Laurie Ruppe tourney goes without a hitch

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

Forty teams provided an exciting atmosphere on the ice and for the fans in a 70 game schedule at the seventh annual Laurie Morton Ruppe Memorial tournament at the Strathmore Family Centre last weekend.
There were 10 Strathmore teams that participated in the event as hosts and two of them came home with medals. The U19B team took home gold while the U16B team won silver.
Tournament director Pam Betke said this is something they strive for every year is for the local teams to do well and win medals.
“We’re always hoping that our teams will be able to perform well at the tournament,” said Betke. “It’s always nice to win medals at a tournament. I think for our girls it’s even better when it happens on your home ice.”
She said the tournament tends to have a good reputation and it was important to the committee for the teams to enjoy the experience of the weekend so that teams will want to come back year after year.
“It’s just another way to market the sport,” said Betke. “Our girls love going to tournaments. When you have teams coming in from far away, it’s also an opportunity for those teams to bond with each other because they get to spend a lot more time together as a team.”
This was the Strathmore Ice U19B’s third straight gold medal, having won tournaments previously in Lethbridge and Rockyford and assistant coach Jan Wathen was thrilled with how the girls were able to work as a team en route to going undefeated in the tournament.
“They’re a special group,” said Wathen. “The girls played well. There’s just a lot of good athletes on the team that have played a lot of years of ringette and they work well together.”