The Eddie Mountain Breakdown

Beaver Valley 5 @ Fernie 2

At the halfway mark of the second period the Hawks had a 2-0 lead on goals from Sam Swanson and Damon Kramer.

The Riders fought back and Mitch Titus and Tayler Sincennes scored two  goals 30 seconds apart to tie the game  but Kyle Hope scored the Hawks 3rd goal and what would turn out to be the game winner with just 1:39 left in the second.

Blake Sidoni and Dylan Kent scored goals in the third to clinch the Hawks 8th win in a row and 63rd point, they are first in the KIJHL.

The shots were 42-34 for BV and Goalie Tallon Kramer was named as the Hawk Player of the Game.


Keagan Kingwell was the Riders POG and Brendan Henderson was in the Rider net, it was his first game since Dec. 7th in 100 Mile House.

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After losing 6-4 to the Rockies Friday Creston went into Kimberley and won 5-2

But it was not a 5-2 game, the Nitro's and Cats were tied at 2 in the third before Jonathan Lee scored the game winner with 7:42 left in the game. Creston scored two EN goals after that for the 5-2 win.

Pat Osterman got the win in net Saturday after star goalie  Brock Lefebvre lost to the Rockies Friday in his first game back in over a month. Former Nelson D Cole Arcuri and D Sebastian Killcommons each had 1G 1A

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Rockies 8 @ Golden 3

The Rockies went 3-6 on the PP and  got their second ROAD win of the weekend in Golden Saturday after beating Creston 6-4 Friday.

Former Rider Mike Dyck had a 4 point night as did Craig Offer and Riley Knott chipped in with 3 goals.
Ben Kelch had the win in net as the Rockies suddenly start playing like a playoff team again.
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The Rockies are are not officially in the playoffs but... they are, the only question is who will they play, Kimbo or Creston, the Riders are officially in the PO but don't know who they will play, but it won't be the Rockies as Fernie has a 20 point lead on them and are 10 behind Kimberley.

Will the KIJHL Expand

The KIJHL Governors will be voting on wether to let Williams Lake and Quesnel into the KIJHL. This has been in the works for a while as the KI has played a number of games over the last few years in that area. 

This in my opinion is a no win situation for the Governors. Yes some of the Okanagan Shuswap teams could end up with some good games travel wise, but at the same time these two former BCHL Jr A team cities will be very tough to recruit against and the closest team in 100 Mile, should be alarmed.

If you're  Spokane according to Storm GM Barry Dewar you would have to travel 1000 KM, to Quesnel... read Dewar's interview right here  So say good bye to my favourite  crossovers, (playing all the teams in the league) this time forever... unless the rich teams use them to force out the poor teams, ( I got an evil mind eh) but not likely though as almost all the KI teams are crying poverty. 

Another argument against is, lets make the weak teams better first. The KI tried that, a little bit... For those with good memories you will remember that a couple of years ago the KIJHL sold everyone but me on a 30 day suspension for players who don't report after they are traded, this was suppose to be to help the weak teams who have trouble getting good players to report after a trade. 

Gutless Hockey Canada who's Mission Statement is "Lead, Develop, and Promote Positive Hockey Experiences has allowed that rule at the Jr A level as well, I think it should be challenged in court, but that's another matter... Anyway, adding Quesnel and Williams Lake will hurt the weaker teams that the brutal 30 days in the hole rule was suppose to, but didn't, help. In my opinion... only money can help the weaker teams. I bet the two new teams will have  money.

Now if the Gov's vote them out they have yet another problem, they could start their own league, and it's entirely possible that a couple of KI teams would join them. One of the main reasons they may consider that is that the two other Jr B leagues, the PIJHL and the VIJHL each have a Cyclone Taylor rep. They have two reps per 19 teams while the KIJHL has one per 20 teams, 22 with the new guys. Regardless of whatever happens that will have to change, but the extra team will make it even harder for small towns to host the Cyclone ever again, these arguments just never end.

Also, the new teams are totally new franchises and are not KIJHL teams moving North like what happened in 2013 when the failed  Pentiction Lakers were sold and moved to 100. So can you say watered down... and the questions just never end as well.


You can read the Nelson News story on this here

Ghostrider Notebook

As you already know goaltender Brandon Butler suffered a season ending knee injury in December so GM Craig Mohr has brought in 18 year old goaltender Brendan Henderson from the 100 Mile Wranglers. Henderson lost his spot when the Wranglers brought in 19 year old Jakob Severson. 

Welcome to Fernie Brendan!

Forward Matt Rogers also suffered a season ending knee injury and GM Mohr is looking to fill his spot as we speak. Both Rogers and Butler like all the other players worked their hearts out on the ice and it is tragic they have had their season's ended this way.

Ty Abbott, Nolan Lagace, Ben Shushkovsky and Brendan Nemes are all eligible to play Saturday  after serving their suspensions from a few weeks ago. Kyle Haugo still has 3 more games to go before he is back.  

Kevin Pierce is in Spain playing in a tournament with Team Mexico and will be back in another week. 

Derek Green will be playing in the KIJHL’s Prospects game in Kelowna this weekend, Coach Craig Mohr is in Kelowna as well as an assistant coach. 

Riders get two wins

The Ghostriders won both of their games last weekend, 3-1 on the road in Invermere and 5-1 at home against the Castlegar Rebels… with only 14 skaters Friday and 13 Saturday!

A great effort by the players who although shorthanded just had to love all the ice time they got thus making the two wins even more jumping up and down fun.

On Friday they were down 1-0 in the first after a Chase Hawkins goal but in the second Mitch Titus’ brother Owen an affiliate player scored the tying goal from Kingwell and Siebel.

In the third Riley Siebel scored a beauty shorthanded  that turned out to be the game winner. Justin Peers from D Nemes and Downe scored the insurance goal and Brandon Youngson had the win in net stopping 33 of 34. The Rockies Ben Kelsch stopped 40 of 43 in a losing effort.

On Saturday with just 13 skaters the Riders earned a 5-1 win over the visiting Castlegar Rebels who are in a dog fight with Grand Forks for second place. Another very convincing win for 13 skaters. 13 because Owen Titus was not available for the game.

The Riders had leads of 2-1, 3-1 and at the end 5-1. Devin Nemes had 2 goals and an assist while Tristan Downe,(PP) Keelan Saworski (PP) and Alex Cheveldave each had a goal, Mitch Titus and Justin Peers  had 2A and Keagan Kingwell and Tayler Sincennes chipped in with 1 A each. Brandon Youngson had the win in net stopping 29 of 30 Rebel shots while Curt Doyle faced 29 shots.

With Head Coach Craig Mohr serving a ridiculous 5 game suspension (Kimberley HC Derek Stuart got 0 games)James Ouimet and and former Rider assistant coach from 2003-05 Brian Youngson ran the bench Friday then were joined by Jeff Zmurchyk on Saturday.  

According to Coach Mohr the turning point Saturday was a save by Youngson in the third period when Logan Styler found himself alone in the slot firing a wicked shot headed for the left hand corner of Youngson who flashed his glove out and caught what would have been Styler’s 18 goal and 52nd point. He is in second place in league scoring as we speak. The wrong guy to be alone where he was but the right guy in net.

Coach Mohr also credits his players adherence (they did as asked of them) to a more conservative system he put in place due to the limited number of skaters.

A great 4 point weekend... we got more to say  in the next day or so. See you soon.

Riders, Creston win Friday

Fernie 3 @ CVR 1

The Riders went to Invermere with just 14 skaters and picked up a 3-1 win. Plus outshot CVR 43-34

AP Owen Titus scored to tie the game at 1-1 in the second.

Riley Siebel scored the game winner shorthanded in the third

Justin Peers scored the insurance goal with 4:58 left in the game.

Brandon Youngson stopped 33 of 34 shots.

Neither team had a PP G

In other news
 Kimberley lost 9-2 to Beaver Valley in a game played in Cranbrook because of ice time problems.

Creston hammers Spokane 8-2 and Golden lost 3-2 to Nelson but gained a point.

The Riders play Castlegar tonight in Fernie, the Rebels beat Grand Forks 8-4 Friday and are now just 1 point behind GFBB.

Rider Notes for the Weekend

The Ghostriders play the Castlegar Rebels Saturday night, after last weekend the Rebels  were in 3rd place in their division with 34 points just 3 points behind Grand Forks... but the Rebels also have 3 games in hand. 

Beaver Valley with 53 points will finish in first place, they will be here in Fernie next Saturday January 14th.

The Ghostriders defeated the Rebels 7-3 here in Fernie on October 1st but the Rebels won 7-5 in Castlegar December 10th.

The Rebels have two guys in the top 10 in KIJHL scoring, Logan Styler has 52 and Ed Lindsey has 50 points.

 Suspension List

Brendan Nemes, Ty Abbott, Nolan Lagace and Ben Shushkovsky will be serving game 3 of their 3 game suspensions on Saturday.  Kyle Haugo was nailed with an instigator penalty during the Kimberley line brawl will still have 3 more games to go.

Head Coach Craig Mohr will also miss Saturday’s game, it will be game 3 of his 5 game suspension.

GM Craig Mohr has a line on a couple of goalies to replace the injured Brandon Butler, and a forward to replace the injured Matt Rogers... we should hear something very soon.

Mitch Titus, who was injured by a cheap shot in the Kimberley game along with Ryan Kennedy and Justin Peers are all listed as day to day with injuries.

Kevin Pierce is playing in Spain with team Mexico (his birth place) in the World Tier two under 20 tournament in Spain. He will be back late January.

In Creston on New Year's Eve the Riders had affiliate players Chase Rayman, Cory Caldwell, Jake Beranek, Owen Titus and Andre Pelletier in the lineup. All the Rider AP's are unavailable this weekend as they all have games with their regular teams. 

Coach Mohr says the AP's did a good job against the 1st place Thunder Cats keeping them in check most of the night and only a late third period goal in a 3-2 loss kept the game from going into OT..

The Ghostriders are in Invermere on Friday night and it is a Drive 99.1 Radio Broadcast game.

The Crowd from the last game
Thanks Kathy

Ghostriders lose Brandon Butler

The Ghostriders have lost their number one goalie Brandon Butler to a knee injury. Coach Craig Mohr says "Brandon has torn (1MM left) the cartilage in his knee and will be having surgery as soon as next week. The injury has ended the twenty year old's junior career".

Butler was injured December 16th in Golden during the warmup and didn't play again until the two Kimberley games last week where he gutted out two final starts for the Riders. After those games he told Goalie Coach Gerry Pang he was done and couldn't go against Creston. 

This was not the first time Butler played with an injury, last season he played the whole year on a broken foot that never healed until the off season. At the end of the year Brandon was named as the Ghostriders Most Inspirational player. 

Coach Craig Mohr "The Ghostriders would like to thank Brandon Butler for his 2 1/2 years of outstanding play and teamwork. He is a role model for all future Ghostriders to follow".

Goalie Coach Gerry Pang tells me at first he had some doubts about the new goalie but after working with him for a little while Butler started to remind him of his son Darren (Chicago Black Hawks) with his size work ethic and coach ability and he was was sold.

"Butler got quicker and faster had a great attitude " "Of all the goalies we have had over the years Butler was the goalie I most enjoyed working with". "He is a student of the game and could easily run a goalie school."

So GM Mohr is now actively looking for a goalie. There are a few guys out there who he is pursuing but until then Brandon Youngson, who was the Riders Player of the Game in Creston Saturday, will take over the number one spot and Fernie local Andre Pelletier will be the backup.