Lethbridge Ringette Association seeing a rebound

By Lethbridge Herald on September 23, 2022.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge Ringette Association are seeing a rebound of the numbers of players registered for this season.

LRA will see close to 200 players hit the ice this year.

“We have teams in every division up to U16  which is more than we’ve ever had ,” said Cara Parks, LRA president.

“So we have three U12 teams for the first time in our history, we have teams at all of the age groups in U10 . And we have our active start as well and we have a  huge open program starting this year — which is great because it gives those players  once they get past 18, 19-years-old ,they still have somewhere to still play the sport that they’ve grown up playing.”

LRA would like to see more growth in their youngest age groups in the active start and U10 divisions.

“So we are trying to  actively like recruit new players, offer initiatives where it makes it a little bit easier for them to get in the sport through rental of equipment and things like that,” said Parks.

“Some of those are barriers for people. You can find used hockey equipment everywhere but ringette does require a special cage and that’s an extra $70 sometimes and that kind of puts a dent in to people’s pockets. So we’ve got a program to rent those out for them so they don’t have to buy them until they’re sure they want to play.”

LRA hosted an introduction program last spring and got a good response out of it heading into this season.

“We had a really good return rate on that,” said Parks.

“So we’re happy to see those kids come back and register this fall.”

The organization had never had more than one championship banner brought home until last season where LRA teams won three.

“It was interesting that the three teams that kind of struggled right off the start with numbers and getting players in the right positions ended up all bringing home championships,” said Parks.

“It’s huge. This year, we’re offering ‘A’ divisions in U12 and U14 for the first time ever that we’ve had multiple ‘A’ division which we’ve never done.  Which says  we’re developing better and better players every year that are able to play at the highest level that the province offers.”

LRA’s first tournament will be Nov. 18-20 and will try to host every division in the association.

“So it has the potential to be quite  big again, over 40 teams,” said  Kelly Dinsmore, tournament director.

A U10 tournament will be hosted in early March.

“So it is pretty exciting and we pride ourselves in offering well-organized fun tournaments and it seems like we get a lot of excitement around it,” said Dinsmore.

Teams were formed last weekend and practices began on Monday.