Next Home Games January 11th vs Creston January 14th vs The Rockies
The Ghostriders only played one game this week and that was on the road in Castlegar where they lost 5-4, despite outshooting the Rebels 43-20, scoring two power play goals and one shorthanded goal… but at the same time the Rebels’ 
special teams also scored one on the power play and got two shorthanded goals. Defensive miscues were served up like pizzas by both teams.
Goalies Nick Kunyk and the Rebels’ Zack Veninsky would probably both like a redo of that game as well.
The Rider goals were from Taylor Haggerty, who scored the first goal on a nice three way passing play started by Stephen Jones to Ben Skarsen to Haggerty.
After that Ben Skarsen scored on a point shot from Eric Martin and Taylor Haggerty that gave the Riders a 2-1 lead after the first period.
But in the second Castlegar scored three and the period ended with the Riders down 4-2.
Early in the third Lucas Desjarlais was gifted a goal by the pizza guy above on the penalty kill when he intercepted a bad pass in front of the net making it 4-3.
But the Rebels scored after that to make it 5-3 before Eric Martin’s seeing eye shot from Taylor Haggerty and Ben Skarsen got the Riders their fourth goal on the power play with the goalie pulled. The Ghostriders had some good looks late but just couldn’t get the tying goal.
Head Coach Chad Scharff was not happy losing in Castlegar. (A .500 team)
“Embarrassing performance this weekend. We have to understand the right way to play that gives us success… our top guys have to be better and lead the way… our middle guys have to help produce and our bottom guys have to push guys above them. Overall it’s not good enough. My job is to figure out where this team is right now and what it either can or can’t be moving forward. We have a week to sort it out. Unacceptable from top to bottom and that starts with me.
Player News, the Riders acquired D man Garrett Buchanan last week. The 6’1” 190Lb 18 year old was with playing with the Kamloops Storm, he is from Calgary AB.
Round the League
A slew of trades last week along with Kamloops also trading two forwards to Grand Forks for a forward and a D man. Read the deals here.
And Finally… as Tom Jones would say, It’s Not Unusual, to have a midseason slump, some of the goals against lately have been guys making bad (but correctable) decisions…so there’s that.
