Team Canada juniors open strong on first day of world ringette championships

Helsinki, Finland – December 27, 2015 – Canada’s junior team came out strong on opening day at the 2016 world ringette championships in Helsinki. The Canadians recorded a 32-0 shut out over the Czech Republic, with all 15 Canadian skaters contributing goals for the win. Boucherville’s Laurie St-Pierre and Winnipeg’s Ryann Bannerman shared the shut out in nets. Leading the scoring for Canada were St. Albert’s Lauren Henderson with four goals and six assists and Red Deer’s Kelsie Caine with three goals and six assists. Czech’s Veronika Hulkova faced a whopping 161 shots in the game.

Earlier in the day, Team Finland’s junior team beat Sweden 12-2 and in the final game of the day, Team USA downed Team Sweden’s junior team 7-6.

There are nine national teams competing at the event – junior national teams from Canada, Finland, and Sweden and senior national teams from Canada, Finland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Sweden and the United States. The senior national teams from Canada and Finland will compete in the Sam Jacks Series, with Team Finland looking to defend the world title they have held for the last four championship events, in a best two-out-of-three series against Team Canada. The series will start on January 1st and the winner will claim the Sam Jacks Trophy on either January 3rd or 4th.

Team Sweden, Team USA, Team Slovakia, Team Czech Republic, and the junior national teams from Canada, Finland and Sweden are competing in the Presidents’ Pool, which consists of a full round-robin series. Following the round robin, the top two teams will play a best two-out-of-three series for gold and the Presidents’ Trophy (either January 3rd or 4th). The third and fourth place team will play a best two-out-of-three series for bronze (either January 3rd or 4th).

All games are being live webcast and can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/user/RingetteTV.

Round-robin play in the Presidents’ Pool continues tomorrow with the following games taking place (all times are local Helsinki time):
9:45 Sweden vs. Canada Junior
13:00 USA vs. Czech Republic
16:00 Slovakia vs. Finland Junior

About Ringette
Ringette is a Canadian sport that was invented in 1963 in North Bay, Ontario by the late Sam Jacks. There are currently nearly 30,000 players on nearly 2,000 teams across Canada, with over 1,500 officials and nearly 8000 coaches. Internationally, it is played in more than a half a dozen other countries around the world. Ringette has been designated a Heritage Sport by Sport Canada and as part of the Sport for Life movement, ringette is well advanced at adapting Sport Canada’s Long Term Athlete Development model. For more information, please refer to the Ringette Canada Web site at www.ringette.ca.

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For more information, please contact our media representative who is onsite in Helsinki:

Alayne Martell
Media and Public Relations | Relations de presse et publiques
Ringette Canada | Ringuette Canada
National Ringette League | Ligue Nationale de Ringuette
Phone | Téléphone : (613) 748-5655, ext. 226
Cell : (902) 308-1067
alayne@ringette.ca
@: www.ringette.ca
@: www.nationalringetteleague.ca

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