After Last Weekend
With two goals, his 31st and 32nd of the season Doan Smith continues to lead the league in scoring with 57 points. Smith has been somewhat inconsistent since coming here in December after absolutely lighting it up with the Rockies in the first part of the year but he has scored a goal in each of his last four games and has had a few game winners with the Riders as well...like say last Friday and Saturday... BUT the KI site doesn't track them properly... Smith has 1 and the Riders have 7 GW goals despite having won 32 games. If I remember correctly, the scorekeepers have a place to check GW but many obviously don't do it.
Joel Burgess had a
7 game scoring streak stopped in Golden but still has 51 points. Center Sam
Plaquin was named as the player of the game in Golden even though he had no
points. He must have been pretty good to oust Jeff Orser out of the spotlight after he stopped 20 in the third to get a 2-1 win. Aaron
Neufeld has a 5 game point streak going and is just under a point a game
average.
The Riders could sure use Defenseman Travis Thomsen and forward Cole Keebler who are still out with injuries, the team will be even better when they get healthy. Thomsen is skating this week and is possible for ....
The Ghost are in Spokane Thursday, Nelson Friday and Castlegar Saturday, all games are scheduled as Drive 99.1 Radio Broadcast Games.
The Riders did some off ice workouts with Strength and Conditioning Coach Doug Brown from the Athlete Factory and after the torture the boys even gave him a sweater.
Thanks Fernie Ghostriders for the
jersey! Going on our wall! Great weekend of conditioning!
My most popular Tweet from last week- this was set up outside the MaxBell Arena... acc to Facebook...or is that Fecesbook
Golden was 5 points behind Creston when this was written and that will be hard to make up so it's likely the Riders will play them in the first round. Last weekend Golden served notice that they can play with the Riders and were in the 5-3 game until the last 10 minutes of the third and in the 2-1 game till the end, they will be a hard team to play in the first round assuming the boys finish first... but with a 14 point lead on Kimberley they will...
Speaking of Kimberley... their blogger recently asked me to pick an all-star team, and I told him no, I only see the other teams live sporadically because of work commitments, so I said I couldn't make good picks and said I'll let the coaches pick. He agreed so I mentioned that Jason Richter was the only clear choice that everyone would pick. So then the idiot makes his post using Rider News as saying Richter was my only pick. I'll never trust that guy again.
Anyway,I bet Richter will be picked by all the coaches unless they allow bias to cloud their vision.
All Stars
Rider players who will certainly be in the mix for the All-Star Team voted on by the Coaches...
Doan Smith leads the KI in scoring and has had a few game winners so will definitely get a few looks, Joel Burgess' hard nosed play points and strength could get him a few votes as well. Since it's the coaches picking... they will notice the great two way job Sam Plaquin does out there and he may get a few votes too. Cole Keebler has missed too much time and it hurt his chances... but if he was healthy... Jeff Orser will get votes as the top goalie, I don't know if he will be a unanimous choice but he will be a popular choice.
No one I have seen can rush the puck out of their end like Evan Reid does and he has a decent 20 points in 33 games. If he continues to get better in the offensive end of the ice after his patented rushes he will be a certain all star at some point... and he has a fighting chance to make it this year.
Coach of the Year IMO will be between Rider Coach Craig Mohr, who had a big turnover of players and took over a 3rd place team and Creston's Jeff Dubois who came in late and made several moves to get back into contention. The guy with the most points usually gets that one, Nitro Bancks is no slouch either so it will be interesting.
Below is a Tweet about former Ghostrider Connor McLaughlin, he played here for 2 yrs and was a man among boys... we still thank Nelson's GM at the time Chris Shaw for trading him to Fernie. After Jr McLaughlin went to Selkirk College where they won a couple of Championships, the Head Coach and GM was ... Jeff Dubois, he's in Creston as we speak...
Round the League
Big Games and Hats Last Week
Summerland 5 @ Kelowna 2
Jack Mills 3 G 1 A Sideroff 1 G 1 A Huber the W in net. Jamieson 2 G for Kelowna. Shots 38-29 Kelowna. Steam 3 PP G 1 SH G
Nelson 5 @ Spokane 3
Tyler Fyfe 3 G Lindsay and Miller 1 G ea. Mailhoit the W in net. Hard fought la few PIM
Columbia Valley 3 @ Kimberley 6
Keenan Hasse 3 G 1 A (1SH) Coy Prevost 1 G 3 A Brouwer the W in net. Shot 39-24 Kim. Att 479
Osoyoos 5 @ North Oak 3
Coyotes 3-4 on the PP Aaron Azevedo 1 G 3 A Braid 2 G shots 51-21 Osoyoos
Castlegar 8 @ Grand Forks 3
Cal Owens 2 G 2 A McNeil 2G 1A Lindsey 2 G Zubick the W in net. GFBB Robertson, Savia and Lucero the goals.
Shut Outs Last Week
Kamloops 0 @ Chase 4
Mike Byer the shutout stoping 31 shots. Harding, Moore, Wilde and Mork the G's Shots 35-31 Chase
Kelowna5 @ Princeton 0
Brady Lenardon the SO in net. Kittle 2 G Kobelka 1 G 1 A Melnyk 2 A Att 100
Princeton 0 @ Revelstoke 4
Aidan Doak the shutout 30 saves. Fried 1 G 1 A Paxman-Fust 2 A ea shots 37-30
Summerland 5 @ North Oak 0
Brett Huber the shutout on 20 shots. Mills Fisher 2 G 1 A ea. 48-19 shots for SS
And Finally ... and not a moment to soon
Just bought some new skates in Cranbrook and the
salesman who sold em to me was none other than #1 Nitro goalie Tyson Brouwer.
The young goalie heated the skates and fitted them to my feet then even had them
sharpened up. A few minutes later when he found out what I do for the
Ghostriders (this blog) he went out of his way to put scotch tape on the blades
for me saying "keeps the rust off and you can skate faster, all the Nitro players
do it" … Well who knew he would let me in on one of the Dynamiter secrets… I can
hardly wait to try em out.
ACAC Men's Hockey
