The Ghostriders finished off their exhibition season with a Nick Kunyk 4-0 shutout over the Kimberley Dynamiters last Friday night in Fernie. With the win the Riders finished the EX season with a 3-1record.
There has been a remarkable difference in the team’s overall skill level since the first game, especially on the blueline with the addition of the smooth skating Eric Jiang along with Stephan Jones who just came back from an AJHL camp. Add in Eric Martin and Malachi Peigan from last year and the Riders have a pretty good top four to start the season. More on the other D as we move on.
Scoring
Up front a somewhat surprising Keegan Fellows (was in Creston last year) is leading the team in scoring with with 2G 4A followed by Coden Fournier with 3G 2A. Luke Rothfos is next with 5A and second year forward Braeden Jack has 2G2A. Jack (18) seems to have taken a step up after his 17 year old rookie season.
Pretty good preseason for the Ghost, but the league will get more skilled and the checking will be a lot harder to fight through by the end of October… so as usual, expect a few changes.
In the final pre season game vs Kimberley Fernie had a big third period with three goals, a few power plays, and one of our star players had to take his usual head shot .
Chad Scharff “We feel like [Friday] night was our most complete game of the preseason. We didn’t love our start as it took us some time to find our legs but I thought Nick [Kunyk] was solid from the drop of the puck. Nick was really good early and that’s what we expect from him. Coming off a great season last year we are very confident he will continue to be a strong presence in the crease this season”.
Regarding the third period Friday .
Coach Scharff “I feel like we got stronger as the game went on and finished with our best period of the preseason”.
Overall thoughts
Scharff “Looking over the four preseason games and our four weeks together we’ve been really impressed with the group and are looking forward to the season ahead. We feel that we are all on the right track and growing as a group. We still have a lot of work ahead of us and will continue improve each day! ”
Round’ The League
The Golden Gong Show continues… they were league leaders with 1083 PIM and 21 points last year and on Sunday AM they had a league leading 240 PIM’s in 6 EX games. Last Saturday in a 9-3 loss to Chase they had a fight with an instigator and at centre ice a classic goalie fight. Normal stuff …in 1980.
In Kimberley they found some peeling lead paint in the arena and had to rope off a section thus reducing the arena capacity to a thousand fans. They are hiring a contractor who, in their lawyer speak words, will “undertake abatement and remediation” of the heinous paint, that means remove it KD fans, but it could take a couple of weeks. It’s bad news for the Nitros and the visiting teams who like playing in front 1000+ crowds.
Next Home Game September 28th vs 100 Mile
