Paris Ringette Teams bring home Gold and Silver medals from St. Catharines tournament

By Casandra Turnbull

At the start of the season, no one could predict the U19B team would land a gold medal early in the tournament season, mainly because there wasn’t a U19B team in Paris. “This was Paris Ringette Association’s ‘surprise’ team this season as players from a few different associations were looking for a place to land and we welcomed them all,” said Coach Carrie Moran. She’s joined on the bench by assistant coaches Dale McLaren and Ian Courtnage, as well as trainer Emma Mayhew. That ‘surprise’ team travelled to the St. Catharines Tournament November 22-24th where they pulled out another pleasant surprise – Gold Medals! The team’s first game was a nailbiter, squeaking out a win while playing short-handed in the last five minutes of the game. The winning goal was scored by Isaac Halsey with just 48 seconds left on the clock.

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Pictured to the left is the U16B Paris Ringette Team who claimed silver medals at the St. Catharines tournament last weekend. Below is the U19B team that brought home Gold! Submitted photos

In game two, Paris easily won a 4-1 decision against an injury depleted St. Catharines team. The final round robin was against Niagara Falls, who Paris faced earlier in the season where it ended in a tie It was looking like this rematch would end with a similar outcome, as there was lots of back-and-forth action before Paris secured the 7-6 win, advancing them to a semi-final game versus Dorchester The Sunday morning semi-final was a physical match up that saw Paris’ defense score two shorthanded goals. The final score was 3-1, in part thanks to the playmaking of Alison Howell who assisted on all three goals.

Paris faced Goderich in the finals, and it was also a physical game chalked full of adrenaline from two teams hungry for the title. Paris coaches send a big shoutout to Alex Simm for her ability to transition between forward and defense throughout the game. Paris’ goalie Mathew Dow continued his strong weekend between the pipes to help lead the team to a 4-2 gold medal win.

“A big thanks to all the extended family members who transported our players this weekend Also, we want to thank St. Catharines Ringette for a fantastic tournament,” said Moran

U16B TournamentAction

The U16B Ringette team competed at the same tournament, skating their way to a silver medal “Our first tournament of the year and the players played their hearts out all weekend,” said coach Dale McLaren.

“I saw a group of players come together on and off the ice,” he added.

Paris faced Etobicoke on Friday night, coming through with the 3-1 win. Their next opponent was

Niagara Falls on Saturday morning and Paris dominated that game with goalie Alexis making several tremendous saves to secure the 6-0 shutout. In game three, Paris played hard but fell 6-0 to tournament hosts, St. Catharines.

With two wins and one loss, Paris secured enough points to move into the finals on Sunday, where they would have another opportunity to crack a tough St Catharines squad “This time our team rallied and played an amazing game against a very fast team,” said McLaren. In the end St. Catharines would come out on top and Paris finished with silver medals, although McLaren felt everyone was gold medal winners all weekend long as they played as a team, showcased strong goal tending and both the offensive and defensive lines looked fine-tuned for this early in the season.