold medal win in 1996, silver medal win in 2007 and assistant coach when Team Canada won silver in both 2000 and 2004. Wheelans is no stranger to Finnish Ringette either, as she has had a spell coaching the Finns as well.

When asked what it means to be part of Team Canada, Wheelans explained “Words can’t really describe what it is like to stand behind a team of athletes this committed, this fit and this good who are wearing these beautiful jerseys with the red maple leaf on their chest.”

In European football of course if you win the Champions League 5 times you get to keep the trophy, I wonder if Ringette's World Organisers would be willing to do this? It's just an idea of course.

If the girls are going to do it though, it's not going to be handed to them on a plate as Sweden, USA and the hosts Finland are top notch teams. If Team Canada are going to win the gold they will need to first finish in the top 2 in the group stages once every team has played each other. Then they will have to win the 3 game series between the first or second team in the group to claim the gold.

It's a tough challenge but one that the Girls should be able to do, providing they start well of course and that Wheelans and the rest of the coaching team make the right calls at the right time. Everyone at SportTrades wishes them the best of luck.

Here's the Schedule for the week ahead:

Saturday, October 30
Exhibition Game - Canada vs Finland - Isku Areena (Lahti, Finland)

Sunday, October 31
Practice – Canada - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)

Monday, November 1
Opening Ceremonies
Game - Finland vs USA - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)
Game - Canada vs Sweden - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)

Tuesday, November 2
Game – USA vs Sweden - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)
Game - Canada vs Finland - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)

Wednesday, November 3
Game – Canada vs USA - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)
Game – Finland vs Sweden - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)

Thursday, November 4
Game #1 – Bronze Series - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)
Game #1 – Gold Series - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)

Friday, November 5
Game #2 – Bronze Series - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)
Game #2 – Gold Series - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)

Saturday, November 6
Game #3 – Bronze Series - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)
Game #3 – Gold Series - Hakametsa Ice Hall (Tampere, Finland)
13:00 – Closing Ceremonies and Awards Banquet

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

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