Local ringette players embracing teamwork

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

Four Strathmore-area ringette players are embracing the opportunity to play at an elite level with the Zone 2 Big Country Inception’s U16 double-A team.
Team members include Langdon’s Julia Bishop, Hailey Kenney from Rosebud and Strathmore’s Daylen Wathen and Grace Olson.
The biggest difference for Bishop has been how much faster the pace of play has been compared to the last 10 years of playing the game, with two of those years being in Strathmore.
Her focus has been trying to keep sharp on the ice so she can be competitive and keep up with the pace of play, while saying the team has had their good and bad games but they’re in it to support each other.
Olson is in her 11th year of ringette and describes herself as an aggressive player that has improved with effective coaching this season and the results have shown.
“(In) the offensive zone we’ve started scoring more and working together as a team,” said Olson.
Inception assistant coach Rhonda Olson has been impressed with what the girls have been able to accomplish at this level and said they’re learning how to work as a team.
“It’s kind of nice because they’re all like players,” said Olson. “But coming from different associations they’ve probably learned different things and had different coaching, so it’s been getting them to work together and work as a team, not individuals. They’re peaking now, which is what we wanted.”
Wathen said what had made the experience more enjoyable is the players are all trying their hardest to progress and want to compete.
“We’ve started to work together and trust each other more,” said Wathen.
Meanwhile, the Zone 2 Big Country Blaze U14 double-A team has seen improvement in terms of closing the gap in games on the scoreboard.
“We’re getting comments from the Calgary teams as well that how they’re surprised of how well we’re doing for the first year in the league,” said Coach Chad Gillies.
Gillis said the team’s goal is to make provincials this year; to do so they will have to stay competitive with the Calgary teams.
Local goalie Jewlyn Foat said she is enjoying a great season in the Blaze’s net, and the biggest difference for her is in the younger levels goalies can steal games, but now it takes a complete team effort.
“It can’t be the goalie shutout; it has to be a team shutout,” she said. “We’ve improved on everything slowly but surely.”