GOLDEN MOMENTS
Tension runs high as squads battle to the last second
They come from afar — from the four corners of Alberta and beyond — in pursuit of the golden ring.
It’s billed as the world’s largest ringette tournament, so big emotions are understandable when talking about being crowned a champion of the Esso Golden Ring.
“It’s incredible … it’s insanely emotional,” said a teary-eyed Raegan Nicol, captain of the Lethbridge Hericanes, moments after leading her squad to the Under-14B Division title at the Don Hartman North East Sportsplex. “This year, we won two silvers (at other tournaments), so this was long overdue. It’s so emotional that when you’re out there that you don’t even know you’re exhausted — you just keep going. “It was just so great.” Such was the sentiment at arenas across Calgary on Sunday, when the championship games wrapped up the three-day grind — but a joyous occasion to be sure — for another calendar year.
Once again, thousands of players, fans and volunteers embraced the tourney — one charged with plenty of fun, fervour and pageantry.
At the East Calgary Twin Arena, such jubilance shook the building when a highlight-reel overtime goal by Rachel Bushfield gave the much coveted U14AA crown to the Zone 2 Blaze, a team made up of young ringette stars from the communities surrounding the city.
“That was awesome to win that,” said Blaze co-captain Elle Sauve, wearing a grin from ear-to-ear. “We’ve been waiting all season to win gold, and this was a good gold to win. We’ve lost in overtime a couple of times, so it was good to win here.”
This contest went deep into OT, until Bushfield took a perfect feed and ripped the ring high over the short side of the St. Albert Mission goaltender for 3-2 triumph.
“It’s pretty amazing, because you think you have it all on your shoulders and if you were to miss the net, you’d be so disappointed,” said Bushfield of the golden goal. “But when you get it in, you feel so proud.
“Here we’ve lost to St. Albert a couple of times in the past years, so it was really good to beat them this year. And it’s always the same girls on the same teams, so it’s good to beat them when it counts.”
The 32nd annual Esso Golden Ring tournament attracted 187 ringette teams and more than 2,600 players from across Western Canada. The competition was held at arenas throughout the city from Friday to Sunday. Here are the winners. Photos by Shannon Hutchison Photography, Maxwell Mawji and Kenneth Appleby. It’s incredible … it’s insanely emotional.... It’s so emotional that when you’re out there that you don’t even know you’re exhausted.”
“Yeah … it means everything,” added Blaze teammate Abygale Reeve, whose brilliant pass set up Bushfield for the winner.
“We were the underdogs coming into this tournament against every team, and we just showed that we can beat them and we can skate hard and we don’t give up at all. We just fight to the end.”
In the end, 13 different teams fought their way to become champions in this year’s Esso Golden Ring. And in addition, players under age 10 made up clubs in four divisions to soak up the fun — and challenge — of the weekend event.
“Six games they had to play in three days — it’s the hardest tournament to win,” said Blaze head coach Steve Rosenberg. “The girls are banged up, and they’re tired, but they were able to come back and play hard — and you saw on the ice that both teams were able to give it all they’ve got.”