14

Bentley Rebels Ringette Team
1995
Bentley, Alberta


Credits:
Bentley Museum Society

15

Ringette
The Bentley Baronetts -By Fred Peterson
In 1978 I was watching the news on television and it was talking about a sport called Ringette that was being played in Ontario. It was for girls that didn’t like figure skating or hockey. It intrigued me so much that the next day I sent a notice to school with my daughter Dianne to put on the bulletin board. It read, "Any girls between ten and twelve years wanting to play "Ringette" be at the arena at four o’clock with boys skates."
I knew nothing about Ringette but what I had seen on TV, (no computer then) and what I had learned from a phone call to a friend in Calgary. At four o’clock on Tuesday into the Bentley Arena walked eight girls: Sharon Rabbis, Jodi Tharou, Sharon Boettger, Dianne Peterson, Melody Ree, Glenda Wilkins, Valery Midland, and Melody Hill – with boy’s skates – figure skates – or no skates of any type.
The first practice was about skating in boy’s skates and hollering at them to put the hockey sticks away. We wore old hockey sweaters and Roxann McKeen helped me show the girls that if they had a white stick they were centers and could skate anywhere on the ice. If they had a blue stick they were forwards and could skate between our blue line and the opposition end boards. And if they had red sticks they were defense and could skate from our end boards to the opposition blue line. Every player had to pass the ring across each line. It was a job to teach a girl who had worn figure skates for six years, that to start in boys skates you pushed sideways with one skate and not to use the toe pick (causing a head stand) or to stop your slid on the side of your skates and not use the toe pick (causing a face plant into the boards). The girls and I learned the rules of the game – we played Lacombe who had started the year before and teams from Calgary and Edmonton. We were very lucky because some Bantam boys wanted to earn some extra money and learned to ref. Most were better than the Calgary Refs.
We lost just about every game we played that year but the girls just kept getting better and learned with each game. By the end of the winter Big Valley, Red Deer and Olds girls and parents were watching us play so they could get their own teams for the next year. In the second year we could hold our own with the big city teams and beat Big Valley, Red Deer, Olds and even Lacombe. (Except if Mill Suesy was mad at Miss Patty because Miss Helan saw Miss Doreen with Miss Nelly’s boy friend). Then all I could hope for was the game would end before there was a fight on our own bench.
Rodney Wilkins started helping me coach the third year. We probably had the fastest centers with Pam Park and Jodi Tharou. The best discipline wingers were Susan Carter, Janet Waddell, Pam Bergen , Tammy Halko, Debbie Sims, Dianne Peterson and Kim Knox. I know we had the best defence with Glenda Wilkins, Wendy Park, Sandra Kells and Sharon Rabbis. Then there was our great goalie Deanne Brewer and her six to eight boy friends that were in the stands, even at the practices. Other girls played in different years but these were the ones that seemed to stay year after year.
We played in the tournaments in Calgary and Edmonton. We won some and usually got at least third in most of them. I was very proud of our girls because the big cities had one thousand or more girls to choose from. The game is a combination of speed and quick moves which is not easy to do as you are controlling an eight inch rubber ring with a sawed off hockey stick while the opposition girls are playing the little drummer boy on your ankles with their own stick.
When Big Valley got into the league, they had a two sheet curling rink that became their arena. Because of their small population they let every girl play. There were girls from eight years old to twenty years old - moms that came to the games carrying babies. Their refs only knew hockey rules. One game Wendy was checked so hard by one of the twenty year olds she flew over the boards and into the stands. Wendy crawled back over the boards and continued playing. At the stoppage of play at the next whistle that same Big Valley girl was standing behind our net with the wire mesh imprint on her face and Wendy had a silly grin on her face. When she got back to the bench, she got low fives from all the girls behind our bench.
We got shiny maroon silk jackets with the name " BENTLEY BARONETTS" and a picture of Snoopy holding a Ringette stick and a ‘Where is the Red Baron’ look on his face. Twenty five years later one of the girls was wearing her jacket in Costco and she heard some one holler from across the floor – "Hey, I played against you way back", and they both had a good laugh.
I coached till 1984, and Glen Lenz took over. In all those years, I never had a bad word from or about a player, a parent or another team. We went to games with ten players and a coach in one car. I took fourteen fourteen year olds to Calgary to a tournament by myself and stayed in a motel room where I watched TV all night and never even thought about checking on the girls at least once to see if they were still there. Oh, how things have changed. This was the only team of any sport I ever coached that when I hollered, "Change" one game a girl took off her helmet at center ice and threw it at me, scattering all the girls on the bench and she hollered,"Dad, why do I have to be the first to change every time?" ---- I would like to thank the girls for the fun years of Ringette but not for that nickname "DERF".



Ringette
The Bentley Baronetts - By Fred Peterson
In 1978 I was watching the news on television and it was talking about a sport called Ringette that was being played in Ontario. It was for girls that didn’t like figure skating or hockey. It intrigued me so much that the next day I sent a notice to school with my daughter Dianne to put on the bulletin board. It read, "Any girls between ten and twelve years wanting to play "Ringette" be at the arena at four o’clock with boys skates."
I knew nothing about Ringette but what I had seen on TV, (no computer then) and what I had learned from a phone call to a friend in Calgary. At four o’clock on Tuesday into the Bentley Arena walked eight girls: Sharon Rabbis, Jodi Tharou, Sharon Boettger, Dianne Peterson, Melody Ree, Glenda Wilkins, Valery Midland, and Melody Hill – with boy’s skates – figure skates – or no skates of any type.
The first practice was about skating in boy’s skates and hollering at them to put the hockey sticks away. We wore old hockey sweaters and Roxann McKeen helped me show the girls that if they had a white stick they were centers and could skate anywhere on the ice. If they had a blue stick they were forwards and could skate between our blue line and the opposition end boards. And if they had red sticks they were defense and could skate from our end boards to the opposition blue line. Every player had to pass the ring across each line. It was a job to teach a girl who had worn figure skates for six years, that to start in boys skates you pushed sideways with one skate and not to use the toe pick (causing a head stand) or to stop your slid on the side of your skates and not use the toe pick (causing a face plant into the boards). The girls and I learned the rules of the game – we played Lacombe who had started the year before and teams from Calgary and Edmonton. We were very lucky because some Bantam boys wanted to earn some extra money and learned to ref. Most were better than the Calgary Refs.
We lost just about every game we played that year but the girls just kept getting better and learned with each game. By the end of the winter Big Valley, Red Deer and Olds girls and parents were watching us play so they could get their own teams for the next year. In the second year we could hold our own with the big city teams and beat Big Valley, Red Deer, Olds and even Lacombe. (Except if Mill Suesy was mad at Miss Patty because Miss Helan saw Miss Doreen with Miss Nelly’s boy friend). Then all I could hope for was the game would end before there was a fight on our own bench.
Rodney Wilkins started helping me coach the third year. We probably had the fastest centers with Pam Park and Jodi Tharou. The best discipline wingers were Susan Carter, Janet Waddell, Pam Bergen , Tammy Halko, Debbie Sims, Dianne Peterson and Kim Knox. I know we had the best defence with Glenda Wilkins, Wendy Park, Sandra Kells and Sharon Rabbis. Then there was our great goalie Deanne Brewer and her six to eight boy friends that were in the stands, even at the practices. Other girls played in different years but these were the ones that seemed to stay year after year.
We played in the tournaments in Calgary and Edmonton. We won some and usually got at least third in most of them. I was very proud of our girls because the big cities had one thousand or more girls to choose from. The game is a combination of speed and quick moves which is not easy to do as you are controlling an eight inch rubber ring with a sawed off hockey stick while the opposition girls are playing the little drummer boy on your ankles with their own stick.
When Big Valley got into the league, they had a two sheet curling rink that became their arena. Because of their small population they let every girl play. There were girls from eight years old to twenty years old - moms that came to the games carrying babies. Their refs only knew hockey rules. One game Wendy was checked so hard by one of the twenty year olds she flew over the boards and into the stands. Wendy crawled back over the boards and continued playing. At the stoppage of play at the next whistle that same Big Valley girl was standing behind our net with the wire mesh imprint on her face and Wendy had a silly grin on her face. When she got back to the bench, she got low fives from all the girls behind our bench.
We got shiny maroon silk jackets with the name " BENTLEY BARONETTS" and a picture of Snoopy holding a Ringette stick and a ‘Where is the Red Baron’ look on his face. Twenty five years later one of the girls was wearing her jacket in Costco and she heard some one holler from across the floor – "Hey, I played against you way back", and they both had a good laugh.
I coached till 1984, and Glen Lenz took over. In all those years, I never had a bad word from or about a player, a parent or another team. We went to games with ten players and a coach in one car. I took fourteen year olds to Calgary to a tournament by myself and stayed in a motel room where I watched TV all night and never even thought about checking on the girls at least once to see if they were still there. Oh, how things have changed. This was the only team of any sport I ever coached that when I hollered, "Change" one game a girl took off her helmet at center ice and threw it at me, scattering all the girls on the bench and she hollered, "Dad, why do I have to be the first to change every time?" ---- I would like to thank the girls for the fun years of Ringette but not for that nickname "DERF".