By  Peter Watts /

It’s about seven weeks until the ESSO Cup, the national midget hockey championship for women, which debuted last year in Calgary, and which will take place this season in Regina.

Six teams will play off in a round-robin format with semifinals, bronze-medal and gold-medal games to follow.

All of the action will take place at the brand new Co-Operators Centre at Evraz Place.

“We’re coming along in terms of the organization of the event,” chair Lynne Tulloch said. “We’re going to need between 200 and 250 volunteers to help with staging and we are recruiting those people now. We won’t need billets since all the visiting teams will be housed at a downtown hotel.

“We’ll soon be announcing a program of events taking place in and around the tournament so that visitors get a feel for Regina outside their hotel room and the arena.”

The Regina Rebels finished sixth in the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League this season and already have a spot in the nationals as the tournament host.

The other teams will represent the Pacific, West, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic regions. Quebec missed last season’s inaugural ESSO Cup in Calgary but will be represented this year.

Provincial playoffs are now underway as the first stage of qualifying for the nationals. The Pacific representative in Regina will be determined by a playoff featuring the Alberta and B.C. champions. Similarly, the West representative will be determined in a series featuring the champions of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The ESSO Cup was formerly awarded to the top women’s club team in Canada.

ESSO decided last season it wanted to take a more grass-roots approach to developing the game. Ironically, one of the people who hopes to be in Regina in April is Janice Rumpel, who coaches the Notre Dame team that is at the top of the Saskatchewan midget standings this season.

She played in the first ESSO Cup as a member of a team from the University of Saskatchewan when the tournament was held in Brantford Ontario in 1982.

“We’ve had a good season in Wilcox,” she said. “We were 3-1 at the Mac’s tournament in Calgary at Christmas but that wasn’t good enough to make it into the medal round. We were able to overtake Prince Albert late in the season and finish first.

“We get North Battleford in the first round and are hopeful of being able to win the province and then beat whoever comes out of Manitoba.”

Janice coached the team for three seasons before taking the last two seasons off to coach other sports. She was talked in to taking on the hockey team again last fall. Even in the short time away from the bench, she has noted some differences in the game.

“It used to be that if you had two or three good players, they would carry the team,” she said. “Now, you can’t hide anybody. Everybody has to be able to skate, carry the puck, and read the ice.

“We’re fortunate in our own program that we’re able to attract good student athletes who are able to live on campus, do their on-ice and off-ice training and go to school.

“Our goal is to turn out a student athlete who can go on to university or college careers. And virtually all of our students do just that.”

If the Calgary event is any indication, college and university coaches from across Canada and the United States will be watching with interest when the ESSO Cup begins on April 18.

Adult passes are available through Lynn Tulloch at lynn.tulloch@gov.sk.ca