Brandy Leitz helped the Lower Mainland Thunder make history.
The Ladner ringette player had a key role in the expansion Thunder capturing gold at the Canadian Championships, held recently in Burnaby.
Ranked seventh in the country coming into the nationals, the Thunder knocked off the top four clubs in the country, including three from back east in a two-day span, to win the first-ever Canadian ringette title in any division for B.C.
The Thunder handed Eastern conference regular season champion Montreal Mission just its third loss of the year, upsetting the highscoring Quebec club 7-2 in the gold medal final.
First team all-star forward Salla Kyhala, a former Finnish national team player, was the tournament MVP, scoring four goals in the final to lead the Lower Mainland team to its history-making win.
"This is where I saw the team going," said Kyhala, who had nine goals and two assists in her last three games. "Our defence scored, other people scored
- I saw us as a team that we could do this. I saw us going this way - we can do this."
The Thunder opened with a 2-3 start before turning their collective fortunes around with a 7-4 victory over Western champions Prairie Fire. Leitz finished that game with four points.
She also came through with huge outing in a mustwin game against Eastern runner-up Cambridge Turbos, scoring four of her team's goals in a 6-2 win.
The two 4-3 teams then played a mini 10-minute tiebreaker to decide which team would advance against the 6-1 Ottawa Ice and a chance for a berth into the final.
Kyhala kept the Thunder's hopes alive with the only goal of the contest.
The Thunder were coming off an impressive expansion season in the National Ringette League, finishing second in the Western Conference. Leitz finished ninth in league scoring with 85 points, including 41 goals.
The product of the Delta Ringette Association is currently studying human kinetics at the University of B.C..
