Every few years, courtesy of Team Northeast and the Ontario Winter Games, a solid handful of local ringette players would earn the right to represent the region at the provincial multi-sport event.

No such guarantee existed for 2022.

In an effort to ensure that the very best players across Ontario earn the right to compete at the Games, Ringette Ontario ditched the regional approach in favour of one large all-encompassing tryout camp, with eight teams to be assembled based on the performance of the athletes over that stretch of four days.

All of which makes the sense of accomplishment for both Jessica Willis and Zoe Landry that much greater, the only two local players who will make their way to Arnprior at the end of February.

“There were so many girls and everybody there was so talented,” said Willis, an 18 year old Walden native who will be making her third appearance at the Ontario Winter Games. “After the first ice time, I was kind of taken back, remembering just how fast it is.”

“But then my dad started recording me and when I saw the recording, I thought I had a shot,” Willis stated, reflecting upon the camp that took place in September in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. “I skate at the same level as all of the other girls. I think you could tell that I had played before at the “AAA” level.”

“I felt that I was a pretty strong player, after I watched.”

Though Landry also attended the 2020 Winter Games in Orillia, she did so as a development player, an alternate, if you will, enjoying the chance to play only due to an injury sustained by a teammate. Still, the whole experience helped pave the way for the grade 12 student at ESC Champlain to bust her way in through the front door this time around.

“Just getting a chance to play last time and having the girls tell me that I should have been there from the start, it was a good feeling, a sense of belonging,” said Landry. “I realized that I have the ability, I have the speed to keep up with them.”

The fact that both have been able to maintain their skills is impressive, given the combination of both the restrictions of the pandemic, and the fact that ringette numbers in the north simply make it that much more difficult to find good competitive close by.

“There definitely was a point where I was pretty disappointed and thinking maybe this isn’t for me anymore,” admitted Willis, who is looking at a return to school to pursue Early Childhood Education after working at Walden Day Care these past two years. “But I just really love the competitive level of play.”

Something of a multi-faceted player, Willis was pleased to show to what could do, both in a checking role as well as a bit of a scorer at tryouts. “I feel like if I asked somebody in Sudbury, they would say that I am stronger on defense, but I am more of an offensive defense,” she said.

“I do score a lot of goals.”

Still, her bread and butter is often displayed when guarding opponents as close as is legally allowed. “It’s really important in ringette to stay on your player,” noted Willis. “I have to stay solid in our triangle, but when they are trying to come around the back of the net, a lot of times, I will check them there, just because they are not expecting it and are usually pretty weak on their sticks.”

For Landry, by contrast, that confidence comes and goes as the product of the Valley East Ringette Association tries to get back fully and completely to her pre-pandemic level. “It’s always nerve-wracking during that first ice,” she said. “You’ve got to get that first skate in, no matter what.”

“Just getting on the ice a few times, you start to get that comfortable feeling of your skates under your feet and have that feel for the game. It never really goes away, but the more you go, the more you progress, over time.”

And when that much anticipated email arrives and Landry is informed that she be joining more than 120 of the best ringette players in Ontario, there is that sense of arrival, at least to a certain degree.

“It’s pretty exciting just to be able to play pretty well with these girls, just to be able to skate with them,” she said. “I’m very excited about it, getting the chance to play on a AAA team. My biggest goal is to play on Team Ontario and this brings me one step closer.”

“I feel pretty accomplished to have made it as far as I have and I want to keep going.”