The journey to Saskatoon was paved with gold for Kelowna’s U16A Elite ringette team.
The B.C. champion Elite returned home with the top prize from the 2018 Western Canadian Ringette Championships.
After losing its opening game, Kelowna ran the table to capture the gold medal, clinching the title Sunday with a 7-3 victory over Team Alberta in the final.
“Our goal all season was to be in the gold medal game (of westerns) and our group never wavered from their goal,” said head coach Todd MacMillan.
The Elite lost 6-2 to Alberta to open the tournnament, then reeled off wins over the host team (5-1), Team Manitoba (7-1), Team Sask (8-2), and Manitoba (7-0) again in the semifinal.
“Our motto all year has been ‘Why Not Us’ because we needed to believe that we were capable of winning this tournament,” MacMillan added.
“We knew it was going to be hard and there would be a lot of work to make it happen but together we kept our end goal always in front of us and never looked back. I don’t know if I have ever seen a group of athletes commit so fully to the systems and the process, which at the end of the day made us a tough team to play against and gave us the strength to never quit.”
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