For Haley Hill and Helen Oliphant, the goal was to return from the 2016 World Ringette Championships with some hardware. They came up three goals short.
Playing with Team USA in the seven-team President's Trophy division of the Dec. 27-Jan. 4 event at Helsinki, Finland, the two local athletes were with the American squad that dropped a best-of-three series 2-1 to Team Sweden.
Team USA took the opening game of the President's Bronze match-up 2-1 on Jan. 2 but lost 8-5 on Jan. 3 and 4-2 on Jan. 4.
Team USA finished fourth in pool play at 3-3 while Team Sweden (4-2) overtook the Americans for third place by beating them 12-0 on the final day of pool play, Jan. 1.
Team USA opened pool play Dec. 27 with a 7-6 win over Team Sweden U20. They topped Team Czech 14-4 on Dec. 28, blanked Team Slovakia 16-0 on Dec. 29, lost to Team Finland U20 21-0 on Dec. 30 and lost to Canada U21 19-0 on Dec. 31 before being blanked for a third straight game by Team Sweden on Jan. 1.
Team Canada U21 went undefeated to take the President's Trophy. They went 6-0 in pool play then swept Team Finland U20 2-0 in the best-of-three championship, winning 7-5 on Jan. 2 and 10-9 in overtime on Jan. 3.
ICE CHIPS Finland defeated Canada to win the Sam Jacks Trophy portion of the tournament … the 2017 World Ringette Championships will be held November 2017 in Canada …