Maybe it was the camaraderie or perhaps they were simply running off adrenalin.
Whatever it was, the exhausted players of the Richmond Ringette U-19 team, who spent the night stuck on a bus stranded on the Coquihalla Highway between Hope and Merritt, did what they’d never managed in seven years of competing in Kelowna — win the tournament’s gold medal.
It was the end of a remarkable few days for the girls, who started out at 1 p.m. last Thursday, when they set off on the bus — along with a U-12 team — after checking with the bus company that all would be well, despite an ominous forecast of snow and freezing rain.
They managed to get beyond Hope at around 4 p.m. without incident, before the bus got stopped in its tracks about 90 minutes later, a good 35 kilometres shy of Merritt, due to freezing rain causing dangerous conditions on the infamous Coquihalla.
As the evening wore on, bad turned to worse when, at around midnight, DriveBC announced the road was being closed overnight, leaving the team, and many other drivers, marooned — unable to go forwards or turn around.
“Our driver, Don Purdy, has been driving for about 40 years and he said he had never seen conditions like it,” said assistant coach Laura Takasaki, whose husband, Troy, also coaches the U-19 team, where their daughters, Hailey and Tayah, play.
“The driver kept the bus running all night to keep us warm and we had a washroom on board, so it was better than some people’s situation.
“But, we always overdo the sandwiches, so this time they were all gone.”
After spending a “very uncomfortable” night crammed on the bus, the team got going again mid-morning and finally got to Kelowna at 11 a.m. on Friday, 22 hours after setting off from Richmond.
“Our first game was supposed to be at 12:30 p.m., but the tournament committee was awesome, they shuffled things around,” said Takasaki.
Takasaki said the team normally does well at the tournament, but they were surprised to win gold for the first time, especially given the less than perfect preparations.
And, to top it off, the tournament committee bestowed the team’s bus driver, Purdy, with his very own gold medal, as well.
“They wanted to thank him for his efforts,” added Takasaki.
The team arrived back home on Monday after a “totally clear” return journey that took the requisite five hours.
“One of the 12-year-old players, who hadn’t been on this journey before, said it was ‘really fast’ on the way home,” laughed Takasaki.
