Sunday 4 January 2015

The Weekly Roundup -4-1 record 1st shutout Zimmer Chickens refs Janet Jackson

The Ghostriders finished a physically demanding week where they had to play 5 games in 7 days but they survived and even finished up with a 4-1 record. All the games were close hard fought (well not really "fought" as they hardly ever actually fight anymore) divisional games.  Two of the games were wins against Kimberley who always give their best against the Riders and two against Creston who won at home and really challenge with their physical defensive style, and then finally, last Saturday, they played Golden.

Ghostrider Notebook
After the weekend Jeff Orser had an 18-5 -1 record and his first KIJHL shutout in a 5-0 win vs Golden... but  if you ask me he was really better in the 2-1 win vs Kimbo. For the record after the weekend Jeff had seen 716 shots and stopped 657 of them for a 9.18 save %. Coach Craig Mohr tells us that he will continue to rotate Orser with Brandon Butler as he is a bit worried about fatigue. The analitics guys say NHL goalies playing back to back games aren't as good in the second game and even they are starting to use their backup for one of the games. You can read that here  Bettin Coach Mohr already knows that.

The Coaches named Joel Burgess as their Boston Pizza Player of the Month for December when he had 7 goals and 7 assists in 10 games. He has 20 goals and 22 assists now and averaged a point a game in the last five games plus he has played 36 of 37 games.

Aaron Neufeld scored 4 goals and had a couple of assists in the last five games and has 33 points so far, just 9 off of last years 42... and, like Burgess, he's pretty durable having played all 37 games... which is becoming pretty important as you will read next.

The Riders were without Sam Plaquin, Travis Thomsen, Jason Yan, Spencer Bender Cole Keebler and Matt Pronchuk Saturday and many of them missed most of the 5 game run. By the end of the Golden game Derek Georgopoulos was also out after a hit by Tanner Wit who got 5 for head contact. That's a lot of scoring on the shelf.

Cavin Tilsley was named as the Tim Hortan's Player of the Week, the 16 yr old scored the game winner in the Creston game and had 5 points in the last endurance testing five games.

Dan Burgess is the younger unsigned brother of Joel, Brett and Evan Burgess, he was named as the McDonald's Practice Player of the Week. Coach Mohr says the younger Burgess (96) has worked hard to get in shape both on and off the ice under the watchful eye of the super fit former Rider all-Star D-man Jeff Zmurchyk.

A nice game from Doan Smith in Kimberley last Sunday scoring 3 goals and an assist, he had the game tying goal at home vs Creston Friday as well. Smith leads the league in scoring after the weekend. Lubin is out of the league at this time.
Doan Smith (FG)38292251
Bryan Lubin (CR)34262551
Rainer Glimpel (OC)39192847
Aaron Azevedo (OC)30173047
Cody Hodges (CH)36232346
Troy Maclise (OC)37212546
Jason Richter (KD)38281745
Ian Desrosier (GR)37242145
Cole Mckechney (GR)36133245
Felix Larouche (KS)33162844

Affiliate player Mitch Titus played 3 games for the injury riddled Ghostriders last week and had a goal and an assist, he is from Montrose BC (Trail area) and is 17 yrs. old.  Titus was sent here by former Ghostrider defenseman and assistant coach Brian Youngson who's son Brandon played an exhibition game in net here last September. Younger  lives in Trail now but will visit here next weekend (see below) and he also coaches the Midget Rep Smoke Eaters team. 

 Titus was really flying around the ice and looks like he is pretty smart too.  When we asked GM Craig Mohr if he thought Titus would play in the Jr “A” BCHL next year he said "If he doesn’t... he’ll be a Fernie Ghostrider". Ditto for Jacen Richards 98 who played the last few games too. Also fit D-man Trevor Broad 98 in the mix as well.

Well it was nice to see the Chicken on the ice again a few games ago. I don't know who was responsible for it (haha yah sure)  but it happened right after Justin Peers scored the game winner... so ask him...Wouldn't it have been amusing if the Chilliwack refs who wouldn't dare pick it up shot it with the T-Shirt gun. More on those refs in a minute.

Pretty good effort to keep the Nitro's away from the net late in the chicken game, several blocked shots and a couple of nice ball hockey style of plays by Tayler Sincennes to preserve the W. 

One for my colleague Sara
Nitro Jared Marchi was hauled off in a streacher in the chicken game. He's from Cranbrook so many of the Rider players know him well and if things had gone just a bit different a couple of years ago he may have even been a Rider. He is recovering just fine so I hear and it was a back injury not a neck as we thought after the game. Amusing how after that game on Twitter there were all sorts of accusations and retweets one even saying how it was planed to take him out for the year... Even the Janet Jackson Superbowl thing didn't have that many boobs on display.

Round' the League

When Nitro Marchi was hurt a few games ago HC Jerry Bancks went out on the ice to see him. A few fans were calling for some sort of suspension, fine or tripping penalty cause a HC can't go on the ice during a game, to many things could go sideways. Anyway, here we have no problem with it and think the HC genuinely likes the players he keeps on his team, so I hope nothing happens. It wasn't like he instantly ran out on the ice, that would be a problem.


BC Hockey sometimes sends referees from other areas here to do our games and last week we saw a trio of referees from Chilliwack do the Fernie Kimberley Christmas games. So I can hear you thinkin... why should this clown care about that... 

Here’s why, sometimes when there are lots of games scheduled the KIJHL needs extra help refereeing and the teams pay extra to have them here. However during the Christmas week there were only a few games scheduled and our local referees sat at home. Traditionally these games have the biggest crowds of the year and this year was no exception, there were 738 in Kimberley and 1140 in Fernie. So you can bet that  all the players really wanted to play in those games and the referees also wanted to do them as well. So it really was a slap in the face to our local officials and cost a  few hundred extra dollars to the teams who have seen expenses soar in the last few years. I'm told that BC Hockey had to re-emburse the travel money after a protest, so at least they admitted one of their million mistakes . 

And Finally 
The Borne Cup Champions will have a Reunion January 9 & 10. They have activities planned for the weekend and will attend both games with a Pre-Game ceremony on the 10th. In the 1999-2000 season the Ghostriders won the AWHL Jr A Championship. Here are the players who were on that team, to the best of my knowledge anyway. FYI Kimberley was still in that league back then, Creston and Nelson bailed out before for the same reason Kimberley and eventually Fernie did, it cost to much to travel. The Ghostriders won 31 games in a row that year, definitely a record here in Fernie The Teams that were in that league are here
The Players are here
Dave LeNeveu
Grady Hunt
Jim Murphy
Nick Whittaker
Travis Warnygora
Kevin Holem
Ryan Cullen
Vince Kurszewski
Kevin Olson
Dave Csumrik
Jared Sailer
Charlie Mattersdorfer
Brad Bolger
Trent Ulmer
Adrian Wong
Mark Palmer
JP Guay
Connor Hughes
Marco Samson
Mark Ewing
Derek Campbell
Brian Youngson
Ryan Vieau

That Year D-men  Brian Youngson and Ryan Vieau
and Forwards Charlie Mattersdorfer, Trent Ulmer, and Kevin Olson and Goalie Grady Hunt  were named to the AWHL All-Star Team and Trent Ulmer, Kevin Olson and Charlie Mattersdorfer finished 1-2-3 in league scoring.
Their Head Coach and GM was Fred Harbinson with assistant Coach Garth McLeod. Team President was Lori Sinclair



























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