Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre was abuzz over the weekend of Dec. 11-13 as the Cochrane Ringette Association (CRA) hosted their seventh annual Cochrane Ringette Classic.
The tournament brought together 43 teams (11 from Cochrane) from across Alberta, with 625 athletes aged seven to 19 taking part over the course of the three-day event.
Teams from Cochrane had a strong showing, with Airdrie-Cochrane (AC) Thunder taking gold in the Under-19B category and Cochrane Rockies winning silver in the Under-14A and Under-14B finals.
“It’s the biggest tournament we’ve had yet,” said ringette secretary and organizer Crystal Jones. “We’ve had teams from Cochrane, Spruce Grove, Lethbridge, Strathmore, Red Deer, Lacombe, Airdrie, and Calgary. There’s been a wide variety.”
“It’s been great,” said first-time tournament organizer Alyssa Bates. “The attendance has pretty much been bang on from what we thought it would be. We haven’t figured out yet what all of the financial benefits from the tournament will be this year, but hopefully we’ve brought in some money for player development both on and off the ice.”
Due to the constraints of facilities and ice time allotted to the CRA by the Cochrane Minor Hockey Association (CMHA), both organizers feel that the tournament has grown to as big as it will get in the foreseeable future.
“We’ve had to turn away a lot of teams this year, because of scheduling with CMHA, and the limited ice time we have,” said Jones.
“Unfortunately, we can’t grow as much as we potentially could, because we don’t have the ice to add any further teams,” Bates said. “We have a 15 player cap on every team so that we keep our numbers down and teams roughly the same size.
“The ice we’ve been allotted is basically all the ice that we’re going to get, but in order to make due, we’ve been expanding onto ice in Cremona.”
How has ringette been growing in Cochrane in the last couple of years?
“Ringette was pretty popular before, when girls were young, and then they’d kind of phase out and go on to find different things,” Bates said. “Now, we’re retaining players longer. This is the second year where we’ve had an under-19 team that is a Cochrane and Airdrie combination.
“People have been thinking outside the box a little bit to keep older girls in the sport and make sure they have a team and place to play.”
Where does the CRA plan on going from here?
“We’re getting more and more girls signed up every year, especially at younger levels,” Bates said. “We’re hoping to continue to grow as long as facilities can accommodate us.”
