Riders are ready for the regular season

The Ghostriders finished up their exhibition season with 2 wins a tie and an overtime loss in Invermere. The 3-3 tie in Creston and 5-4 win at home vs Creston featured several players on both teams who will make it through to the regular season starting next week. For the Riders it starts in Kimberley Friday and in Invermere Saturday. Their first home game is on September 24th against Creston. 

Before the home opener the Riders and Fernie Ford will be doing the Drive One for Your Community event. For every fan that comes out and test drives a Ford the team will get $20.00 for their Scholarship fund.

Creston is the Cyclone Taylor (Provincial Championships) host team so they will be a strong team this season. When they were here last Saturday Head Coach Jeff Dubois told us he still had 7 players trying out at the Jr “A” level. When and if some of them return Creston will likely end up fighting for first place… but with who.

The Riders have 14 returning players so should get off to a good start. As of Sunday Coach Mohr said he had signed several new players.  Matt Rogers, Mike Dyck, Ty Abbott, Riley Siebel, Joey Stensland, Justin Garcia, Derek Green, Ben Shushkovsky and Brandon Youngson. 
And the phone is still ringing... 
The returning list is below.

Kimberley lost the heart of their team to old age and have a new Head Coach in Derek Stuart. They have been one of the best teams for the last few years… so I wouldn’t count them out quite yet. 

The Rockies were one of the most improved teams last year, they went from a 12 win season to a 30 win season and made the playoffs. After a short learning curve Head Coach and GM Wade Dubielewicz really has his fingerprints on the organization now and they will be a handful. 

 Golden’s GM Jason Stephens was hired in the summer of 2015 but was already committed to coaching a roller hockey team, very successfully though, so he didn’t get in nearly enough recruiting and the Rockets only won 5 games last year. Stephens’ team can only go up and will win more than 5 games this year. No one should take them, or any other team for that matter, for granted.