Stephen Jones
Photos from Kevin Fowler
The Fernie Ghostriders will play the Columbia Valley Rockies in the first round of the playoffs starting Friday February 28th and Saturday March 1st in Fernie.
The Ghostriders played three games this week, on Tuesday they played Golden, that was a real game, with both teams trying to win, the Riders won 5-4 and that knocked the Rockets out of the playoffs. On Friday in Invermere the Riders scratched, 15, 16, 21 and 25 and lost 4-1, on Saturday Creston scratched their top scorers and the Riders won 6-2.
A few Notes
You just never know… the Creston game didn’t have any immediate playoff implications… but it was a sellout with 1140 fans … all trying to fit into the beer section.
Several cheap shots and a couple of fights in the Rockies game, so you see why the scratches… Lucas Desjarlais (112PIM) had another pretty good fight, this time with Jaxon Sperling…I wish LD had another year, he does a lot of things like a well seasoned vet.
Taylor Haggerty finished with 30G, 33A and with 63 points was 3rd in KIJHL scoring. Eric Martin had 11G and 47A and was first in KIJHL D-Man scoring with 58 points. Full Ghostrider scoring stats here
Taylor Haggerty
“Great Regular Season. Lots of learning experiences that should help us in playoffs. Looking forward to the real season starting next week. We are ready to get started and need the fans to rally to make the arena hard to play in for other teams like they have done all year. It’s been an amazing 20 year old season for me and I’m looking forward to hopefully one last long playoff run”.
Andrew Morris was a deadline acquisition from Chase but got hurt in his first week in Fernie but is back and seems to be skating as well as anyone in this league…you never seem to have enough D-men in the PO’s so that is good news.
Round’ The League
Kimberley and Golden finished the season with a few fights. Kimberley will now play Creston. Beaver Valley will play Nelson, not sure the hate is there like it used to be. Grand Forks and their journeyman coach will play Castlegar. The Forks, for the record finished first overall in the KIJHL. The winner of our division will play the winner of the Neil Murdoch, that’s why I mentioned those games.
Ok so let’s ask the Coaches about the regular season and the upcoming playoff games.
Chad Scharff
As coaches coming into this season we knew the foundation that was here and we were excited to come into Fernie and have the opportunity to build a team. We couldn’t have asked for a better first regular season. The commitment and effort the players put in every day/night has been remarkable.
We are looking forward to starting a playoff run and see exactly how special this group is. We are excited to get to work this week and prepare for a good Columbia Valley team.
Dante Raposo
I think for me the season that we had says a lot about the group of players we inherited. They easily could’ve been satisfied with how their season went last year but we’ve come together really close as a group. The guys that were here at the start & the guys who came along throughout the way have really bought into what we have been trying to preach. We’re not done by any stretch of the imagination, we are hoping for success in the playoffs but we’d be remised to not look back at a great regular season.
Now is when the fun starts, I think our group is looking forward to the playoffs & obviously our matchup against CV is going to be a tough one but we will spend the whole week prepared mentally & physically. We will be prepared to go the distance in every series we play. If we play to our standard & to the best of our ability I like our chances against anybody
| Powerplay | Fernie 16.2% | CVR 22.2% |
| Goals For | Fernie 172 | CVR 187 |
| Goals Against | Fernie 130 Diff 42 | CVR 158 Diff 29 |
| Penalty Minutes | Fernie 777 | CVR 1078 |
| Shorthanded Goals | Fernie 7 | CVR 6 |
| Penalty Kill | Fernie 82.8% | CVR 81.4% |
