Bringing home bronze

Shannon LeClair

Times Reporter

 

Dakota Gillies was recently in Cambridge, Ont. representing Alberta as a part of Team Alberta in the ringette Nationals. This was Gillies’ first year playing for a team outside of Strathmore. It had taken time, and patience, but after three years she had made the Calgary Belle AA ringette team.

“It was amazing. It was a long year and…there’s just no words to describe it,” said Gillies.

“We just kind of went day by day, and just to go to Nationals and have that chance was breathtaking. It was definitely a thing I would love to do again.” 

She said she missed playing with her old team, but she is happy to play with Calgary and further her ringette career. Gillies did notice some differences between the two teams. In Calgary, the players are selected by skill level, whereas in Strathmore, teams may be selected by the number of people registered and not necessarily by skill level. 

She felt she adjusted well to her new team and said there was a lot of time for bonding, thanks to being cooped up in hotel rooms together for tournaments. 

It was quite a year for the goalie, who was happy to make the team and even happier with their success this year.

“Winning provincials was definitely a highlight, and then going to Nationals for a whole week was awesome,” said Gillies.

“It was very good, (we) played two games a day and came out in third for our country so that’s pretty awesome.” 

She said Ontario was one of the toughest teams they faced during the tournament. 

“We played Ontario first…about three seconds into the overtime and we won,” said Gillies.

“We had to play them for semi-finals and the deal was that the winner would go for the gold medal game against Quebec, and the loser would win bronze. So they came up guns a blazing and we lost to them the second time.”  

She said she didn’t feel the team was quite where they needed to be for their second matchup with Ontario, but was still happy to bring home bronze. The season may be over, but Gillies will be going to goalie lessons in Calgary, once every two weeks, and will be taking part in three-on-three camps.