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University of Ottawa Gee-gees Ringette Team captures silver at the University Ringette Championships in North Bay.
January 2 -6, 2013
These national level championships, referred to as the University Challenge Cup, take place right after New Year ’s Day each season, and features university ringette teams from across Canada. The event, which ran over a 5 day period in Memorial Gardens in North Bay, saw the Gee-gees squeak into a second place standing after a grueling 8 game round robin over four days.
While the Gee-gees stumbled a bit coming out of the gate, they recovered and strengthened as the event progressed. Due to some earlier losses, the Gee-gees had their backs against the wall as they entered the last game of the round robin – an exciting match against home town rival Carleton Ravens. A loss to them would have seen Carleton
progressing to the final against University of Alberta. Beyond that, not only did the Gee-gees have to win, but they had to do so by at least two goals or The University of Calgary would advance to the final through a tie-breaker calculation.
They knew that a win against Carleton was no sure thing. In fact they had lost to Carleton 3-2 earlier in the round robin so the Gee-gees had their work cut out for them. Carleton played a very solid game for the first half, and the count was 2-1 in favor of the Gee-gees after the first 20 minutes. However, the garnet and greys maintained strong pressure in the second half and the gap slowly widened to a decisive 7-2 finish.
This positioned University of Ottawa to square off against University of Alberta at 9:30am Sunday. The Gee-gees played a strong game, and had their share of opportunities, but in the end the University of Alberta team who were undefeated throughout the event, prevailed with a 4-1 win. Head Coach Dave Bennett indicated that “once again the Gee-gees ringette team has represented the University of Ottawa well. After stumbling early in the tournament, we had to take the long way to the final. However, this team pulled it together and did what they had to do as a team to fight their way to the finals. It was truly a team effort with every player contributing. They pushed through adversity, injuries, and fatigue as this event wore on."
While individual stats were not maintained by the event organizers, Coach Bennett indicated that “scoring throughout the event was done by committee. While some games saw players scoring multiple goals, at some point in the round robin play almost every player on the team scored a goal. It makes it very difficult for the opposition to defend when you have a full roster who can be scoring threats in any game.”
Coach Bennett also mentioned that “when this team is truly playing as a unit, supporting and covering for each other, they are one very very difficult team to play against”.
Congratulations to all the athletes on the Gee-gees ringette team!
Information about the University of Ottawa ringette team is available at
http://www.geegees.uottawa.ca/node/94
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