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While the Westside Edge and Kelowna Adrenaline have enjoyed a lengthy, respectful and friendly ringette rivalry, the intensity in their on-ice confrontations has by no means been dulled .
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The fervor came to the fore in the 27th annual Kelowna Sweetheart Tournament’s U16B championship game on Sunday at the CNC.
In a fourth fast-paced tournament matchup in the past month, Westside scored an early first-period goal — and, backstopped by the outstanding play of goaltender Josh Carefoot — edged the Adrenaline 1-0 for Sweetheart gold.
Victoria van Every scored the lone goal on a free-ring shot while the rest of the game was highlighted by relentless offensive attacks by both teams and numerous scoring chances thwarted by Carefoot in the Edge net and by Kelowna’s Brian Fiset-Kinzel at the opposite end of the rink.
“It as a great game — it always is when we meet,” said Jen van Every, a team mom and wife of coach Craig van Every. “It’s wonderful to see the competitiveness of the girls on both sides and the respect they have for each other. We’re looking forward to seeing them again at provincials.”
It won’t be the first time.
Last year, with several players on both teams in their first year of U16B division play, the Westsiders defeated Kelowna 2-0 in the provincial championship game.
Coming off a 3-1 loss to the Adrenaline in a tournament title game in Richmond in January, the Edge won three Sweetheart games — against Delta (2-0), Quesnel (7-0) and the Adrenaline (4-2) — in round-robin play on the weekend and tied Surrey/White Rock 3-3 to finish first going into Sunday’s playoffs.
Westside eked out a 3-2 victory over the Shuswap Thunderstruck in their semifinal for the right to play for gold against Kelowna.
Meanwhile, the Adrenaline doubled the Houston Hurricanes 4-2 in their semifinal after winning three of four games in the round-robin. They were awarded a victory over Surrey White/White Rock Storm, who couldn’t make it to Kelowna on Friday because of the storm on the Coquihalla. The other two wins came against the Quesnel Lightning (6-3) and the Delta Lightning (5-4).
Kelowna coach, Michelle Ryan, echoed van Every’s assessment of the Sweetheart final:
“Both teams battled hard and it was an intense game to watch and coach,” said Ryan. “I’m very proud of the team’s accomplishments over the entire weekend.”
One other Central Okanagan team garnered gold at the Sweetheart. The host Kelowna Ringette Association Elite defeated the Delta Rage 3-1 in the U16A championship game.
Jessye Large scored twice early in the first period to lead the Elite in the title game while Brenna O’Flynn halted Delta’s momentum with about 90 seconds remaining in the game by scoring the insurance marker.
It was the first time the two teams had met this season, but they do have a history. The Elite, with nine players who are now a part of the U16A team, defeated Delta in last year’s provincial U14A championship game.
The Kelowna Elite earned a berth in the final by defeating the Prince George Fury 4-3 in their semifinal on Sunday morning. The win avenged a 5-3 loss to the same PG team in their final round-robin game on Saturday.
Earlier, the Kelowna squad edged the Vernon Rush 2-1, the Fraser Valley Fusion 7-1 and the Burnaby Rush 3-1 in round-robin play.
Head coach, Todd MacMillan, believes his team’s play at the Sweetheart was a “TSN turning point” for the season.
“It’s been a roller-coaster season and we were coming off a lackluster performance at a tournament in Calgary last month,” noted MacMillan. “I was so proud to see the team work so hard and to realize they could step up their play and work better as a team. We’ve turned the corner and we’re peaking at the right time of the season. Hopefully we can keep it going in the right direction for provincials (March 2-4 in Surrey).”
The Kelowna Rage took the bronze medal in the U14A division. They came out on the short end of a 4-3 decision to Burnaby/New West in semifinal play but bounced back for a victory over Fraser Valley in the bronze-medal encounter.
In U19A play, the Kelowna Heat claimed the bronze by defeating Port Coquitlam after losing 5-0 to Delta in semifinal play.
The Open division saw the Kelowna Fireballs finish fourth.
In all, 87 teams and nearly 1,300 players — from U9 to Open — took part in the Sweetheart.
Several games had to be rescheduled due to three teams opting out due to horrible weather conditions on roads coming into Kelowna and several others being stranded on the Coquihalla on Friday.
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