Earlier this month, an Albert-based ringette team, led by one of the Cochrane area’s finest ringette players, summitted the championship mountain, claiming gold at this year’s national Ringette Championships.
Dylan Pighin, a Water Valley born and Cochrane raised ringette product, captained the Canadian National Championship winning 19AA Zone 2 Blaze to a resounding victory at this month's 2025 Canadian Ringette Championships in Ottawa.
From March 31 to April 5, the Blaze trounced their tournament competition, winning all eight games they played en route to a dispatch of the Quebec Cyclones by a score of six to two in the championship game.
In games against the Saskatoon Blazers, Team New Brunswick, Quebec Cyclones, Team Manitoba, and Eastern Ontario, the Blaze soundly defeated them all, then beat Team New Brunswick in the quarter final and Rive-Sud from Quebec in the semi’s, setting up a finals matchup against the Cyclones.
Pighin, who won the Athlete of the Game award for the championship final, said it felt great to win her sport's highest competition.
“We had a really talented team this year and at nationals we decided we had something to prove.”
Pighin said the feeling of winning the championship was unlike any other she’s had during her time playing ringette.
“It was really a reward for all the hard work, not just from this season, but for our entire careers,” she said.
As the team captain, Pighin’s responsibilities did not stop with her play on the ice. Indeed, the leader of the Blaze said the hardest part of the whole tournament was not the physical grind of playing game after game or the mental strain that competing for a national championship puts on any athlete, it was trying to manage the balance of emotions contending within each of her teammates.
“The biggest part was getting through to Wednesday, staying together as a team,” she said. “Keeping the emotions positive [on the bench], keeping the girls out of the negative…just keeping it together emotionally on the bench is one of the harder things to do.”
With Pighin’s Blaze career coming to end with a golden finish, it became time to look towards the future. The captain is completing her first year as a business student at the University of Calgary, but she’s hoping to continue her ringette playing days on the Rocky Mountain Rage, a National Ringette League (NRL) team that will begin its inaugural season later this year.
The NRL is Canada’s highest level of ringette, with 13 teams across the country. The Rage, which are expected to announce its coaching staff, logo, and jersey at an event on May 3, will operate out of Cochrane and will hold tryouts at the end of August.
Although not a sure thing yet, Pighin said getting an opportunity to play for her hometown team in Canada’s premier ringette league would mean a lot to her.
“I grew up in Cochrane,” Pighin said. “I feel like [making that team] would be a big 360 moment [for] what that support did for me and where it got me.”
