Some of the youngest competing ringette players from Vernon and Shuswap fought hard to score gold from the top Lower Mainland teams.
The Thompson-Okanagan Ringette League (TORL) brought home the Challenge Cup, beating all three Lower Mainland teams, and other regions of B.C. in a major upset.
The North TORL Tornadoes, a team made of the top under 12 ringette players from the Shuswap and Vernon associations, earned gold at the recent provincial tournament in Richmond.
They faced three teams pulled together from the Lower Mainland, where there are seven associations and thousands of ringette players. Given this large pool to draw from, and how well established ringette is in the Lower Mainland, this was a major achievement for ringette in the Okanagan.
Twelve players from Vernon and four from Salmon Arm represented the North TORL team. Natural captains emerged from within the players and galvanized a bond on this team of athletes who usually play against each other in league play.
Coaches Michelle Wiklund and Shelagh Pyper were thrilled to team up again, after having played as teammates for the University of Alberta Ringette team in their younger days.
“In ringette and in life, no player (or person) can be everywhere at once. I trust the team I’ve built at my company more than many business owners I know can. I think I learned this from playing ringette,” said Pyper. “You can’t do it all on your own in ringette, and I deeply trust the people I play with and work with to be in position, communicate, pay attention to what’s going on and execute without hesitation when the project (or the ring) comes to them.”
Ringette is a fast game with passing over both blue lines and a 30 second shot clock which means fast breaks and lots of passing.
The Tornadoes demonstrated this teamwork and it led them through nail biter round robin games and onto a decided 9-3 gold medal victory.
Not surprisingly, the three club teams from Vernon and Shuswap that contributed these top athletes to the team, all made it into the A pool for U12 provincials.
These teammates will now face off against each other for club supremacy in West Kelowna this weekend, March 8-10.
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