The St. Albert Power are the team to beat at the Ringette Alberta U12A championship this weekend in St. Albert.
The Power are a near-perfect 44-1 as winners of four out of five tournaments this season.
The only loss was 8-6 to Sherwood Park Shock in the final of the 30th annual Calgary Golden Ring final in January.
The Power swept the tournament titles at the 17th annual St. Albert Turkey Ring, Sherwood Park Platinum Ring, Airdrie Ring of Fire and Ed Horvath Interprovincial Classic in Medicine Hat.
The team of 13 skaters and two goalies, including seven returning players, finished 16-0 in the Black Gold League and 3-0 in the north playdowns.
The 12-team provincials are divided into three pools to determine the crossover games Saturday afternoon at the Mark Messier and Go Auto arenas.
Sunday’s playoff round consists of eight games. The semifinals are 8 a.m. at Troy Murray Arena and 8:15 a.m. at Mark Messier, the bronze medal game is 12:30 p.m. and the final is 2:15 p.m. at Go Auto.
In pool C Friday, the Power plays South Calgary Ambush at 10 a.m. and Edmonton Blast at 1:45 p.m. at Troy Murray and Saturday against Bowview Fusion at 8:15 a.m. at Mark Messier.
NW Velocity, Spruce Grove XLR8, Airdrie Sting and Red Deer Whiplash are in pool B and the Bowview Nemesis, Leduc Jaguars, Cochrane Rockies and Sherwood Park compete in pool A.
Visit www.ringettealberta.com for the schedule and results.
The St. Albert Lady Raiders will face-off against the defending Alberta Major Bantam Female Hockey League champions in the best-of-three north semifinals.
Game one against the Edmonton Lightning is 7:45 p.m. Friday at Bill Hunter Arena and game two is 5 p.m. Saturday at Mark Messier Arena.
Game three, if needed, is 11:45 a.m. Sunday at Bill Hunter.
Both teams will advance to AMBFHL championship tournament next weekend because the Raiders are hosting the five-team provincials.
The Lightning (20-6-4) finished first and the Raiders (16-10-4) placed fourth in the north standings.
The Raiders are coming off a 2-1 series victory against the fifth-place Peace Country Storm (12-14-4) last weekend and the Lightning had a first-round bye.
The teams traded 3-0 shutout decisions, with the Raiders winning game one at Castledowns Arena and the Storm pulled even at Go Auto Arena.
The Raiders won game three 2-1 at Go Auto.
Scoring stats from the best-of-three series were unavailable at press time.
