Mentorship for Female Ringette Coaches

The Cause

We would like to host some coach mentoring sessions aimed at young female coaches, designed as full day meetings/seminars, and a weekend-long retreat in the summer of 2020.

We believe that “Young Ringette players (predominately girls) benefit from the positive role modelling of adult women in leadership (coaching) roles and from observing mutually respectful teamwork between adult female and adult male coaches”. We want to mentor female coaches, especially in the 18-25ish age group and develop them to be confident and competent leaders.

Who Will it Benefit?

Ringette Alberta deals with approximately 5400 minor athletes across the province, and they are primarily female. We are working towards establishing equity between male and female HEAD coaches, and also providing support to male and female assistant coaches. As ringette is still a lesser-known sport, many coaches come into the sport being unfamiliar with the rules and strategy. We hope to help our young adult athletes become coaches who can continue forward.

We do our best to recruit female coaches (in fact a certified female coach is required for EACH team registered), and to retain them, but we would like our numbers to be better and more equitable. Having female role models is paramount for young females, and we wish to empower our female coaches. Right now, 47% of all coaches are female, while only 39% of head coaches are female. We conducted a survey to find out what might be getting in the way of women taking that next step and becoming head coaches, stepping up to become assistant coaches if they previously felt they had little to offer, or felt intimidated by the prospect of leading.

Some of the difficulties include lack of confidence, intimidation by male coaches, not knowing how to skate, and dealing with parents. We would like to support them by offering female-only coaching clinics, learn to skate classes, and workshops around female leadership and dealing with conflict. We hope to establish a coach mentorship program and would like to be able to help supply mentors and mentees with resources which may include training.