Western Region Ringette Association

Spruce Lodge, Stratford

September 20, 2007

Police checks for all bench staff of adult teams are required by Jan 8th the Board did not change this requirement.

New registration database goes "live" Friday, Sept. 21st.

Eight provinces are now running the Come Try Ringette program. An event has been held in SS Marie and West Ferris. West Ferris was very successful (31 attended, 26 registered to play the season). The ORA is looking for three associations to host events on Nov.10. These events will be advertised at the World Championships. If you are interested in the Come Try Ringette program, please contact Chuck Belanger.

Sam Jacks induction dinner into the Sports Hall of Fame will be Thursday Oct.25 at the Royal York, Toronto. The ORA is sponsoring the table for Sam Jacks. His son will be accepting. TSN will be showing a tribute to all the inductees.

There is a new Appeal Policy and a new Discipline and Complaints Policy in effect for the ORA. A lawyer with expertise in sports law prepared it. In my opinion, it is much easier to understand than what we had. It replaces bylaw#7 of the manual. There is also a template of the Discipline and Complaints Policy for local associations. Any local association may adopt this as their policy or keep their existing policy.

Ringette Canada has announced that they will select the Open teams attending the Canadian Championships from the NRL so Open AA at Provincials is not required to select an Ontario representative. The Board has stated that Open AA will be offered at the 2008 Provincial Championships. At least four teams have to submit an intent to proceed form and meet the 2 tournament requirement for the division to be run. Please note that a team does not have to play in the NRL to seed themselves Open AA.

An NRL team may have up to 5 affiliate players on their roster who may play in up to 8 games during the regular season (no playoffs). This potentially creates conflicts with the home team (usually Belle AA) especially this year since as it is also a AAA (OWG) year. Other leagues such as WORL limit substitutes to only 2 games. The Board has ruled that the two-team contract of the ORA Manual would apply (MS pg. 19, 10c). Including our Western Region AAA policy in this would mean AAA games come first, Belle AA games second and NRL games third. If you encounter any issues throughout the season, please contact Mary Kaiser.

Chris Beuglet

Chair of Western Region Ringette

H. 519-351-2325

W. 519-658-4330