Ringette tournament helps with CRH teddy bear shortage

By Lethbridge Herald on November 17, 2025.

Herald photo by JUStin SEWARD Players from the U12C and U16A Lethbridge Rattler ringette teams gather in the stuffed teddy bear donation pile at Cavendish Farms Centre on Sunday.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

A local ringette tournament came through in a big way with its generosity in a time of need over the weekend.

The Lethbridge Ringette Association hosted its annual Bridge Battle Fall tournament at Cavendish Farms Centre over the weekend, and it was between initiative lead and LRA parent Cara Parks, the  main spearheads in the U12C and U16A LRA teams and the visiting teams that 686 stuffed teddy bears were collected to help with Chinook Regional Hospital’ shortage in stuffed toys.

“She had saw that the Chinook Regional Hospital was short on teddy bears for sick kids,” said Gordon Cox, LRA president and coach on the U16A Rattlers team.

“She took the initiative on this and put out the challenge for our teams and for the teams attending to see if we could fill up the box and as you can see, its been (an) overwhelming response.”

Teams from the U6 level  all the way up to the university level brought stuffed teddy bears.

“It’s important for us because we’re trying to build leaders,” said Gordon, on the importance of this response for LRA.

“ To see them respond like this to help the community and be (a) part of the community is really good for us.”

To see the teams come together on the initiative meant something to U16A Rattler player Jessie Cox.

“My family knows someone who’s going through the hospital treatment right now, so it means a lot  to know that kids  in the hospital are getting some fun toys to play with,” said Jessie.

Assisting others is important to U16A Rattler player Ella Running.

“The whole LRA community is  very happy (to) help out all these children in need, so they can have a little extra happiness,” said Running.

The stuffed bears were delivered to CRH on Monday afternoon.

All the local teams in the Bridge Battle Fall tournament medalled including the U16A, U12A and U12B teams winning gold, the U12C, U14A, U14B and U10 Step 3 teams taking home the silver medal  and bronze was won by the U16B and U19A teams.