An unforgettable adventure

Written by coach Greg

Well, we have been home for a few weeks now and back to our regular lives of school, work and ringette. A number of people had an unexpected extension of their holiday with an extra night in Frankfurt due to weather, airport delays and the general incompetence of Lufthansa. But we made the best of it and got home the next day...although Mohamed is still missing one piece of luggage!

We had a great time in Scandinavia and have been asked many questions upon our return. It seems that there are a number of other teams that want to learn from our experience and perhaps go themselves one day. We highly recommend it. The trip was a year in the making, but provided memories that will last a lifetime. The local Richmond Hill paper heard about our trip and wrote about us, including two photos, on Page 3!!! Pretty prominent coverage for the girls. It is in The Liberal on Sunday January 17...here is the link...

http://www.yorkregion.com/News/Sports/article/101849

Thanks for reading about our adventures, we appreciate your support and hope you enjoyed it!

Day 8 Ending on a High

Written by Coach Greg

Today is the last day of the tournament. We had an early game so the bus left the hotel at 8am…the girls were still in the process of waking up. So were some of us adults. Our first game of the day was critical as we needed to win or tie to have any chance of making the semifinals. It was against an undefeated team, one that was quite big and very skilled. The game was fast and tight, and we scored midway through the final period to tie that game and almost won it on a number of close chances in the last minute of the game. The Player of the Game was Melissa Simone. The Finnish goalies continue to demonstrate excellent skills. We had to wait for the next game to see if we advance. Hamilton needed to win in order for us to have a chance but they lost 7-0. This meant we would play in the consolation game. That too proved to be a very exciting game, with Richmond Hill scoring with over two minutes left to tie that game and then again with 7 seconds (shorthanded) left to win it. Sabrina Lem was named Player of the Game. This meant that we finished 5th in the tournament out of 9 teams. The Organizers named Melissa, Anika and Ashley the top players of the tournament for Richmond Hill. A very respectable showing by the girls, especially since most of the girls we played against were 1-2 years older. We headed back to the hotel to a nice dinner, during which we watched the consolation final again (thanks to Roman) with much cheering for the number of great plays and awesome stops by Ashley. We were still a little confused by some of the penalties. The adults then toasted the Mills family back in Newmarket with the Ice Wine they gave us before we came to Europe. As I type this many of the girls are beside me teasing Ollie our bus driver and Lauri is on the other side with Mohamed having a drink. The others have gone to sleep since many have an early morning flight…the first bus leaves at 4am for the airport. We had a spectacular time here in Finland - the tournament was very well organized and the competition was excellent. Many of the games were one goal games. Tomorrow we will be heading home and will provide an update when we arrive. A final thanks to Lauri and his team for making our trip so enjoyable…it really was an experience of a lifetime, one the girls will not forget.

Day 7 Feeling the Heat

Written by the coaches, Greg and Colette.

Day two of the tournament proved to be a tough one for the Lightning. We moved into the second round of the tournament and ended up facing the other Canadian team here, the Hamilton Heat. It was a hard fought battle with Hamilton scoring the game opener in the first period. However, that was short lived as we tied it up but Hamilton went on to score another goal in the final period to win the game 2-1. The player of the game was Sarah Esmail. We now need to win tomorrow morning to have a chance to move into the Semifinals. Today was also the skills competition and the pizza party for all the teams in the tournament. Two players from each team participated with Melissa Simone and Sarah Esmail representing our team. Both girls did extremely well. Sarah made it to the final two in the Precision Shooting contest and Melissa won the Shootout Contest, scoring 3 goals against the Finland National Team goalie, who was voted Top Goalie at the 2007 World Cup of Ringette. Despite the loss today, the girls are having fun and are getting pumped for tomorrow's game where we will play another Finnish Team. A special thank you to Lauri and Ollie for being so accommodating to our team. Today they made a special trip on the bus to take the girls to a Mall and others back to the hotel during a long gap in our Ringette schedule. They have really made our trip enjoyable.

Day 6 GAME ON!!!

Today was the start of the tournament and the reason for our travels. The talent level in Finland is better than expected. The 2 Finnish teams we played today were very skilled, big and strong. The first team we played was - EKS, which was comprised of mostly older players - 15 year olds with a few 14 year olds and one 13 year old. Although not our best game, EKS were very strong and had solid goaltending. They beat us 4-1. The player of the game was Brittany Pedersen. The girls knew we had to win the next game to advance to the next round and they came out flying! The second game was against Walapais - the girls pulled out their "A" game and came out with a 7-2 win! This meant that the girls will likely finish second in our division. Melissa Simone scored 6 goals and our goaltender, Ashley Pedersen was strong between the pipes. The player of the game was Ashley Pedersen.

Happy New Year to all our friends and family and goodnight from beautiful (but cold - 15 degrees Celsius) Helsinki.

Day 5 New Year’s Eve

Today we were fortunate to have a free day. Some of us relaxed (i.e. got our nails done), or went shopping and others went to the Flamingo Spa which is a wellness centre and large pool complex with waterslides. The girls had a great time at the waterslides and pool and enjoyed not having to follow the structure of a bus tour. We got back to the hotel mid-afternoon and it was time to get ready for the New Year’s Eve festivities. Our tour guide Lauri arranged for us and the other Canadian teams to celebrate together with a nice dinner in a hall that was built in 1925. Following the dinner we walked over to the town square to enjoy New Year’s Eve festivities. Unfortunately the weather was rather cold (-15 degrees Celsius) and at 10:30 pm we headed back to the hotel. Because we have a game early in the afternoon on New Year’s Day, the girls did not make 12:00 am (11:00 pm curfew), but we toasted the New Year early. It was another great day in Helsinki, and we are ready to compete hard in the tournament which starts tomorrow.

Day 4 Lightning Arrive in Helsinki

The team awakes to the Helsinki harbour and we meet for breakfast on the ship. After leaving the ship, a Finnish guide joins us on our bus for a guided tour of Helsinki. We see many of the sights, including the site of the 1952 Olympics, parliament buildings, large sports complexes and a very unusual church carved out of granite. Dynamite was used to blow out the walls and the end result is a very unique and interesting building.
We then arrive at our hotel in Helsinki to check in. It is a very nice hotel, located right across from the harbour where our cruise ship had docked this morning. It is also a short walk to the main City Centre. The snow is falling as is the temperature so we feel very much at home here. We have a few hours of free time so people take advantage of that to go have some lunch, shop and visit local sites such as churches, etc. Some people even went cross country skiing!
We meet in the hotel lobby at 4:30pm to board the bus to our next exhibition game, this time against Helsinki Ringette. When we arrive at the rink we are again warmly welcomed by the team’s coaches and parents. There are three ice pads, all with hockey being played. Ice hockey is a very popular sport the locals know the NHL pretty well, particularly with the Finnish players such as Vesa Toskala. We find out that the team we are about to play are actually a year older than us and tell us they are a very strong team. It looks like the girls will need their A game, as we see the Helsinki team outside warming up with a soccer ball, and then going through a variety of Aerobic activities. This game proved to be a much tougher one for the girls but we scored early and went on to a 6-2 win. The game was fast and a little rough but the referees kept it under control. It was interesting to see the different styles of play, with our aggressive fore checking catching the Fins off guard. Melissa Simone was selected as the Richmond Hill player of the game.
We spent some time talking to the Finnish parents after the game and they said that during the game they decided that they want to come to Canada to play in a tournament. This was another excellent experience for our girls and for the Finnish girls. They are very excited to play a team from Canada…or to quote one of the Finnish coaches before the game “our girls are very excited to beat a team from Canada”. They will have to wait a little longer to do that!

We returned to our hotel after the game and met for a late team dinner. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and a free day for us so the girls plan their various activities…some plan to go to a water park (indoors of course), others to the spa and others to some museums. Afterwards, the girls relaxed and headed to bed.

Day 3 in Stockholm

The third day marked the end of our stay in Stockholm. We checked out of our hotel in the morning and Ollie brought us to the City Centre where we split up and spent the next few hours of free time to do as we wished. Some girls shopped, some went to the Old Town, and others walked around exploring the city.
At 3pm we met back at the bus and headed to our cruise ship to make the 14 hour journey to Helsinki. The ship holds 2,800 people was well equipped with restaurants, bars and entertainment areas. Our bus comes on the ship with us so we do not need to worry about luggage or our Ringette equipment. That is a good thing since the rooms on the ships of pretty compact. There is also a duty free shop, it was interesting to see the Swedish and Finnish people buying up the beer and alcohol because it was so much cheaper on the boat…believe it or not there are countries with higher taxes than Canada!
We had dinner together and the girls then went about exploring the ship. The highlight seemed to be the Karaoke bar, where a group of the Richmond Hill Lightning showed their support for Sweden by getting up and singing ABBA’s Money, Money, Money. The parents could relate to that song as well, especially coming from the girls! There were many interesting people on board, including a group of teenage boys at the Karaoke bar that are probably still trying to figure out what Ringette is all about. There were also some live entertainment events, including a French Cabaret Show; we won’t go into too much detail on that one!!
Our tour continues to be very well organized, our driver very accommodating and the Scandinavian people very friendly…although Greg finds them all a little too tall.