Rider News Dec 18/22 extra time--council love-touchy feely-Christmas present-good news and the usual drivel

The Ghostriders only played one game last weekend and that ended up a 5-4 overtime loss in Creston .

The Goal scorers were Jack Lambert (Jackson- Sinclair) Vin Jackson (Lambert - Haggerty) Andrew Karam (Fitzgerald) and  Andrew Kennedy (Fitzgerald) with Aiden Kruhlak in net.

Game notes

With about seven minutes left in the game defenceman  Andrew Kennedy walked through the whole Creston team and scored the 4-3 go ahead goal. Would have been a great ending for the D-man’s first goal except the Riders let Creston back in it just 35 seconds later then lost in OT.

Another extra time (watching too much soccer) loss this season, so far five games in overtime and two in shootouts. Those seven points left under Scrooge's Christmas tree have cost the Riders a chance at first place. Well they still have a chance… but it’s smaller than the love the previous City Council had for the hockey team. 

Jack Lambert’s goal was his first as a Rider since coming here from the MJHL’s Niverville Nighthawks December 2nd.

The Riders got AC Aaron Conlon back on the bench now that he has finished all his new touchy feely coaching clinics. He will be a great help to Coach Valin along with Mike Anderson during the games. You can do a lot of coaching mid game if you have the time.

Round’ the League

Last place Creston also won on Saturday by defeating Beaver Valley 6-4 and are now just one point behind the Riders.

But it's the holiday season Rider fans and your Christmas present is... well because Spokane is not in the league again this season, what ever team has the least  amount of points between our division and the Murdoch division will miss the playoffs, and Castlegar is behind the Riders by 14 points with 13 games left. It would take a catastrophic eighteen wheeler plowing down the ski hill to miss now.

 

A little good news. The Junior A leagues were told by Hockey Canada to start wearing cages on December 15th. They said no way and something that rhymes with truck ? If there was ever a time to defeat the beleaguered HC it’s now.

And finally, Merry Christmas to all the readers along with my friends at Hockey Canada and the league office… Hey, I’m still waitin for my Christmas Cards.

Games pie in the face guitarist comic books and zoo keepers

The Ghostriders played two games last weekend, they lost 4-3 in overtime in Kimberley then on Teddy Bear Toss night against the Revelstoke Grizzlies they won 6-2.

 

In Kimberley the Riders were down 3-2 in the third but got a late power play and in the last minute of the game Scott Sinclair scored giving the Riders at least a point and a chance for two, but Kimberley’s Cam Reid scored 41seconds into the overtime giving them the win.

The old saying A tie is as good as a win on the road applies here.

 

On Saturday in Fernie the Riders scored early in the first and held period leads of 2-0, 4-1 and finished up with a 6-2 win against Revelstoke.

 

Game notes

Jack Karpyshyn scored the Teddy Bear Toss goal Saturday just two minutes into the game, completely surprising Owen Albers who had 3 shutouts in his first 10 Grizzly games and probably thought... 

Liam Fitzgerald scored his first goal as a Rider in Kimberley and did all the leg work on Gaege Johnson’s short handed goal Saturday. 

Fitzgerald who was in Revelstoke got to deliver  a  pie in the face to GM Ryan Parent who punted  him down the road in November. Nice word -smithing eh. 

Top scorers Ethan MacDuff and Kort Kissinger started scoring again as well and had three points each. Aiden Kruhlak, from Sherwood Park, was in net for both games last weekend and seems to have taken the number one spot.

 

What I didn’t think I would see… Six different players scored Saturday against Revelstoke who came into town as the first overall team in the league with the lowest goals against as well. To me it was the best team effort I’ve seen this season. Ebouliant Ty Valin “We had good buy in”. 

 

What you don’t usually see… A Head Coach coaching the defence. Coach Valin was on that side of the bench last weekend and his players responded with three points against two top teams, and D-man Scott Sinclair scored three goals.  “ Our defence needed some attention” said Ty Valin. That’s coach code for we’ve had too many turnovers lately.

Round the League'

 

If you were wondering about last week’s story on Golden’s lead guitarist Levi Hall, well his video came out and although it looked like he was playing an instrument… it wasn’t a guitar and the music critics gave him a 3 game suspension.

Golden and Kimberley exchanged misconducts and head shots etc last Saturday and the result was Nitro Trey Stephenson got a match and was suspended indefinitely. 

We’ve seen Golden a few times, and they are  undisciplined but win lots of games and with 818 minutes they lead the league in PIM.

Their fans must love em. Anyway, if they keep it up they could win the KiJHL colouring book at the end of the year.  If I were a bettin man I’d say Stephenson was probably retaliating for something earlier in the game.  

Should the KiJHL start eaten at the betting trough.. everyone else is...just sayin 

Big day for the zoo keepers at Hockey Canada Thursday Dec 15, that’s the deadline for Jr A teams to start wearing cages... I’m hearing they're not going to just walk into their cages without a ringmaster and a whip. HC could be vulnerable right now... maybe they have a chance

Big game for Fernie and Creston Friday

 

The Ghostriders play in Creston Friday then go home for Christmas. They return to play Kimberley December 28th in Fernie.

Have a safe and Merry Christmas everyone, even my fans at the KiJHL office.

 

Rider News- Guitars Cadillac's & Hillbilly Music and the usual drivel

On Friday in Golden the Ghostriders were losing 2-0 but in the third period they outshot the Rockets 19-2, scored two goals and got the game into overtime. In the OT and shootout they had great chances but couldn’t score and Golden won 3-2 on Dominic Fiorentino’s second goal of the game.

Fernie goals were off the sticks of Scott Sinclair (Slobodian-Lambert) and Cole Fournier (Karam-Karpyshyn) with Aiden Kruhlak in net.

On Saturday in Fernie the Ghostriders pounced on the Rockets and had leads of 3-2,  5-2 and finished up with a 7-3 win.

Kort Kisinger, Gaege Johnson, Jack Karpyshyn, Taylor Haggerty, Andrew Karam and Vin Jackson (2) scored the goals and Aiden Kruhlak had the win in net.

Notes from Levi Hall's Guitar's

The star of the show in Golden was Levi Hall who is reportedly Glenn Hall’s grandson. Hall stopped a barrage of grade A chances and all four of the shootout attempts. But after his final save he made a gesture to the Rider’s bench and was given a game misconduct and one game suspension. The player claimed he was just simulating playing a guitar, well maybe he was… but he was playin the Rodeo Song

Cadillacs 

Odd to see the Riders top scorer  Ethan MacDuff get shutout last weekend, especially on a pad your stats night like last Saturday. It goes to show how much the five new players (Aiden Kruhlak, Andrew Karam, Jack Lambert, Liam Fitzgerald and Vin Jackson) mean to Fernie’s overall speed and skill level. Now a gunslinger can miss a few bad guys and they can still get points. 

Hillbilly Music

Lots of penalties, cheap shots, fights and even an instigator, we used to call it team building .

Josh Prebushewski is back on the ice after getting hurt October 21st. He stopped a particularly hard shot with his shoulder late in the Saturday game, we hope he’s ok, the Riders need all the defensemen they can get.

 D man Scott Sinclair had a goal and three assists last weekend and 6 points in his last three games. The Captain’s game is back on track.

 

News flash

The Riders scored some goals on breakaways Saturday. Gaege Johnson got one shorthanded and the game winner by Taylor Haggerty made him feel so good he got into a fight. They didn’t score on all of them but maybe the door is starting to open.

The Riders play the sort of first place Columbia Valley Rockies here in Fernie Tuesday December 6th then on Friday they are in Kimberley and on Saturday Dec 10th  they play Revelstoke (scratch that date on your refrigerator’s door) cause it’s Teddy Bear Toss night

Round' the League

Creston beat the Rockies 7-6 Friday then the Rockies hammered them 9-1 in Invermere Saturday. Kimberley won 5-3 in Castlegar virtually assuring all our division playoff spots. More on this in the coming weeks.