SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — The Calgary Core struck early and never looked back in the under-16 gold-medal game at the 2019 Credit Union Canadian ringette championships at Credit Union Place on Saturday morning.
Calgary struck for three goals in the game’s first 5:17, took a 4-0 advantage into the second half and defeated the host P.E.I. Wave 5-1 to win the national championship.
“I could tell pre-game we were a little bit nervous,” assessed Wave head coach Francois Caron. “I could tell in the warm-up the rings were not being picked up clean.
“This is probably the biggest stage that any of these kids have played. It took us a little while to get going , we got down three early but we settled down after that.”
Hat trick
Callie Dawes scored a hat trick, Chanelle Smith had a goal and two assists while Kirsten Dempsey added a single marker to account for Calgary’s scoring.
“We are all so excited, we worked really hard all season,” said the 16-year-old Dawes. “We won a couple of tournaments, lost a couple of tournaments, but in the end this is what we were going for.”
Sophia Jeffery, assisted by Addie MacPhee and Emily Peters, scored the lone goal for the Wave that drew a thunderous cheer from the pro-P.E.I. crowd.
Rachael McKerracher made 29 saves in recording the goaltending win. Sarah Bain and Kenzy Hawkins shared the goaltending duties for the Wave.
Turning point
Calgary head coach Caley Mineault agreed the quick start proved to be the turning point.
“We are a team that likes to have a lot of fun and we are always loose,” said Mineault. “Being able to do that and being able to have fun right from the start helped us a lot.”
Caron agreed with Mineault’s assessment.
“We are a smaller team and we have to use our speed. You can only use your speed if you are picking up the ring and we kind of fought that ring the first five, six minutes. By the time we stopped fighting it was 3-0. They are just too good of a team to get down that much. They were very smart in how they played after that.”
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