The Riders have two games this weekend. Spokane and Nelson

The Ghostriders play the Spokane Braves Friday , earlier in October the Riders played two games against the Braves winning 5-4 in Spokane and 5-0 here in Fernie, this is the final time we will see Spokane this season.

The Braves will miss the playoffs this season, after last weekend they had an 8-34 record. Spokane has not won many games but they have a few players that fans will want to see. Their top scorer is 17 year old top prospect Carter Jones with 58 points, his older brother Mason is second in team scoring with 38 points. Spokane also has a few more top prospects in Luke Gallagher who is a 16 year old D man with21 points, Trail Thomson, a 17 year old F with 29 points and Andrew Clark a 17 year old D with 13 points. They're all from Washington. Also  in in case you were wondering, Spokane has been in the KIJHL since 1972.

The Riders play Nelson on Saturday for the  third time this year. So far Fernie has won both games, 3-2 in November and 5-3 in January.

Nelson is battling it out with Grand Forks for third place and a date with Castlegar in the playoffs, the fourth place team faces the always powerful Beaver Valley Nitehawks who have 37-4 record. The Hawks are here in Fernie Sunday February 19th in the Riders last regular season game.

More Leaf stuff...You don’t see this very often, the Leafs have successfully appealed through BC Hockey the suspensions of two players and won. Usually when the stick in the mud's from BC H get involved... they add not subtract games.  Anyway, this time with some different BCH bosses at the helm former Nitro Sawyer Hunt had his suspension reduced to one game from three and Dale Howell's suspension dropped from six to two. 

Nelson, like the Riders who lost  Brandon Butler, lost their #1 goalie Billy Gorn to an injury and he is not expected to play again this season.

The Riders with just 16 skaters due to suspensions and injuries lost a back and forth game in Kimberley last weekend by a 7-6 score. Mitch Titus, Justin Peers, Riley Siebel and Alex Cheveldave had the Riders up 4-2 early in the third but then Kimberley scored 4 in a row for a 6-4 lead. Then the Rider’s Keelan Saworski and Tayler Sincennes scored to tie the game at 6 only to lose 7-6 when the Nitro’s scored in the last two minutes of the game. Both Mitch Titus and Justin Peers had 4 point nights in that game.

The next night here in Fernie Creston went into the third with a 3-2 lead and scored in the last second for a 4-2 win clinching 1st in the Eddie Mountain Division. The Riders played a pretty good game outshooting the Cats 39-22 and for the most part kept them well away from goalie Brandon Youngson. Ben Shushkovski and Ryan Kennedy scored the Rider goals and CVT's Grant Iles had the GW. Brock Lefebvre had the W in net for CVT.

Creston, still broke out of their end and flew down the ice like a first place team but they had trouble generating their usual number of hi % scoring chances... that they must normally  get to have scored their lead leading  211 goals. 

For the record, Creston was +100 but lost 3-2 the other night at home to the Beaver Valley Nitehawks who, clinched first overall with that win and are now +111 (Goals for minus against)

It is official now, the Ghostriders are going to play the Kimberley Dynamiters in the first round of the playoffs here are the dates

GAME 1 Friday Feb 24 @ Kimberley
GAME 2 Saturday Feb 25 @ Kimberley
GAME 3 Monday Feb 27 @ Fernie
GAME 4 Tuesday Feb 28 @ Fernie 
GAME 5 Thursday Mar 2 @ Kimberley
GAME 6 Friday Mar 3 @ Fernie
GAME 7 Saturday Mar 4 @ Kimberley