U16 Thunder Bring Home The Gold

This past weekend, the U16 Chatham Thunder ringette team made their way to Paris, Ontario with gold medals on their minds. The team did not disappoint, winning their way through the competition en route to gold.

Game 1 saw Chatham face the Tillsonburg Twisters and come out with a 4-1 win. Kaia Rivard led the attack with two goals. Emily Raaymakers had a goal and an assist and Shelby Ritzer also put one in. Kaitlyn Sammon was all over the ice and earned three assists for her efforts and Alayna White also chipped in with a helper.

Game 2 was a preview of what would turn into the final pairing. The difference was the outcome as Chatham was on the wrong end of a 6-3 score to the hometown Paris team. Julia Haggerty, Myah Walters and Emilie Newman all scored for the Thunder. Alexa Arbour, Emily Anderson, Kaia Rivard and Kaitlyn Sammon all had assists.

Game 3 would be the game to see who would face Paris in the final. Both Chatham and Cambridge had split the their first two games and a win would push them into the championship. A 2-0 shutout put Chatham into the Sunday game as Emily Anderson and Shelby Ritzer both potted a goal. Emilie Newman had assists on both and Alexa Arbour also had a helper.

The championship game had quite the atmosphere. With the hometown Paris squad in the finals, the crowd was all the more loud. The hometown crowd had the Chatham Thunder on their heels, down 4-0 only six minutes into the game.

After a goaltending change, the team seemed to respond scoring with one minute before intermission and headed into the second period down 4-1.

Chatham came out blazing and put Paris on their heels. In a span of just under two minutes, the Thunder had buried four goals and taken the lead. The finish was chaotic as both teams swapped chances and then Paris tied the game with 2:20 to go.

Chatham wasn’t going to let the crowd get into it though and Alexa Arbour scored the game-winning goal just 14 seconds later. A 6-5 final score was the outcome. Emily Anderson led the charge with two goals and an assist. Shelby Ritzer came off the blue line and scored two goals as well. Myah Walters rounded out the goal scoring. Emily Raaymakers, Emilie Newman and Arbour all had two assists. Julia Haggerty and Kaia Rivard also had single helpers as well. Allison Newman was a stabilizing presence on the blueline throughout the game.

The tandem in net of Haggerty and DaSilva was a strong point for the Thunder. Both goalies were phenomenal and finished the tournament allowing a paltry 3 goals per game average with the one combined shutout.