It was a full-on ringette weekend in the County of Brant with teams from across Ontario playing back-to-back games in a tournament hosted by Paris Ringette.
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More than 50 teams from as far as Ottawa, Sault St. Marie and Walden, and as close as Cambridge, Dorchester and Caledonia, converged on rinks at the Brant Sports Complex and Burford arena. The hosting Paris Thunder had eight teams competing.
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Jason Routley, president of Tillsonburg Ringette, who brought a group of players to the annual tournament, watched the action through a wall of glass in a room at the Brant Sports Complex where organizers kept the event on track.
“This is a great tournament,” he said. “It’s run really well. It’s also close – and there’s a lot of competition.”
They’re both played on skates, but there are major differences between ringette – considered to be the fastest game on ice – and hockey.
Created in North Bay, Ontario in 1963, ringette is played with a straight stick and a hollow rubber ring. It’s played five-on-five plus goalkeepers. Teams are usually made up of 11 to 16 players, with six skaters on the ice simultaneously. The ring is passed at every blue line and players never enter the goalkeeper’s crease. Players have 30 seconds to take a shot on the net. If time runs out on the shot clock, a buzzer sounds and the other team is awarded the ring.
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Passing and teamwork is essential.
“It’s a team sport,” said Jen Mayhew, president of Paris Ringette. “You have to work together to get the ring up the ice. It really bonds the players.”
When it’s played properly, said Routley, “it’s all “pass, pass, shoot.”
The Paris tournament, which has been held for at least a couple decades, included four- and five-year-olds in fun divisions, right up to those 18 and older in open divisions. The Paris Thunder Open As are in a ranking division, with their weekend games counting toward provincials.
Although open to everyone, ringette is predominantly played by females, although Routley said they get boys joining the younger divisions but most eventually leave to play hockey.
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“There’s a big of a stigma to it,” he said. “It’s known as a sport for girls.”
Ringette is also a sport many people don’t know much about, said Mayhew, although there has been an influx of young players in Paris following a bit of a decline after the pandemic.
Routley thinks more could be done by ringette’s provincial association to promote the sport.
“It’s hard to get a volunteer base. I can name dozens of places that don’t have it but should. It directly competes with girls’ hockey.”
Mayhew said her daughter, Emma, now 17 and playing on the U19 A team, could hardly skate when she tried ringette at age 10.
“She just took to it and she loves it. She loves the social aspect of it and the camaraderie.”
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