Sunday’s gold-medal presentation was an emotional moment for Team Canada ringette player Lauren Henderson at worlds in Helsinki, Finland.
“It’s overwhelming to have that gold medal around your neck,” recalled the St. Albert Ringette Association graduate. “It encompasses for me the 15 years that I’ve put into the sport and the crazy things I’ve done. I’ve given up a lot and sacrificed a lot in order to play and practise and it just seems well worth it at the end. The emotions were high but they were happy tears.
“It was just really exciting for me to capture those 15 years with a gold medal.”
The U21 national team finished 8-0, with 143 goals scored and 20 against. The last three wins were against the U20 Finns: 8-5 to end the round robin and 7-5 and 10-9 in overtime in the best-of-three President’s Trophy final.
Henderson, 19, ranked eighth in team scoring with eight goals.
“I was happy to be there and happy to contribute in any way I possibly could and at the end of the day it was a team win all together. We all put in what we needed to in order to get that victory,” said the Edmonton Black Gold Rush forward in the National Ringette League. “I thought I did well in keeping the team motivated by contributing what I had to offer. It just felt good to be able to contribute and help the team come up with the gold medal at the end.”
Sarah-Lynne Begin of Ottawa scored the golden goal in sudden-death for Canada.
“It was an unbelievable feeling. You can’t put it to words,” Henderson said of the post-game celebration. “All this hard work that you’ve put in, especially the last seven or eight months where we had a hard training regime that we were following just makes everything feel worth it, like your time put in was really well spent.”
Canada and Finland are in a league of their own in ringette as the rest of the world struggles to catch up to the powerhouse countries in the sport invented by the late Sam Jacks in 1963 in North Bay, Ont.
“Finland is a very offensive team. They’re always go, go go. They’re very quick on their feet and aggressive so for us it was about playing more of a controlled game and maintaining possession throughout and making them have to chase us because they definitely had the speed so we wanted to make sure we stayed in their faces and kept control of them and the rink,” Henderson said. “The last game was back and forth. We were down twice and came back so our mental toughness and grittiness were our key strengths because we were able to rebound back from a few quick goals by the Finns and showed them that we’re not giving up and we’re going to keep going.”
Round robin scores were 32-0 against the Czech Republic, 17-1 against Sweden, 31-0 against U20 Sweden and 19-0 against both Slovakia and the United States before playing the Finns.
All 15 Canadian skaters contributed goals against the Czechs and Henderson led the way with four, plus six assists.
The first team all-star forward for the bronze-medal winning St. Albert Mission at the 2015 national U19AA championship also racked up four goals against the Swedish national team.
The experience of a lifetime left Henderson with memories to cherish forever.
“At the beginning of a game we go out on the line and they play the national anthem and we sing along and that to me was absolutely surreal. Every time it’s a reminder of all the hard work and of who we’re representing and that was absolutely incredible,” said the Ecole Secondaire Saint Marguerite d'Youville alumna.
Henderson was joined on the 22-player junior roster by Robyn Gillespie of Sherwood Park, Annie Debaji of Edmonton, Kelsie Caine of Red Deer and Justine Exner and Ellen Hoban of Calgary.
Gillespie, Debaji and Caine play for the Edmonton WAM! in the NRL, Exner is with the NRL’s Calgary RATH and Hoban, a netminder, is a development affiliate player with the RATH.
The next NRL game for the first-year Rush (5-6-2) is Sunday against WAM! (9-1-2) at 12:30 p.m. in Beaumont.
Henderson is second in Rush scoring with 20 points in 13 games and is tied for third in goals with seven.
