Riders get a big road W and the usual drivel

Well they finally did it... thanks to player of the game 



who made 45 saves giving the Riders a 2-0 win in Kimberley.
Surprised he’s only 8-10, but he has 2 shutouts the other one was 7-0 against Summerland in October.



That was a big win for the Rider players who lost 2-1 the night before in Fernie.



Fitzgerald was a game star both games  KD goalie Blake Pilon a star Friday and Adam Anderson took the loss in Kimberley.

Yes the attendance #’s are correct, they have a bigger arena than Fernie who announced 1140 Friday but probably had more and turned tons away.

IMO Kimberley passes the eye test and are a little better than the Riders... but they are not invincible and were just inches away from snatching a loss from the jaws of victory in Fernie Friday. They marginally outshot the Riders Friday but the FG did a good job of keeping the Grade A scoring chances down to a minimum and KIJHL top scorer Brock Palmer down to 1 assist... but it was on the game winner. 

Yeah well the Riders didn’t get a PP goal in the last two games



And also



I would put Greg Susinski and Daniel Lindeman into the above conversation. Were gonna find out in the next few weeks who’s the most popular when the Coaches pick the all-star teams etc. And the biggest popularity contest of all... the Coach of the Year award voted on by the very coaches themselves.. huh, yep that’s how it goes. 

Please fans and parents more of your thoughts. Seriously we like that input here.

The Dynamiters acquired - bought Jett Saharchuk (North Oak’s top scorer) Jed Butler (Spokane’s top scorer) and Ryan Piva from 100 Mile since the start of the season and they are all scoring at more than a point a game pace and had points in the Friday game. FYI When Butler was acquired I received some amusing f***k Kimberley messages. Anyway it was a pretty good job of resource management... if you have money use it.

This is definitely a new era in the Fernie Kimberley rivalry Friday’s game featured a paltry 32 PIM and 10 were for a misconduct... Saturday’s game only 14 minutes... remember the old  TV commercial “Where’s the Beef”

In this very interesting article we are told that the face masks have dramatically cut down on the facial injuries and the fighting in hockey. Where they go off the deep end is when they say that in all three leagues PIJHL VIJHL and KIJHL there were only four concussions. They must have all been at the BC Hockey office to come up with that ridiculous number



The Riders play in Creston New Year’s Eve and it is a fairly big game as both the Rockies and Creston are catching up in the standings... but I don’t think they will catch the Riders in the end.

Sunday AM standings. Creston lost in Columbia Valley Saturday but host the CVR Sunday night. 



The Riders have an easier weekend next week with Golden and Castlegar on the schedule but the week after that they play in Sicamous and then have a showdown in Revelstoke (45 pts) only to travel home and play Spokane Sunday night. A nice piece of scheduling.