The Ghostriders lost to the first place overall Beaver Valley Nitehawks in five games. The Ghostriders actually outshot the Hawks in the four games that they lost but in the end it boiled down to the fact that they just couldn’t finish enough of the good, and sometimes great, scoring chances they fought for. The Riders only scored 12 goals in the series which is an average of 2.4 goals a game, well below their regular season average of 4.56. The Hawks on the other hand scored 20 and averaged 4 a game but even they were below their season average of 6.21. Proving one thing, it’s harder to score in the playoffs and you have to finish whatever good chances you get.

This year
It was a pretty good season overall for the Ghostriders who finished with 75 points, a 35-12-5 record, and a Eddie Mountain Division Championship for the seventh year in a row by defeating Golden and most importantly Kimberley in the first two playoff rounds.

The youngest team
Usually here in Fernie the Riders have a group of mostly 18-19 and 20 year old veteran players but this season GM Verner experimented by icing one of the youngest teams they have ever had and they had a pretty good season with only a couple of hiccups (short losing streaks).

Awards
We will find out exactly what the coaches thought of the younger players in the next day or so at the awards banquet. Some of the younger guys looked way out of place at the start of the season but they got better as the season progressed and in the end they all proved they belong in this league and some of them have shown that they deserve to move up next season.
It will be interesting to see who gets the Rookie of the Year and the Most Improved Awards… they may have to put more than two names on those trophies. Then there’s the Top defenseman, MVP, Most Exciting and Most Inspirational… I’m glad I don’t have to pick the winners. Anyway, we will have all the awards winners here in the next few days.

KIJHL Final
The Beaver Valley Nitehawks 87 points and first overall will now move on to play the Kelowna Chiefs 56 points and thirteenth overall in the KIJHL Final. The numbers say it’s 4 straight… but Kelowna may surprise, they have some pretty good players who didn’t seem to get it together until later in the season.

The Ghostriders won their (always controversial- and thank god it was as we love the great emotion) series against the Kimberley Dynamiters with a 6-2 win at home in game seven. The Riders played an almost perfect game (at least by Jr. B standards) in the win and allowed few great scoring chances. When they did allow some hot shots Chris Solecki was there and made some great confidence shedding saves.

Adversity…certainly not University
The Ghostriders also fought off the adversity of losing the night before when they snatched a defeat out of the jaws of victory because of discipline and weak refereeing. Yes there is a big difference in the calls and non calls between referees. In game seven stripes Waugh allowed the players to determine the outcome and both teams got away with some things and were called for some. The Nitros went 0-7 Fernie was 2-6 on the PP. The Riders emotion level was on extreme after losing their Captain Ty Morton and the hardnosed Brendon Mangone to game misconducts at the end of game six and Cole Conway to injury but they contained it and used it to their advantage by playing at a fevered pitch in game seven against the Nitro’s, especially in the first period. There was also some adversity between the fans…thus the certainly not University.

The three stars of game 7
The three stars on the game sheet were players who had not had particularly great series’ but really showed what they could do under pressure. Josh McSkimming always has some moments in the games he plays but in 7 he was a force and was named as the first star, I was quite happy to see him get the empty netter after all of the effort he showed. Patrick Webb filled in nicely with Morton out and Burgess injured clearing the puck and getting in the faces of the Nitro’s once in a while. Alex Milhouse scored his second goal of the series and had an assist and was named as the third star. He came through when we needed him most. The Riders will need those same performances from these guys next week.

The Ghost would be a ghost
Brendan Burge is leading the team with 11 goals and 15 assists in 11 games while Connor McLaughlin is right behind with 12 goals and 9 assists. The Ghost would be a ghost right now without these two great players.

Coach Verner on the series
Verner “We felt it was going to be a longer series. We felt going in that it would be 6 or 7 games and that would mean we would lose at least 2 or 3 games if we were fortunate enough to win. Losing is never fun yet it forces you to make adjustments and answer questions. Game 3 and 4 were the changing point for our club in the series as we were either going to make some changes in the way we played as a group or we were going to be out in 6 games. Kimberley earned huge momentum at the end of game 2 when they fought back and almost tied the game and it took us until game 5 to get the momentum back. Game 6 was probably the best game of the series as both teams played well. Game 7 was an outstanding performance by our players. They really rallied around our guys who were out of the line up and played a complete 60 minutes”.

The Players of the Series
The coaches picked Austin Evans as the Player of the Series, can’t say enough about this guy. Evans came here as a fast skating forward but he also has toughened up as the season has progressed and will play Jr “A” next season.
Goal of the Series Ben Primeau (game five he gave the Riders 5-3 lead) and is an unheralded point a game player.
The coaches picked Carson Brown as the Unsung hero of the Series. Brown has the hardest body checks of all the players, honorable mention to Dylan Robertson who plays a rockem sockem style. He shoulda been here in the 1990’s when the Riders always had over 2000 PIM.

And Finally
It was great to hear the Golden Voice of Howie Ashmore making the announcements at the game the other night. Howie was the radio voice of the Ghostriders and the Elk Valley Blazers for years and years but we rarely hear him anymore. Won a couple of FMCHL rec hockey championships with Howie back in the 1980′s

The Ghostriders won the first game here in Fernie by a 5-2 score then traveled to Kimberley on Wednesday where they won 8-7 and now lead the series 2-0. The winner of this series will play the winner of the Beaver Valley – Castlegar series. Beaver Valley currently leads the Rebels 2-0 . The winner of that series will have home ice advantage against either Fernie or Kimberley.

In the West Kootenay’s
The other two series’ are Princeton- Kelowna, where Princeton won the first two games despite being without 5 players and their coach Dale Hladun after their series win against Pentiction. There were several fights etc with 7 seconds left in the game that all started when a Pentiction played hit another player from behind. Pentiction coach Robert Dirk (the old Canuck) says they started it… cept it was his player who made the hit from behind when they were down 3 goals. The other series sees Kamloops and Sicamous tied up at 1 game apiece. Sicamous defeated Revelstoke in a game seven that never started until midnight in Revelstoke because they were held up on the highway by an avalanche. Revy coach Randy Quakenbush says “sometimes the best team doesn’t always win”… gotta love those hate to lose attitudes.

Game two
In Kimberley the Ghostriders and Nitros combined for 15 goals in a penalty filled game. The Nitros were ahead 1-0 at the end of the first but a penalty filled second period changed everything. When it was over the Riders had scored five goals. Three on the power play and one shorthanded.

In the third with the Riders up 8-5 and only 2:37 left in the game Dylan Robertson got 5 minutes for clipping and Kimberley scored two goals making it 8-7 and a little too close for comfort… but the Nitros ran out of time. All in all there were 11 special team’s goals.

Three Stars
Stefen Seel was a scratch in game one but scored three goals in game two and was the first star. Nitro Rylan Duley with 2 goals and 3 assists was the second star and Connor McLaughlin with 2 goals and an assist was the third star.

Injuries
Evan Burgess is out while RT Rice and Derek Georgopoulos who has been out for about 6 weeks and is now skating, are both listed as day to day. Dylan Robertson is suspended for Friday’s game due to a major penalty on Wednesday in Kimberley.

Points
Connor McLaughlin and Brendan Burge each have 15 points and are averaging 2.5 points a game while the apparently notorious Marty wicks leads the D men with 8 points in 6 games.
Nitro Rylan Duley had 5 points in the last game and Richard Hubscher and Senate Patten each had 4 points in the first two games and need to be watched, by the Riders and the fans as they can play the game.

How they got here
The Ghostriders won four straight against Golden. Their first two games at home against Golden were 6-1 and 4-2 wins. In Golden in game three the Riders won 9-4, Brendan Burge and Connor McLaughlin each had 2 goals and 3 assists while Ben Primeau had a goal and 3 assists and both Fraser Abdallah and Chris Solecki split the duties in net. Game four was the closest game of all for the Riders and it took two overtime periods before Stefen Seel finally scored on the PP. Brendan Burge and Alex Milhouse scored the other goals and Chris Solecki was outstanding in the Rider net.

Kimberley got here by defeating the fourth place Creston Thunder Cats in six games. Two of the games went to OT. Kimberley’s wins were 2-1 OT, 6-3, 5-0 and they ended their series with an 8-1 win in Creston last Friday night. The Nitros finished in second place this season with 74 points just one point behind the Ghostriders. Nitro forward Richard Hubscher was the KIJHL’s top scorer this season and Braeden Osterpchuk was named as the KIJHL’s top goaltender.

Head to Head
The Ghostriders finished in first place in their division so will have home ice advantage in this series. The Riders averaged 4.56 goals a game this year and allowed an average of 2.85 goals against. Their goals against was second only to Castlegar who averaged 2.56. Kimberley was a little different, they like to score and play a bit of a high risk high reward game. They averaged 5.37 goals a game but their goals against average was 3.12 and they won 5 of eight games vs Fernie this season. Kimberley’ Senate Patten leads his team in the playoffs with 11 points and Richard Hubscher has 9 points.

Congratulations Will Verner and Ty Morton
Before game one of the Golden series Eddie Mountain Vice President Milton Crawford presented Ghostriders Coach Will Verner the Eddie Mountain Coach of the Year Award and then he gave Rider Captain Ty Morton the Eddie Mountain Top Defenseman award. Morton scored a lot of points while Captaining the team and Verner coached the youngest ever Ghostriders team to a first place finish.

After the first round.
Connor McLaughlin leads the Ghostriders with 10 points followed closely by Brendan Burge with 8 and Alex Milhouse and Ben Primeau with 7 each. Injuries, Derek Georgopoulos is the only player out of the line-up, and may miss another week.

The Ghostriders win four straight and will now go on to round two. The Golden Rockets continued their Dr Jeckell and Mr Hyde act at home in Golden. In Fernie they lost 6-1 in game one then in game two played great and were tied 2-2 late in the third before surrendering two quick goals. In Golden it was no different, they lost 9-4 in game three then decided to take the Ghostriders to double overtime before losing 3-2 in game four.

Four of the five goals in game four were PP goals and the Riders third goal was the worst of all as the Rockets were victimised by the stupidest rule ever in the KIJHL. Rocket defenseman Brad Orr shot the puck out of play twice, once in the first OT period then again in double OT and it cost the Rockets when Stefen Seel scored the PP game winner at 3:28 of the second OT. It’s tragic when the stupid dog rule finishes your season. Roll over, play dead, and let’s get rid of that rule.

Both goalies, Rocket’s Jarred Schamerhorn 55 shots and Rider goalie Chris Solecki 43 were the stars of game four as was Alex Milhouse and Rocket Keith Wake. Milhouse and Brendan Burge scored the other Rider goals.

After the first round.
Connor McLaughlin leads the team with 10 points followed closely by Brendan Burge with 8 and Alex Milhouse and Ben Primeau with 7 each. In the 9-4 game three win Brendan Burge and Connor McLaughlin each had 2 goals and 3 assists while Ben Primeau had a goal and 3 assists.

The coaches’ picks
Connor McLaughlin was named as the Player of the series.
Stefen Seel scored the goal of the series in OT
Evan Burgess and Marty Wicks were the defensive players of the series

Coach GM Will Verner
Here’s what Coach Will Verner had to say about his team’s play against the Golden Rockets.
Verner “It feels good to know that we can win close games when it counts. Game 2 and 4 were real good hockey games and we were able to dig deep and find away to win both those tight games. Connor McLaughlin was really strong in all 4 games and was the best player in the series. Many other forwards had strong performances in different games. In Game 3 Easton Bodeux had his best game as a Ghostrider while in Game 4 we saw Carson Brown return to form. Alex Milhouse was a factor in every game as well and once Ben Primeau figured out his role he was unstoppable. On the back end Evan Burgess and Marty Wicks were outstanding. The pair shut down Golden’s top 4 forwards to a combined 7 points over the 4 games. Burgess was outstanding in game 3 and had a 10/10 player rating. The goaltending was strong as both Fraser Abdallah went 3-0 splitting game 3 and Chris Solecki was a star in game 3 and received the game puck in game 4. This was a team effort as all 22 guys played a big role in the 4-0 series win.

Congratulations Will Verner and Ty Morton
Before game one Eddie Mountain Vice President Milton Crawford presented Ghostriders Coach Will Verner the Eddie Mountain Coach of the Year Award and then he gave Rider Captain Ty Morton the Eddie Mountain Top Defenseman award. Morton scored a lot of points while Captaining the team and Verner coached the youngest ever Ghostriders team to a first place finish.

The Ghostriders won their first two games against Golden 6-1 and 4-2. In the first game it was all Ghostriders but in the second game the Rockets played a pretty good road game and the 600 fans were starting to ring the alarm bells late in the third when it was still 2-2 . Connor McLaughlin ended the panic when he scored his first goal with 3:32 left in the third. It was a beauty where he beat half the Golden team before roofing it in for the 3-2 lead then he followed it up with a last minute insurance goal. McLaughlin has scored 4 goals in the first two playoff games. Defenseman Marty Wicks had 3 assists in the 4-2 win and has 5 points so far. McLaughlin had the goal of the game in game 2 but in game 1 it was Austin Evans who slipped around a few players before scoring my pick for goal of the game. Honorable mentions to Alex Milhouse and Stefan Seel who both also scored nice goals. Actually there has been no shortage of really nice goals scored so far. Fraser Abdallah had both wins in net, he had an easy night in game one but had to be particularly sharp at times in game two.

As it was all season the Rockets either play the Riders close or like in game one they don’t show all that well. In game #1 the shots were 41-16 but in game #2 the shots were 33-27 and until the last few minutes anyone could have won. It was a pretty good defensive effort by the Riders as they kept the good scoring chances down to a minimum.

Congratulations Will Verner and Ty Morton
Before the game one Eddie Mountain Vice President Milton Crawford presented Ghostriders Coach Will Verner the Eddie Mountain Coach of the Year Award and then he gave Rider Captain Ty Morton the Eddie Mountain Top Defenseman award. Morton scored a lot of points while Captaining the team and Verner coached the youngest ever Ghostriders team to a first place finish.

Blink 182 says …What’s my Age Again?On February 22 the US celebrated an anniversary, in 1980 the USA defeated the Soviets 4 -3 to win Olympic Gold at Lake Placid NY. The game will forever be remembered as the “Miracle On Ice” or in Russia as Friday the 13th . Oddly enough way back then I watched that game but I was also a regular at the Western International Hockey League games. The WIHL was a senior league that competed for the once prestigious (still is in my mind) Allen Cup. At that time the WIHL had teams in Trail, Spokane, Nelson, Cranbrook, Kimberley and here in Fernie. The Fernie team was named the Elk Valley Blazers and one of the players on that squad was a hardnosed defenseman named Dan Robertson. Dan was known for his UFC style of play and thirty two years later I’m watching the old Kootenay Cable guy’s son Dylan with the Ghostriders, and with 120 PIM in his rookie season the old saying “The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree” seems to apply.

A top scorer traded out of Trail does good…
Matt Wilkins of the Brooks Bandits was the AJHL’s Top Scorer this year with 99 points. Wilkins who was also a former Kimberley Dynamiter Forward averaged 1.7 points per game and led the league with 99 points. Wilkins also averaged 1.7 points a game and had 15 PP goals, the most in the AJHL. Wilkins last played in the KIJHL with the Nitro’s in the 2008-09 season and had, 31 goals and 61 total points. Trail had Wilkins at 18 but traded him to Brooks where he has never looked back and this year his team finished first overall, Trail may finish last overall, nice trade.

Player of the Month
Fernie Ghostriders have nominated Evan Burgess as their player of the month for February. Evan was key to several of our victories in February and helped the club win 1st place for the 3rd consecutive year in the Eddie Mountain Division.

Kill the refs, really, really
On the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve south of Montreal a player was ejected from a game after he tugged on the referees sweater making the ref lose his balance. After the game the players entered the referees room and the player in question started assaulting the referee while the other players held the linesmen so their team mate could beat on him. The coaches finally made their way into the room and stopped it. The same team had been barred from the playoffs last season for attacking an official and a volunteer. Oh did I mention that they were a Midget A team? The league has cancelled all minor hockey home games for the rest of the season after the incident. So now they can play real wreck hockey or hire them for Goon two.

Riders vs the Rockets
Ghostriders finished in first place in the Eddie Mountain Division and will now play the fourth place Golden Rockets. In the regular season the Ghostriders won all eight of the games in the Fernie – Golden series but three of the games went into overtime. The last two times these teams played was February 3rd & 4th when the Riders won 2-1 in OT at home and 7-1 in Golden the next day.

Shoulda went to writin school instead
After 52 games Fernie has scored 237 goals and average 4.56 goals a game, they have allowed 148 for an average of 2.85 goals against, the difference is 89. Golden has scored 176 and average 3.38 goals a game but they have allowed 186 or 3.58 goals a game and are a minus 10 on the season. All that is according to my accounting, just remember that those six years when I actually went to school, asleeping, not accounting, was my best subject.

Jeckel & Hyde?
The Rockets didn’t always play their best in the regular season but when they’re on their game they beat good teams and their last two games of the season against Creston, were wins, they won 6-4 and at home and 2-1 on the road. Golden’s top scorer is Darren Andre with 59 points and both Jarrod Schamerhorn and Cole Henderson share the games in net.

Go Riders
The Ghostriders finished with a 35-12-0-5 record and 75 points. Brendan Burge led the team in scoring with 75 points in 47 games. Ty Morton was the top scoring defenseman with 20 goals and 48 points and Marty Wicks led the team in PIM with 182 followed closely by Brendon Mangone with 162. Chris Solecki 18-12-and Fraser Abdallah 8-4 have shared the goaltending duties in the last couple of months. No word on who will start on Friday but we are guessing Abdallah.
Injuries, the Ghostriders have Pat Webb, Carson Brown and Chris Solecki on the day to day list while Derek Georgopoulos remains doubtful for the first round. Connor McLaughlin- he will be key in the PO

Turn the Wine into Whisky
Well USA Hockey recently reversed its decision on the Wenatchee Wild’s bid to join the British Columbia Hockey League and some reporters are saying that the BCHL will “rubber stamp” their application and let the Wild be the BCHL’s only American franchise. So we were wondering why USA Hockey reversed their decision then we found out that several teams in the NAHL have declared dormancy for the 2012-2013 including the Dawson Creek Rage. For the record the Rage had regular season games in Alaska, California, Kenai River (where ever the hell that is) and all across the States. Rumour is when then they first saw their schedule they were going to change their name the Dawson Creek Outrage. Google the NAHL schedule for a shocker. Then go slap a KIJHL owner in the face for not having a balanced schedule, “because it costs too much”. Learn to drink whisky instead of wine you guys.
For the record… Fernie was in the travel happy NAHL before moving over to the KIJHL, it nearly bankrupt the team. The Glacier Nationals also have a hideous travel schedule in their Nor Pac League and they have played exhibition games with both Fernie and Kimberley. Where do you think this is going.

Cartwheels
College Hockey INC boss Paul Kelly resigned his job on Monday, pretty sure it was Bob Nicholson I saw doing cartwheels on Cirque Du Soleil this afternoon.

Why we can’t have nice things
The Columbia Valley Rockies had 425 fans out to watch their last home game of the season against the Fernie Ghostriders. Bruce Corrigal stood on his head stopping 42 of 46 shots but their were no three stars listed on the game summary. It’s not about you coaches it’s about the players and the fans, so pick the stars… And as for the 425 fans, where were you all season, if you averaged 425 all year you could have iced a competitive team, like my mother used to say every time I broke something, this is why we cant’ have nice things.

I had a 106 fever once
Congratulations Richard Hubscher on winning the KIJHL’s Top Scorer award with 32 goals and 106 points. Hubscher averaged 2.1 points a game and is from Cranbrook but he plays with the enemy Nitros

Nineteen year old Fraser Abdallah  pitched  a shutout stopping 28 shots on the road in Golden and the Ghostriders won 3-0 on Saturday and went 2-0 on the weekend. They are now 8-1-1 in their last 10 and  Abdallah has a 6-2-1 record since coming back to Fernie after a couple of months in Kindersley (SJHL).

The Riders scored one in the first Ty Morton  from Alex Milhouse one in the second RT Rice from Marty Wicks  and one on the PP in the third McLaughlin from Milhouse and Carr for the 3-0 win. 

Milhouse was named as the first star and Marty Wicks the second star. Brandon Shirley was the third star for the Rockets. 
Almost no penalties in this game as the boys played a prefect road game and even outshot Golden 47-28.

The Playoffs looming
The Ghostriders are now a perfect 8-0 against the Rockets and if they manage a first place finish they will have home ice against the aforementioned Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, but Kimberley may have something to say about it and despite losing 5-2 in Sicamous last Friday but won 8-0 the next night  and are almost keeping pace with the Ghostriders

Next games 

The Ghostriders now play a home and home against Creston next weekend and they have had trouble beating these guys lately. Friday will be the final regular season road game in Creston, the last time they travelled there they lost 4-3 in overtime. On Saturday Creston visits Fernie for their last regular season game vs the Riders and they won their last game here 4-3 on January 20th. The games mean nothing to Creston as they can’t be caught by Golden nor can they catch Kimberley or Fernie.



Off the Glass

The Ghostriders seem to have tightened up their ship for the last month of the season and have also reigned in most of the undisciplined penalties. It’s a game of cheap shots out there and they don’t call the game like in the NHL so you have to fight your way through the hooking, holding and head shots without retaliating. It’s not so important in the regular season, and in fact it’s good to retaliate with your own cheap shots and fights once in a while just so everyone knows you’re willing and able to “Gong Show” with the best, but in the playoffs you have to take the cheap shots because the PP can FU.



Last season the Ghostriders two top guns were the dynamic duo of Scott Morisseau and Thomas Abenante (photo) . Morisseau finished first in KIJHL scoring with 97 points in 50 games while Abenante finished in second place with 92 points but played 3 less games. Morisseau, who had shoulder surgery last summer wanted to play his final year at home in Castlegar so was moved there. Meanwhile Abenante who was a favourite of this writer is 21 this year and taking a course in Engineering Design and Drafting Technology at SAIT in Calgary. He says “ It’s a tough course but I’m liking it”. He also tweets once in a while that he’s missing his time in Fernie. We won’t tell him what us maintenance guys think of the engineers at the minesite… 


And finally
Last summer former Ghostrider Coach Fred Harbinson “recruited” (the USHL uses a somewhat different word) several of their best players for his BCHL Penticton Vees. They hate him in the USA and a couple of weeks ago in Merritt they were whining all over the newspapers about how Harbinson was ruining the league by not making his players fight the Merritt players and becuase he recruited a good team instead of a bad team like they usually have in Merritt ( they are pretty good this season though). Anyway, Harbinson’s Vees now have a BCHL record with 30 straight wins. Congrats Fred

Anita is wearing the blue dress and Ann Majic is to her right side.

Palmer earned the award for her twenty plus years in local hockey where she varied between President, Vice president, Treasurer, Chairperson, Manager, Disciplinarian and even Gatekeeper with Fernie Minor Hockey , East Kootenay Minor Hockey, the Best Ever and Under 17 BC Cup . She also bullied us around (the Ghostriders executive) for 10 years as a Vice President then as Treasurer. Anita has volunteered at different levels for these groups since 1987 and last year was the Chair for the Cyclone Taylor Cup. Another Ghostriders connection to all this is the late George Majic who was the first Rider President and a founding father of the organization.

Phil Iddon hands the award to Anita

Anita with family and her son Mark who played 5 seasons with the Ghostriders

Source/ Read More:

http://ridernews.blogspot.com/2011/12/anita-palmer-is-2011-george-majic.html

The Ghostriders lost 4-1 in a gong show hosted by the Kimberley Dynamiters last Friday night. Lots of fights, cheap shots and suspensions by both sides but the Riders dished out some extra ones and earned five of the seven suspensions. If it proved anything it proved that if they want to win the division again for the seventh year in a row, the Rider brass will have to make changes. The teams battle again on December 29 and 30 for some holiday spirit, but the spirit could be from the movie “The Exorcist​.” Maybe bring a cross, just to be safe.

Grand Forks’ Coach/GM Brent Batten was gassed after a 0-21 start, that’s harsh, with 31 games left he could have easily won a game. Bruins Assistant Coach Matt Zamec is now the head guy. Last year at 8-41-1 the Bruins removed the successful (at least by their standards) Jesse Dorrans. Yeah I wanna coach in Grand Forks.

In Castlegar Coach/GM Steve Junker piped his (27-9) goalie Alex Ross​ out to the 8-16 Summerland Steam. Rider fans may remember that it was Junker who traded Andrew Walton to Fernie last year leaving Ross with Walton’s #1 spot. This year Junker made a three way trade that sees the Rebels get Jordan Gluck (6-11) from the Osoyoos Coyotes. Some GM may end up in a leg hold trap if this deal doesn’t work out.

The 22-2-2 Kamloops Storm recently graduated all-star goalie Lyndon Stanwood to the Jr. “A” Trail Smoke Eaters​. GM Barry Dewar had been very vocal in the papers saying Stanwood was too good for the KIJHL so he got his wish. Dewar also lost defenseman Shane Poulsen to the 3-16-1 Smoke Eaters earlier this year as well. The swami sees a little white ball when the regular season ends for these Trail guys.

And finally, Austin Evans was hit with a vicious cheap shot by Rockies forward Todd Sykes last Thursday. Sykes ran the unsuspecting Evans hard into the boards when the puck wasn’t anywhere near him and only got a minor penalty. So if dangerous hits like that on unsuspecting players is only a minor, you need to keep fighting in the game. Right about now 22 Kimberley bobble head dolls are on the dash bobbing their heads up and down in agreement, and Oli Dickson and coach Roman Vopat are driving the bus.