Carla Clapton has been coming to Osoyoos since she was a teenager to share her love of ringette. Now she and her friend Nicole Tjepkema run the Osoyoos Summer Ringette Camp. (Keith Lacey photo)
Since she was a teenager, Carla Clapton has been coming to Osoyoos to share her love for the game of ringette.
For several years, Clapton, 40, travelled from Langley with members of her family to participate in the Osoyoos Summer Ringette Camp, which she is proud to say has now become the longest running summer ringette camp in Canada.
A group of 50 young players from across British Columbia and Alberta will spend this week – Monday to Friday – at the Sun Bowl Arena participating in the 32nd annual Osoyoos Ringette Camp.
This is a development camp where players work on their skills, including skating, passing and defensive play.
Sixteen years ago, Clapton and her good friend Nicole Tjepkema took over organizing and running the camp from original founders Vic Bernard and Jim Harrington, the longtime recreation director for the Town of Osoyoos. Bernard was a bank manager in town and he and Harrington attended a ringette clinic in Princeton back in the 1980s and thought it would be a good idea to offer a summer ringette camp in Osoyoos.
“Between being a player, an instructor for a few years and then taking over as the owner with Nicole, I’m thinking that I’ve been coming to Osoyoos for this summer ringette camp for the better part of 25 years,” said Clapton. “I couldn’t imagine a summer without coming to Osoyoos for this camp.”
Clapton said she’s proud that the Osoyoos Summer Ringette Camp has become the longest running camp of its kind for young players in the entire country.
“That’s pretty impressive to be able to run a summer ringette camp in a small town like Osoyoos for more than 30 years,” she said. “We used to get up to the maximum of 72 pretty much every single year up until the past few years, but we consistently still draw 50 players from age 7 to 14 and that’s more than enough to run a very successful camp.”
The majority of players who attend the camp are accompanied by their parents who turn the trip to Osoyoos into a summer vacation, she said.
“Everyone who attends know all about the great weather in Osoyoos and they make coming to the camp part of their annual summer holidays,” she said. “They spend a lot of time in the arena, which is nice to get away from the heat, but there’s also time for wine touring and maybe a round of golf and some camping.
“Osoyoos is such a beautiful little town and I know the players and the parents love coming here with the entire family.”
Several of the eight instructors at this year’s summer camp are former players who came to Osoyoos during their playing days decades ago, she said.
One instructor, Amy Duplantis, 15, was hired as an instructor for this week’s camp after spending six years in Osoyoos as a player, she said.
Another instructor, Danielle Strohan, participated in the summer camp for 10 years, she said.
“I’ve been lucky enough to be able to recruit a lot of former players who used to come to this summer camp as instructors,” she said. “When you fall in love with the game of ringette, a lot of former players stay involved as coaches or instructors … I’m really fortunate to have been able to recruit some great instructors who have been coming to Osoyoos for many years as former players.”
Two of the other instructors have girls attending the summer camp, she said.
For those who might not know, the game of ringette was invented by a man from North Bay, Ont. named Sam Jacks back in 1963.
Jacks, the late director of parks and recreation for North Bay, introduced the game to the Society of Directors of Municipal Recreation of Ontario.
Red McCarthy, recreation director for the Town of Espanola, was asked in 1963 to experiment with the basic set of ringette rules by the Society of Directors of Municipal Recreation of Ontario (SDMRO).
The first complete set of rules for ringette were composed in 1964 and the first ringette community associations were formed in Sudbury and North Bay in 1966
The Ontario Ringette Association, the first ringette provincial sport governing body was formed in 1967.
The game, played almost exclusively by girls with a few exceptions, involves passing and shooting a rubberized ring, which is controlled by a ringette stick that is basically a hockey stick without the blade.
There are five players in the ice, just like in hockey, and certain defensive players can never leave the defensive zone, while attacking players must remain in the offensive zone. A rover is allowed to travel all over the ice.
Goals are scored just like in hockey when the ring crosses the goal line in regulation size hockey nets.
Canada has bee the world power in the sport up until the last five years, but has been surpassed by Finland, which captured the world championship earlier in 2016 by defeating Team Canada in the final, said Clapton.
There is a professional ringette league in Finland and players in that league often play in front of large crowds in excess of 2,000 people, she said.
Clapton said she has every intention of continuing to operate the Osoyoos Summer Ringette Camp for many years to come.
“The Town basically has hired us to run the camp for the past several years,” she said. “We have a great working relationship with the town and the guys at the arena are just a fantastic bunch of guys who are more than willing to help us out with anything we might need at the arena.
“I’ve loved coming to Osoyoos every summer for most of my life and I certainly plan on coming back for many more years to come.”
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
Participants in the Osoyoos Summer Ringette Camp team up to work on their skills. (Keith Lacey photo)
