IT HAS A NICE RING TO IT
Regina Blackouts goaltender Carmen Agar faces an Alberta shooter in 18-and-over competition Friday at the Western Canadian ringette championships, which are to conclude today at the Co-operators Centre.
There are big differences between Carmen Agar’s two favourite sports.
Last summer, Agar was a rookie running back with the Regina Riot of the Western Women’s Canadian Football League. This winter, Agar returned to ringette as a goaltender with the Regina Blackouts, one of five teams in the 18-and-over division this weekend at the Western Canadian ringette championships.
“Football is a lot of fun,’’ Agar said during a break in Friday’s ringette action at the Co-operators Centre. “I’ve grown up playing those other sports all of my life, but football was so new. I’ve watched it on TV and I’ve watched the Roughriders, but I had never tried it out myself (until 2012). I went to one of their spring camps and I fell in love with it.’’
Agar has also played women’s hockey and baseball, but has been involved in ringette for as long as she can remember. Agar, who said ringette remains her favourite sport because of those ties, has developed an appreciation for football and the differences between the two games.
“In football, you have to put so much trust into your offensive line because I’m a running back,’’ the 20-yearold Agar said. “Your offensive line has to make the blocks for you. In ringette, you also need your defence, but your body is more on the line in football.’’
Agar, who is in her second year of pre-medicine at the University of Regina, learned about the physical differences between football and ringette during her first season with the Riot. Agar suffered a concussion, which kept her out of the Riot’s 25-7 Prairie Conference semifinal win over the Winnipeg Nomads.
“I’ve had smaller (concussions) playing ringette because I’m skating around the ice as fast as I could and I bang my head all over the place,’’ said Agar, who returned to the active roster for the Riot’s 35-21 loss to the Saskatoon Valkyries in the conference final. “That was my most significant one and I had symptoms for months afterward. I’m finally over the headaches and the other symptoms.’’
Agar said the head injury altered her perspective about playing the games she loves.
“As much as I love football and ringette, there is a lot more to life than sports,’’ Agar said. “Because medicine has such a long and intellectual path to becoming a doctor, you definitely cannot overlook a bump on the head. You try to be cautious and to take the right measures.’’
Agar has enjoyed success during her ringette career. In 2007, she was a member of Regina Stingers, who won the Canadian junior (14-15) women’s championship. That was only the second team from Regina, and the most-recent one, to win a national title.
The victory was made even sweeter because the Regina team endured challenges ranging from weather delays to being stuck in an elevator for 30 minutes to an equipment malfunction that delayed their return flight to Regina.
“For a trip that was supposed to be a week, we ended up with a lifetime of memories,’’ Agar said with a chuckle. “We still talk about all of the stuff that went wrong.’’
Most of the players from the Stingers’ championship team are members of the Blackouts.
“It was one of the biggest accomplishment of my life,’’ Agar said. “What made it even more special was going back in the years after that and finishing seventh or eighth or fourth. We realized how tough and how special what we did was. We were fortunate to have a great group of girls.’’
The Western Canadian championships conclude today with finals in the under-14, under-16, under-19 and 18-and-over divisions.