The Ghostriders won their series with the Kimberley Dynamiters but it wasn’t easy. Part of the problem was that they had first place all sewed up by the last week of the regular season and then they had another easy week with the bye in the first round of the playoffs. Those two weeks with no pressure changed quickly when they walked into the second round and met up with their biggest rivals of all, the Kimberley Dynamiters, and promptly lost game one by a 5-1 score.
With all the time off the loss was not that big of a surprise and at times in that first game the Riders looked like the better team and they proved it the next night with an 8-4 win. In Kimberley in games three and four both teams took turns dominating and both teams won a game so it was back to Fernie for game five where the Dynamiters outplayed the Riders for all but the last half of the third period and walked away with a 4-2 win. The Nitros then headed back home to the Kimberley Civic Center feeling pretty good about themselves with a 3-2 series lead and a fairly convincing game five win. But it was not to be, and in game six, a do or die for the Riders, Dave McIvor decided it wasn’t a good time to die and he went out and blasted in 3 goals and had 2 assists to give the Ghost a 6-4 win. That game six road win set up a dramatic game seven back in the Fernie Memorial. When the teams came back on the ice for that last game the Ghostriders had their not so secret weapon (1140 screaming fans) and their talented Captain Scott Traverse (2 goals) on their side and they went on to a 4-2 series ending win.
This series was a very close unpredictable series that saw both teams win two games in each other’s barn with home ice not being that big of a factor until game seven and even then the game went right down to the wire with Scott Traverse’s game winner going in in the last six minutes. The fourth goal went into an empty net with just seconds left on the clock.
Odds and Ends
As the saying goes, to win your best players have to be your best players, and in this series whenever the Ghostriders won a game team Captain Scott Traverse was the best player. Traverse also lead the Riders in scoring with 9 goals and 6 assists in the seven game series and three of his goals were game winners. Dave McIvor was right behind Traverse with 5 goals and 6 assists and Richard Small also had 11 points in 7 games. Jason Greenwell played all the games for the Ghostriders in net and was unbelievable in game seven and was a big factor in all the wins. Point a game defenseman Cody Reinbold and Derek Bishop both missed time in this series but the somewhat unheralded Joe DeLuca, Brandon Stevens, Scott Anderson and Jeff Zmurchyk proved they could play the minutes and played well. Scott Cisco 7 pts. and the Riders two sixteen year olds Brett Lyon 5 pts. and Josh McEwan 1 goal all played a hard nosed style that help make the Ghostriders a harder team to play against. Kyle Chartrand, John Shaw, Ryan Hill, Jordan Reid, Robbie Shaw, and Derek Bishop and Cody Reinbold all missed games because of injuries or penalties. The Ghostriders now move on to play the tough Beaver Valley Nitehawks.
