The Ghostriders have started the summer rebuilding process by signing a couple of local players this week in Geoff Doka and Brendon Mangone.
Geoff Doka is a 17 year old year old who played several games with the Ghostriders as an AP last year. Geoff has also been a regular at Rider practices over the last couple of years and has good skills to go with decent speed.
Brendon Mangone is more of a crasher banger who doesn’t care who he hits and in the games I’ve seen him play (as a 15 year old) his checking resulted in some offence being generated. He showed a remarkable lack of fear in the few games he played with the Riders. Brendon also has some KIJHL genes in his pants, his father Sam had pretty good hands and scored some nice goals when he played in Sparwood with the “ Raiders” twenty something years ago.
Here’s Coach Will Verner on Doka and Mangone.
Geoff Doka, 1992, RW, 5’11”, 172, Fernie.
Verner “Geoff is a very skilled player, skates very well and he has the ability to score goals. We are very excited to add a hometown player that is familiar to our program with the skill-set Geoff possesses. Experience is important when we recruit and we feel that Geoff has been around our club over the past two years and sees what it takes to win a championship. As an affiliate player, Doka recorded 2 goals in 9 games played. I think Geoff has shown improvement over the past two seasons and has developed his defensive side of his game. Off the ice Geoff is very involved in the community and very active at Fernie Secondary”.
Brendon Mangone, 1993, LW, 6’1”, 180, Fernie.
Verner “Brendon played 5 games as an affiliate player for our hockey club last year. While playing for his club team, Kootenay Ice Major Midget, Brendon played 37 games scored 2 goals, 3 assists for 5 points and he recorded 78 penalty minutes. Brendon is a big strong player that competes very hard. He has the ability to get to the net and play in the tougher areas. As one of our two 16 year olds, Brendon will be pushed hard on and off the ice by both the coaching staff and our veteran players”.
