“I play ringette! It’s a sport on ice kind of like hockey,” was something I repeated over, and over, and over again throughout my childhood. I played ringette for 10 years, and hopefully, I'll find another team soon enough.
It all started in under-8, or as we call it, Bunnies. My mother had seen that the local St. Jacobs arena was hosting learn-to-skate courses and decided to sign me up. Not after long, it was time to hit the ice. We looked on the whiteboard and headed to changeroom 3 (back when there were only 4 changerooms).
I found a seat in the changeroom and looked around. Why was everyone else putting on equipment?… What were those broken hockey sticks in the corner? So naturally, I put on my sweater, snow pants, mittens, and figure skating skates.
I was set to start practice.
Woolwich Ringette also hosts the local learn-to-skate courses, and it turns out that my mom filled out the wrong form written by Woolwich Ringette... I was accidentally signed up to play ringette, not learn-to-skate.
One of the coaches kindly invited my family over and taught us everything we needed to know—even gave me one an old stick to use. From that point on, I found a team and a community. I fell in love with skating, the team chants, and the people. There’s a small group of girls I grew up alongside with by playing ringette. We played together in Woolwich, to Waterloo, back to Woolwich again. We have our inside jokes, and years worth of good memories together from tournament weekends to gossiping in the changeroom far after our parents grew impatient. I was by no means a good player, but I loved the sport and of course, the people.
Every once in a while, I reflect on how lucky I am that my mom accidentally signed me up for this sport. There was this opportunity right in my community that we had no idea about, but had luckily stumbled upon. I spent 10 good years falling in love with this sport and my community.
Now, I try to say yes to as many things as I can. Who knows what will happen?
Try something new and try to say yes as often as you can. And most of all, don’t worry about embarrassing yourself— I showed up to ringette practice in figure skates with no equipment or stick. Whatever you do can’t be worse than that.
Even if you do embarrass yourself, you'll have a funny story to tell.
What can be better than that?
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