Event Considerations

1. Equipment 

In some cases, your participants may not have access to equipment such as skates and helmets. Having equipment accessible for participants to borrow can be a great way to make your event more inclusive. If your association does not have access to equipment, consider partnering with another association in your region to create an equipment library or see if your provincial association may have equipment that can be leant out. When advertising your event, be sure to clearly indicate what equipment is needed/what can be provided to help participants feel more confident coming. In the registration process, ask participants what equipment they would need so that you can set it aside for them. 

Note: For many women, not having equipment is a large barrier to participation. If you don’t have equipment that can be leant to women, provide suggestions on where they may be able to borrow or buy reasonably priced equipment—for example, borrowing their daughter’s or a friend’s equipment or looking at used equipment stores or Facebook Marketplace.   

2. Ice Time 

While Come Try Ringette events are most often held on ice, they can also be held in the gym ‘gym ringette.’ Ringette Canada has numerous resources (such as practice plans) that can be used to support gym ringette events. Hosting gym ringette events can reduce some of the cost and accessibility challenges of ice sessions and help draw participants to on-ice sessions.   

Consider combining separate Come Try Ringette sessions if your association has limited ice time. For example, rather than hosting a Come Try Ringette event for women and girls separately, they could be held together, with half of the ice being used for each group and then bringing the groups together for the final activities and a mini-game. This is a great technique if you are finding that you need more participants during your events.