Ringette Roadshow at Huron Park Community Centre

From the Mississauga News, by Jason Spencer

The Ringette Roadshow visited Huron Park Community Centre on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the sport. Here, organizer Frances Losier poses with mascots Junior Jacks (left) and Samantha Belle (Photo: Jason Spencer, Mississauga News).

In 1963, North Bay's Sam Jacks invented the game of ringette. The first match was played in the fall of that year in Espanola.

Five decades later, the predominately female sport is thriving in North American and Europe, and Ringette Canada has been spreading the good word about the game.

To mark the sport's 50th anniversary, the organization is touring across the country where it all started with their Ringette Roadshow.

The show — which hits 15 cities in 30 days — finished off its eastern leg at Huron Park Community Centre on Saturday.

Amid the hardest shot competition, where attendees tried their hand at flinging rings into a net, and a dress-up showdown, where pairs of participants raced to see who could put on ringette equipment the fastest, the show's mascots reminded visitors of the sport's heritage.

Dressed in squishy-looking costumes with oversized heads, Samantha Belle and Junior Jacks — a mashup of earlier divisional categories and the name of the game's founder — bumped around the community centre, bringing joy to the youngsters in the crowd.

It was an opportune time for the show to stop by the community centre, as it coincided with a AAA Challenge Cup game on the Huron Park rink. The under-19 ringette players in the game will be going on to compete in the Ontario Winter Games in March.

For the uninitiated, organizer Frances Losier wants those new to the game to know that ringette only looks like hockey.

"It is very similar in that we're on the ice, we've got a five-on-five and a goalkeeper, but in terms of strategy it's closer to soccer, basketball and lacrosse," said Losier.

"In ringette," she explained, "because we have to pass at every blue line, it does become a very team-focussed game; you can't go end-to-end — you can't have one superstar."

"People who don't know about the sport and think that it's another version of hockey, but it's actually harder than you think it is," added Mississauga's Allison Edwards, who's been playing the sport for a decade.

After lighting up the radar gun at the hardest shot station, Edwards' mother, Heather, said, "With the 50th anniversary, we're just trying to put the awareness out there for a lot of the girls, who don't know about ringette."

Heather, a ringette coach, said players can start as early as age 4 and Mississauga has one of the largest ringette scene's in the province.

The Ringette Roadshow picks up in Vancouver on Nov. 2 and ends in Winnipeg on Nov. 7.