Rider News August 30

The Ghostriders are in Kimberley tonight, this will be their third exhibition game but Kimberley’s first.

Ideally, for evaluation and fan fun purposes it would have been better if both teams were into their third or fourth X-games so that they could ice lineups that were close to what they’re going with on opening day... but it is what it is...because the KI starts too early according to Nitro Coach Stuart and most coaches agree, wait till Jr A is done.

So far the Riders have two 2-2 tie games. Also so far, three veterans have scored the goals, Owen Titus and Eric Welford scored in Invermere and Brendan Nemes scored both goals in Golden. 

Coach Wagner says he still has 14 forwards, 8 defensemen and 4 goalies in camp. Time for new guys to score and make the team is now...

Speaking of new guys the Riders have signed 17 year old forward Niki Sombrowski who is fresh off a season with the Edge Prep ( a school focused on athletics and academics) just out of Calgary.  The Sombrowski family, if you don’t already know, owns the private school here in Fernie. Niki may play in Creston on Saturday.

Wagner also signed soon to be 16 year old defensemen Kyle Klein from Elkford. Kyle played 4 games with the Riders as an AP last season.  “He was our best D in Golden"

The Riders had two, 2-2 ties and last night Golden tied the Rockies 1-1. Come on you guys this is exhibition season shouldn’t we have some 6-5 extravaganzas . Are we gonna need minus numbers and algebra to figure out the scores in the tighter regular season?

Without ice in the Fernie arena the Ghosties are forced to practice in Cranbrook... but the old arena has an ammonia leak, just like in Fernie so it is closed. The players will get to skate in the big rink on Friday Sunday Tuesday and Thursday before opening the season up in Spokane on Friday.

The boys aren’t off the hook between practices either Wagner “We’ve been doing circuits with a lot of high intensity interval training”. 


Greg Susinski and Kory Zinck have returned from Jr A camps. Susinski actually got into a fight in Golden with Steve Bigam... with cages, is that some sort of KIJHL trivial pursuit question I’ll be asking when I’m 64 or something... oh wait a minute. 
Zinck is scheduled to play in Kimbo tonight.

Ethan Jang is still in Alberni’s camp as well, he was a pretty good 16 last year but missed 10 or so games with injuries. 

After reading the Worksafe report about the arena leak It’s Here
there will be lawyers just pouring into the province, check out the hi way tomorrow afternoon at about 4:00...