The 34th win in 41 games for the St. Albert Mission was golden.
Sunday’s 5-1 domination of Calgary Peak in the U16AA final at the 34th annual Esso Golden Ring was the third tournament triumph for the highly successful St. Albert Ringette Association team.
“Winning the Esso Golden Ring definitely speaks of a positive trend for our team and hopefully we’re peaking at the right time,” said head coach Joel Lajoie. “We’re definitely playing some really good ringette and it’s something we want to continue leading up to provincials.”
The result was extra special after previous losses to Peak of 3-2 in pool play at the Golden Ring in Calgary and 5-4 in the round robin and 3-2 in the final at the Michelle Vandale Memorial Spirit of the Winter Tournament last month in Langley, B.C.
“It was a chance at redemption, a little bit of revenge,” Lajoie said. “The reality is we just kept trying to play our pressure game that usually ends up wearing down teams and that's exactly what happened in the final. We kept going, we kept going and these girls never quit so in the end you could tell (Peak) couldn’t handle that kind of pressure and we were able to build on our lead and come up with the title.”
The 10-team U16AA division was divided into two pools and the Mission posted wins of 6-2 against Calgary Tenacity, 5-2 against LMRL Thunder and 8-1 against the Saskatoon Selects for second spot at 3-1 (21 GF/8 GA) behind the 4-0 Peak (21 GF/6 GA).The semifinal scores were 7-4 Mission over Calgary Force (3-1-1) and 4-3 Peak against Zone 2 Blaze (2-1-2).
“We started off great and then Peak beat us in our second game, but after that we really started to get some momentum beating a tough Lower Mainland team from B.C. and then we played a Saskatoon team where we had great offensive output and then it was a really solid victory in the semifinals versus Calgary for another shot at Peak,” Lajoie said. “Full value for the girls. It’s a long tournament, it’s a tough tournament and six games in they just didn’t quit. They just kept coming at them.
“We’re really proud of the girls.”
Winning the Golden Ring was the season highlight so far for the top team at the St. Albert Turkey Ring in October and Bernadette Price Memorial Tournament in November at Saskatoon.
“By all accounts this is probably the toughest tournament to play in just because of the sheer volume of it, but also the level of competition so for us to beat all three Calgary teams in that tournament, which is still very much kind of I guess the gold format because Calgary is still right up there as far as being the most competitive in western Canada, it's a major accomplishment,” Lajoie said.
The Golden Ring was also the last tournament before the Ringette Alberta AA Championships, Feb. 28 to March 1 at Spruce Grove. Five teams qualify for the Canadian Ringette Championships, April 5 to 11 at Ottawa.
“Obviously we want to win provincials and go to Ottawa as AB1. That’s our number one goal,” Lajoie said.
The 34-5-2 Mission, with nine returning players in the lineup, are playing with a sense of purpose as provincial contenders.
“Starting with the goaltending to the defence to the offensive side you get full commitment out of every position so you have high-skilled athletes that have bought into the message that we want to outwork our skill. We want to absolutely be the hardest working team and the most talented team and if we can put those two together we like our chances,” Lajoie said. “Full credit to these athletes. They are very skilled, but they're the hardest working team that we’ve seen on the ice all year long and we love that about them.”
Representing the Mission on the Zone 5 team at the Alberta Winter Games, Feb. 14 to 17 at Airdrie, are Amy Bamber, Sydney Fevin, Janie Lajoie and Kenzie McEachern and they will be joined by Reeve Spanakis, Emmerson Fahl, Rita-Jean Smith and Jamie Stolk of the U19AA St. Albert Mission.
The U16AA Mission have Black Gold League games scheduled at 6 p.m. Saturday against U19A Sherwood Park at Riviere Qui Barre and 5:15 p.m. Sunday against U19A St. Albert Strike at Go Auto Arena.
ICE CHIPS: The following St. Albert teams also competed at the Golden Ring: Storm Breakers (U10 Step 2 friendship series), U14AA Mission (2-2), last year’s champions, U14A Elevate (0-2-1), U14B Sabotage (0-2-1) and U16A Royals (0-3).
Overall, the tournament featured 173 teams in 18 divisions.
