HIGH ACHIEVERS: West Ottawa Wild women’s U19A ringette team ends exceptional season with Eastern Canadian title

By Martin Cleary

When the players and coaches of the West Ottawa Wild women’s U19A ringette team reflect on the 2025-26 season, there will be plenty of smiles and flashbacks to golden moments.

It was a feel-good season from start to finish, featuring a National Capital Region Ringette League pennant, two tournament wins, a provincial championship and an Eastern Canadian title to sign off the seven-month campaign.

“I knew we had a lot of potential and players with experience and talent. Our goaltending was strong and we knew we’d be in the running for a provincial championship,” head coach Lindsay Frechette said in a phone interview Tuesday about the team she assembled in September.

In the fall, about 35 players attended tryouts for the Wild U19A team, which had won the regular-season pennant the last two seasons in the NCRRL.

After the 13 skaters and two goaltenders were selected for this season, West Ottawa once again made the most of their regular season, posting an identical record as the 2024-25 season – 13 wins, three ties and two losses. In 2023-24, the Wild were undefeated, registering 17 wins, 95 goals for and only 15 goals against.

But the weekly league games really were only the appetizer portion of their season. The team was focused and ready to feast on playing well in three sanctioned tournaments to qualify for the Ontario women’s U19A championship, win the provincials and go for gold at the Eastern Canadian championship as Team Ontario.

The Wild put huge check marks beside each of those three goals.

Earlier this month, West Ottawa celebrated its second Eastern Canadian women’s U19A ringette championship in three years, when it defeated Team Quebec 4-2 in the one-game final at the Iceland Arena in Mississauga.

“The night before the final we also played Team Quebec and won 4-3,” Frechette explained. “We knew it (final) would be another great game.

“We had a great start with a 4-0 lead after the first period. It was a bit of a surprise because all our (previous) games were tight. We had lots of energy and controlled the emotions better than Quebec.

“In the second period, Quebec scored two quick goals and we locked down on our defence.”

That championship win was particularly special for Amanda Da Ros and Quinn Cameron, who also were members of the Eastern Canadian gold-medal team in 2024 for the Wild.

“As coaches, we were very proud of the girls,” Frechette said. “You could see the hard work pay off. It was special. This is the last year for so many players. It was a special way to finish their careers.”

At least the Wild had some breathing room in the gold-medal match by scoring four goals in the first period before using its tight defence to keep Team Quebec off the scoreboard in the final two quarters.

The six-team, round-robin format proved tight for West Ottawa as it won all five of its games by one-goal margins.

“It was a nervous time for sure,” Frechette added. “But we believed in ourselves and trusted ourselves. We were confident we could pull it out.”

The Eastern Canadian championships were made a little more challenging for West Ottawa, when starting goaltender Molly McBean was unable to play because of illness. She had returned to the team for the 2025-26 campaign, after playing last season at the AA regional level.

But backup goalie Mya Grimm and Sophie Savignac, who was added to the Wild roster as a call-up player from the Sudbury team, shared the goaltending chores for West Ottawa and allowed only 10 goals in six games.

At the end of January, the Wild lost one of its top offensive players, when centre Lauren Staye suffered a knee injury, which required season-ending surgery.

West Ottawa also had two players miss a portion of the season, one with a broken collarbone and the other with a concussion. But they returned in time for the critical segment of the schedule.

“We had some really strong games, but we also had a lot of adversity,” Frechette continued. “We lost some experienced players and decided to commit to team defence and take our offensive opportunities when we had them.

“The players believed in themselves and each other, especially with all the hardships.”

Da Ros was the leading scorer for West Ottawa and second overall in the Eastern Canadian championship with eight goals and four assists. Teammate McKenna Foley placed fourth on the points chart with seven goals and three assists. Da Ros and Foley accounted for 15 of the Wild’s 17 goals.

During the pre-championship skills competition, Foley won the fastest skater event.

West Ottawa reached the final with five straight round-robin wins – 2-1 over Team New Brunswick, 3-2 over Team Ontario 2 (Dorchester), 2-1 over Team Prince Edward Island, 2-1 over Team Nova Scotia and 4-3 over Team Quebec.

In March, West Ottawa was unbeatable with four wins and one tie in the round-robin to earn a direct berth into the Ontario U19A championship game.

The Wild capped its provincials with a 2-0 decision over Dorchester in the final, which came about five hours after blanking Sudbury 2-0 in the semifinals. McBean earned both shutouts.

West Ottawa qualified for the playoffs by defeating Paris 3-1, tying Gloucester-Cumberland Devils 2-2, and defeating Dorchester 4-1, Forest 5-1 and Sudbury 4-3 in the round-robin segment.

Foley was the offensive leader for West Ottawa with five goals and seven assists, while Da Ros counted six goals and two assists and Cameron had five goals and one assist.

West Ottawa qualified for its extensive run of excellence at the provincial and national levels by being ranked one of the top six clubs in Ontario. The Wild achieved that by winning provincial championship qualifying tournaments in Ajax/Pickering and Richmond Hill. West Ottawa hosted the third tournament and the Wild were third.

During the 18-game NCRRL regular season, Da Ros was the league’s top point scorer with 20 goals and 11 assists for 31 points. Four other Wild players placed in the top nine – Foley, second, 8-19-27; Avery Watts, fourth, 11-11-22; Staye, eighth, 10-8-18 and Cameron, ninth, 12-6-18.

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