Thursday 28 January 2016

Riders have the Rockies in Fernie Friday night... and the usual



Friday’s Game January 29th

The Ghostriders
play the Columbia Valley Rockies Friday then travel to Creston on Saturday. These two games will be a test for the shorthanded Riders who are missing three key guys and have a losing record against the Rockies (1-5 ) but are 2-2 against the second place Thunder Cats.

The Riders really need to play the Rockies and Cats with all their top guns to find out just where they stand in the Eddie Mountain pecking order... but it won't be on  Friday or Saturday.

Injuries etc, Kyle Haugo has missed the last few games but has been skating and is likely for Friday, Ryan Teslak will be available after serving a one game suspension for a second fight in the same stoppage of play in the Spokane game. Alex Cheveldave, Zach Befus and Cole Keebler tell me they are out this weekend but Befus will skate next week, the good news... Keagan Kingwell is back in for the weekend.


After last weekend the fourth place Rockies with 48 points were 4 points behind the third place Riders in the standings. They are definitely not the same Rockies team that didn't even make the playoffs last season, and they even have a top scorer in the lineup, Micheal Cardinal with 58 points is in third place in KIJHL scoring. 

The Rockies who are here in Fernie Friday night played two games last weekend, they lost 4-2 in Kimberley last Friday but won 5-2 at home against the first place in their Division, Beaver Valley Nite Hawks on Saturday... they are now 8-2 in their last 10 games.

On Saturday the boys go to Creston who have a Jekyll-Hyde personality this season, one day they beat Kimberley, Beaver Valley etc then the next day they lose to Golden. They are 6-4 in their last 10 and have top scorer Alec Wilkinson in the lineup with 59 points and tied for second in KI scoring. Creston lost their last game 4-3 Tuesday night in Kimberley and hopefully will get softened up again when they play in Beaver Valley Friday night. 

The Creston game is a Drive 99.1 scheduled Broadcast Game

The Schedule won't get much better for the Riders next weekend either when they travel to Kimberley next Friday then host Creston here in Fernie Saturday. On Monday Feb 8th (Family Day) the Riders play Kimberley here in Fernie and this game has the weird 2 PM start time. 

Oddity's... the referee in Spokane was literally knocked out in the second period when he fell and the linesmen had to take over the game. Coach Mohr was in the stands in  Grand Forks serving game two of his suspension. The Riders lost 3-0 and went 0-9 on the PP but were 8-0 on the PK. " I had no issue with the referee they were all penalties, he did a good job" 
You don't usually hear them coaches say that after a loss, Mohr was also pretty good (and calm) as a colour man on Howie Ashmore's Drive 99.1 radio broadcast as well.


Last Weekend

The Ghostriders won 5-0 last Friday in Spokane, Jeff Orser got the shutout (his second of the year) and Mitch Titus (97) picked up a goal and 3 assists. His biggest junior game yet. Great job Jeff and Mitch. Justin Peers had another good night with  2G 1A and Colton Dawson picked up 1G 2A . Travis Thomsen scored the other goal and Coaches Jeff Zmurckyk and Pascal Morency  picked up their first W on the season with Coach Craig Mohr sitting in the stands after he barked a little too loud at the referee in Golden a couple of weeks ago. Mohr will be back on the bench this weekend. 

On Saturday with 15 skaters the Riders had their four game win streak broken when they lost lost 3-0 in Grand Forks. Despite getting 41 shots they just couldn’t get one past Bruin goalie Galliard. Brandon Butler was in net in the Forks and the Riders have a 5-4-0-1 record in their last 10 games. 

Say what you will but the players love it when there are only 15 skaters, lots of ice for all... the coaches, on the other hand have a different take on a short bench.



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