A trio of U19AA ringette players with the St. Albert Mission are living the dream playing for the provincial Canada Winter Games team.
Power forward Vail Ketsa, defender Lauren Millar and netminder Jordyn Scott are among 18 players ranging in age from 16 to 19 selected to represent Alberta in the fastest game on ice during the Feb. 15 to March 3 national competition in Red Deer.
“It’s a dream come true, honestly. I never in a million years thought this would happen but it’s amazing. I love it,” Ketsa said after Saturday’s 9-3 exhibition win against Team Saskatchewan at Go Auto Arena.
“It’s pretty crazy. It’s almost unbelievable really,” Millar said. “It’s just really exciting. I get chilled every time I think about it.”
Scott and Ketsa are the youngest players as 16-year-olds.
“It’s a really big accomplishment for me especially being so young,” Scott said. “It definitely was a pleasant surprise to make the team. I definitely didn’t think I would especially being so young when I tried out but it was definitely the best feeling in the world to find out that I made the team and to be able to represent St. Albert with the other two girls.
“It’s also really important to me to be a role model for all the younger girls playing ringette, too.”
The rest of the team is comprised of nine U19AA players from the Calgary Rogue (four), Calgary Rush (three) and Edmonton Elite (two), plus National Ringette League representation with the Black Gold Rush (three) and Edmonton WAM! (two) as well as university ringette with the Lethbridge Pronghorns (one).
Tryouts started in April at St. Albert and Calgary with 140 hopefuls, followed by sessions in Penhold (89 players) in May, Edmonton (35 players) in June, Red Deer (32 players) in July and tournaments in Nova Scotia (25 players) in August and Winnipeg (22 players) in October before the roster was finalized by the coaching staff.
“To be perfectly honest, it’s quite the privilege to be able to see the talent across the province and to be able to assemble a team from all of the ringette players that started our tryout journey with us,” with head coach Heather Konkin of the U19AA Mission and one of the her assistants is Jill Basterash of St. Albert. “It’s just been a great opportunity to take all this skill and put a team together that can compete at the Canada Games.”
Alberta finished fifth in the 2015 Games in Prince George and the only loss in seven games was 4-3 to Quebec in the quarter-finals.
Manitoba beat Ontario 6-4 for gold and New Brunswick edged Quebec 7-6 for bronze.
“We are definitely in that mix and we’ll be looking to compete for gold,” Konkin said. “Any time you can pick the top talent off of all the club teams around the province the challenge is finding their roles on this team and get them to buy into a system where it’s more about we and how we do things, then you will have success.”
Alberta plays Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Manitoba in the preliminaries.
“We’re approaching it knowing that anything can happen at the Games. Every single team is going for the gold medal and we can’t take any team lightly so we’ve got to play our game the Alberta way,” Ketsa said.
The process to get to this stage as potential medal contenders was a long, painstaking race to the finish line.
“There was a lot of fitness testing, games and practices and it started with over 120 girls so it was hard to show yourself at the beginning with so many people but the coaches did an amazing job picking the team and the way they organized it was really amazing,” Millar said. “It’s just a huge honour to make the team because there was a lot of girls from all around the province with a lot of talent.”
Millar’s position on defence is “not so much going into the offensive zone but just being on my mark,” said the seventh-year player in the Mission AA program in the St. Albert Ringette Association.
Miller, 18, is “aggressive and she is feisty,” according to Konkin.
“She is not afraid to get into the mix and kind of stir it up to get the ring out. Often when there is a collision or there is something going on, she will come out with the ring so she is quite aggressive that way,” Konkin said of the St. Albert Catholic High School graduate.
Ketsa’s track record as a scoring threat (“Centre is offensive and defensive and forward is just more offensive,” said the Grade 11 Paul Kane student) started at the U14AA level and continued throughout the Mission ranks.
“Vail is the definition I would say of a power forward in ringette. She is strong, she is powerful and she has some great hands to be able to put the ring in the net,” Konkin said.
“I just try to make the right play at the right time. If the shot is not there, I look for the pass because to me an assist is just as important as a goal,” Ketsa added. “I’m kind of young on this team so I think my role is more of like helping the team get pumped up but I hope to be out there and contribute.”
Scott will jockey for playing time between the pipes with Hannah Coyne, 18, of the Rogue and Megan Riou, 19, of the WAM!.
“Right now we’re kind of just rotating around but when the Games start, I’m sure it will be more based off who is playing better and stuff like that but dealing with that will definitely be difficult in like accepting if you do play or if you don’t play,” said the Grade 11 Paul Kane student.
As for her strengths, “Jordyn is athletic, has lots of energy and is focused so for her to stop the ring and make those saves she definitely has those abilities,” Konkin said.
“Although I’m small I’m a little quicker. My other two goalies are a little bit taller but also I read the ring really well and I’ve always got lots of energy and I like to play very hard,” said Scott, a fifth-year tender in the Mission program.
Meanwhile, the last major tournament for the U19AA Mission was last month’s silver-medal performance at the Central Alberta AA Ice Breaker in Lacombe as a shootout determined the tournament winner. The Rogue outscored the Mission 2-1 after the game ended tied at four apiece in regulation time.
Ketsa tallied the Mission’s lone goal in the shootout and Millar potted the equalizer halfway through the last period.
The Mission finished 3-1-1 as Ketsa led the team with eight goals and 11 points.
The team’s record after the tournament was 10-7-3 with 10 returnees from last year’s provincial finalists in the lineup, plus three first-year U19 players.
“We started off the season pretty rough. It was definitely a battle (but) the Lacombe tournament was a big accomplishment that really boosted our fire,” Scott said. “We’ve got a good chance this year in doing really well at provincials and hopefully going to nationals, too.”
This is the sixth season for the U19AA Mission in the St. Albert Ringette Association.
