The Fernie ice is in and that means the leaves will start turning yellow, the roads white and driveway owners blue as they throw their shovels at the plow trucks… I can hardly wait.
A few players from last season have signed with Junior A clubs. Matt Schulmeister is headed to Winnipeg where both the hockey and winter will be next level. Matt spent a lot of the season nursing injuries but healed just in time to win the team’s Most Inspirational and Playoff MVP awards.
Other players looking at frostbite are top goal scorer Dayton Nelson who is going to La Ronge as well as MVP Kolby Hennessy who is also trying out in Saskatchewan .
Coach TY Valin just signed two AAA players, forward Gaege Johnson from St Albert Alberta and D man Jacob Vanlerberg who played a couple of exhibition games last year and is from Cranbrook.
Expecting Fernie local Liam Samyica (who had a pretty good first season last year) back on the ice this year but Owen Johnson might not be. When you're seventeen and as big as Owen, you always get looked at by Jr A or WHL teams.
Another Fernie local the fans will see is Hayden Grabas. Grabas will turn eighteen in December, he became a steady defenceman last year after a few months feeling out the league at the age of sixteen and seventeen. He did very well for someone that young and at that position.
One Fernie local we won’t see is Hayden’s linesman brother Robert Grabas. Our area has a huge shortage of officials but because Junior B is such a serious high level of hockey the KI won’t let him run lines when the Ghostriders are playing. They say it’s a conflict of interest. But the referee shortage is exactly that, a conflict of interest… they can’t get anyone interested in officiating… and when they do get a big young guy who is interested they jack him around. Maybe down the stretch in February or in the playoffs you could make the conflict argument, but not in the first few months of organized Jr B confusion.
In other news the Ghosrider’s are putting on a hockey school from August 29-Sept 1 details are here and their main camp is September 2-4 with an inter-squad game on the Sunday afternoon.
As always the public is welcome to watch the scrimmages.
