Sports without borders

Ringette is a sport played by thousands of girls and women all over the world. In Finland ringette has been played since 1979 and today is home to some of the best players in the game.

The Finnish SM-liiga is proud to host a number of Canadian players every season. This year EKS of Espoo is host to three women from Canada, we caught up with Beth Fielding, Molly Lux and Courtney Schell after one of their games at the Laaksolahti arena in Espoo back in November 2004.

Beth Fielding

Beth is from Burnaby, British Columbia and has played ringette for 12 years. She has represented BC at five Canadian National Championships and won bronze in 2001 and silver in 2002. She also played for British Columbia's Canada winter games team in 2003, where they took the bronze. Beth is 20 years old and will celebrate her 21st birthday here in Finland in Febraury.

One of her idols is a ringette coach, Tracey Townsend (nee Crowe), and Beth says that she has always looked up to her. Townsend came to Finland to play ringette about 10 years ago, and Beth says ever since she was 15 she wanted to come and play in Finland after hearing Townsend talk about her experiences.

In the fall of 2002 Beth sent a lot of email to different ringette associations in Finland and finally got a reply in August 2003 in order to play in Finland last season. Due to school commitments she was unable to come. In August of this year Beth heard from Mika Holmström of EKS, who invited her to come over and play for the season. Beth withdrew from school because "a chance really wouldn't come around a third time, and I bought a plane ticket. Within less than a month of being invited I was here."

Beth said that since their games are scheduled to be done on March 6 (and if EKS doesn't make it to the championship in April), she plans on going home in mid-March, and going to the Canadian National Championship in Winnipeg this April, with BC Open Team. She has been listed as a member, and she is eager to take up the post since they are short some players; it helps that she has played for them for the past few years. As far as getting back to school goes, Beth plans to apply to the BCIT Radiology Medical technology program, starting next winter.

Molly Lux

Molly is 19 and has been playing ringette for 13 years, eight of those at a highly competitive level. She has represented Team Saskatchewan twice at the Canadian Ringette Championships and was a member of the Canada Winter Games team representing Team Saskatchewan in 2003. Molly has also been behind the bench as a coach and on the ice as an official, and she plans to continue with those duties (as well as playing) when she gets back to Canada.

She travelled across Fiji, New Zealand and Australia last year and so did not play. Courtney (Schell) and another friend were already on their way to Finland to play this season. Molly says Courtney asked if she was interested because it had been a dream of all of theirs for a very long time. "Of course I said yes and I came home from Australia early to save up money to come here."

On being in Finland Molly says, "Playing here has been a great learning experience and I have improved a lot already. Playing in this league is amazing and being able to play against some of the best players in the world is a dream come true! When I get home I plan on going to school and going into journalism. I plan to play ringette until I get old and can no longer skate.
It's the best sport!"

Courtney Schell

From Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Courtney is 20 and has been involved with ringette for 16 years. She plays, coaches, referees and volunteers. "I love the game. I guess you could say that I eat, sleep and breathe it!" she laughed. She has played competitively for seven years, six of them in Canada. Courtney has represented Team Saskatchewan at six Canadian Ringette Championships and participated in two Western Canadian Championships. Like Molly, she played for Team Saskatchewan at the Canada Winter Games in 2003.

Courtney also plays competitive fastball (baseball), and when she was in high school, she was involved in track and field, volleyball, basketball and badminton. She reports, "I like to keep myself busy with sports. Ringette is by far my favourite though. I came to Finland to play to be a part of the SM league. Unfortunately in Canada they do not have such a competitive league set up. I wanted to be involved with a high performance team that is very dedicated and committed." She adds, "I also wanted to travel and improve my social and ringette skills.

Courtney said she would like to finish her degree in kinesiology and then become certified in athletic therapy by attending Sheridan College in Ontario or a college in Western Canada somewhere. On the ringette front she wants to continue refereeing, coaching and playing with the aim of making it to the next Team Canada tryouts. She said she hopes that she could crack the top 60 in the country. She plans to stay in Finland until the end of April 2005 and then travel Europe for a bit and may even work in Ireland for the summer.

All three agree that their time in Finland has been a fantastic learning experience and having the opportunity to be on the ice five times a week is a "dream". The training program overall is different than what they are used to but Courtney especially likes "being able to focus on the game."

They find the officiating a bit different and the game is longer with 3x20 minutes in Finland, while in Canada it is only 2x20 minutes for players 14 and older.

The trio will be playing in the SM-liiga until the end of March. While off the ice they all live with families in the capital area working as au pairs.

Espoon Kiekkoseura

According to General Manager of EKS, Mika Holmström, it is "really great" to have Canadian players in Espoo. He mentioned that this season is not the first time EKS has had Canadian players in the line-up, with Canadians playing last year and several others in the past. There are more than 100 girls and women playing ringette in Espoo, he says there are enough to have a team for every age group.

Some players from EKS have even had the chance to play in tournaments in Canada. Annika Holmström, Annika Santanen and Annu Rintala have been to Edmonton and said they enjoyed the experience immensely.

EKS is preparing to send one its younger teams to Toronto in the spring of 2005 for exhibition games with teams from southern Ontario. The world gets smaller every day and the sport of ringette for Finland and Canada is truly a sport without borders!

By Carmen Boudreau-Kiviaho