Q. Mike Wiest proved last year in the Nelson playoff series that he was a number one defenseman who can play with the best players in this league. In the home opener he was wearing the Captain’s “C” is he going to Captain the team for the foreseeable future.

Verner . ” Mike Wiest is one of the players we are looking at to be the leader of our group. This year we are being very patient in all of our decision making and we will look to make a final decision in October. We feel that Mike has he ability to get the group to follow him. We are looking to see how he reacts with what we want and the direction we want to take the team both on and off the ice. I would like to get input from all of our staff. So far so good with Mike Wiest and time will tell how he is able to handle the added responsibilities. We have several other players that have solid leadership qualities. Zach Baba, Cale Wright, Mark Strachan, Scott Morisseau, Thomas Abenante, Brendan Hawryluk, Mike Anderson, Bond Hawyluk, and Jordie Cool. We really like the core of our club and we hope to continue to push ourselves to be better”.

Q.  Cale Wright played both Forward and “D” in the home opener and he scores regularly. How did you get him and where do you see him ending up?

Verner “ Cale played the last 2 years with the Olds Grizzlies in the AJHL. This past off-season, there was a coaching change and the new coach wanted to take the team in a different direction. Cale, being a 20 year old, was not in OLDS plans and he felt that he needed to end his Junior Career on an up swing. Mike Wiest has known Cale from their minor hockey days and informed us that Cale might be looking for a change. Cale then contacted us and he came up and started to practice and as time went on he has become comfortable and is slowly emerging into one of the leaders of our club. Cale will most likely end up playing forward for most of the year as this is where we see him helping our team succeed and him enjoying his play. He mentioned to me on a bus ride that he had played 10 games of D in Olds so I thought we owuld give it a try when we felt we needed a change on the D. After the Golden game we had to make a move on the back so Cale practiced as a D and looked good. This past weekend he did an excellent job playing in our top 2 on the back. It is great to have flexibility having a top line forward and a top line D. Mark Strachan brings this flexibility as well.

Q Your team is 6-0 and has been feasting on the power play. Which players are making the PP so effective and will you tweak it to try and get even more out of it.

Verner “We would like to start practicing it in the near future. We walked through it once prior to the start of the season. We do talk about it quite often before and during games. We do like the guys to set up a certain way and it will take time to get comfortable in what we want to accomplish. The success is all on the players and their skill level. Thomas, (Abenante) Scott, (Morisseau) Mike, (Wiest) Cale, (Wright) Jordie, (Cool) Brendan, Bond, (Hawryluk) Ross, (Fox) Dean, (Wilson) Mark (Strachan) and Jamie (Vlanich) all have the ability to make a difference on special teams.

Q Your Riders will play two important home and home series’ in October. Beaver Valley is here in Fernie on the 15th and you’re in BV on the 16th. On the 23rd you go to Castlegar and on the 29th they return the favor here in Fernie. Will this be a good benchmark as to how strong the Ghostriders are.

Verner “We do think those are going to be great series and having the home and home makes the 2 games very interesting. The season runs until February so it is very early to call it a bench mark. It will definitely help with some of our decisions and thought processes as we near the first major deadline of December 1. Junior hockey rosters are no set until January 10 and the bulk of teams will change drastically from now until December 1. I think a good bench mark will be how we do during the first week of December with Creston and Revelstoke visiting Fernie on December 3 and 4th. We have a lot of work to do if we want to accomplish our goals and we need to continue to focus on getting better and better each week. Photo -Brendan Hawryluk