P.E.I. Canada Games ringette team celebrates historic 4th-place finish on home ice

Head coach Francois Caron knew that the P.E.I. ringette team was going to make history one way or another in the bronze-medal game at the 2023 Canada Winter Games. 

Ringette teams from the Island had never finished higher than ninth in previous Canada Games, and had never won more than one game. 

On Saturday afternoon, P.E.I. fought hard against Saskatchewan, coming back from a 3-1 deficit at the halfway point to tie the game 4-4. But Saskatchewan scored in overtime to take the bronze medal.

"Fourth is a huge jump from ninth," said Caron. "And if you look at some of the provinces that will finish behind us at this Canada Games, it's pretty remarkable where we're at. 

"It was very historic. The ringette program at the Canada Games since 2003, we've only won one game."

He said it is also "pretty big" for P.E.I. team sports generally.

"Major team sports, with five or more people on a field or ice at the same time, P.E.I. has only ever won one medal in those types of sports."

Caron credits Ringette P.E.I. for getting the Canada Games program to the point where the Island team could contend.

"Over the last seven or eight years, they've built the high-performance program where now there's two and three teams at each age level," Caron said. 

"And so we've got a much bigger group of athletes who are staying involved a lot longer, and I think that kind of set the platform for it." 

Caron said that the ringette team also has more players the same age as other players, which isn't always the case for Island teams at the Games. 

"We have a group of athletes this time that were almost all the top age, which generally isn't a reality for most P.E.I. teams at the Canada Games just because of our numbers," Caron said. 

"At the last