Help us get to Easterns!

On March 18, 2018, the West Ferris Ringette U19A team won a silver medal and the Sportsmanship award at the Ontario Provincial Championships. This earned them a wild card spot in the Eastern Ringette Championships held in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia from April 18 to 22. For the first time in West Ferris Ringette history, a team is going to the Eastern Ringette Championships! The team has been together for a long time; have worked hard and played hard together.  The girls feel incredibly honoured and excited to represent the birthplace of ringette and are looking forward to this once in a lifetime opportunity.

North Bay’s West Ferris 63s are a terrific group of talented athletes who have worked hard over several seasons together to bring themselves to this pinnacle of achievement. Every once in a while in amateur sports you get to witness something that cannot be adequately described. That won’t be available in multiple angle replays and ultra-slow motion. It might be recorded on a smart phone or a tablet or even a camera. But that will never do it justice. This season this West Ferris team worked hard to put together a remarkable winning run. It had all the elements you would want in a classic sports story. Injuries, illness, sacrifice, disappointments, incredible comebacks and heroic overtime wins. It will sound like cliche and exaggeration but there really is something wonderful in watching a team that competes with a consistent ethic of fair play (they received the Sportsmanship Award at Provincials which is voted on by participating teams), purely for the love of the game and for each other. A team with real heart that consistently gives everything they have. To win the right to attend the Eastern Regional Championships these young women, from a small city in Northern Ontario, (every tournament attended was at least a four hour drive away) first had to win enough to finish in the top tier of teams in the province, mostly from much larger centres. Then battle through 8 tough games in 4 days. Ringette is a fast-paced, exciting, physical and much-under-appreciated sport. 

There is no big payoff in Ringette. It remains a primarily an amateur sport. This will in all likelihood be the culmination of their Ringette careers. Please help a truly inspiring group of fine young female athletes realize their dream. They have done West Ferris, the birthplace of their sport, and Northern Ontario proud.

Any donation is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your generosity!