The Fernie Ghostriders’ wrapped up their regular season in epic fashion, defeating their rivals, the Kimberley Dynamiters, on home ice on Saturday, Feb. 17 to clinch the title of Eddie Mountain division champions.
The Ghostriders final weekend of the regular season featured two games against the Dynamiters, with the first falling on Friday, Feb. 16 in Kimberley. Each game saw each team win 3-2 in their respective home arenas.
“It was exceptional, whoever set the schedule up that way knew what they were doing,” Fernie head coach and general manager Ty Valin said. “Anytime you have two teams playing off, it’s two big rivals and you’ve obviously got the stakes on the line to end the season, it was fun to be a part of — two very good hockey teams.”
Kimberley’s Tyler Lindal’s goal late in the first opened the scoring on Friday night at the Civic Centre. The Dynamiters scored two more in rapid succession early in the second period.
Landon Hedges put the Ghostriders on the board a few minutes after that, and would score the final goal of the game late in the third period, but the Dynamiters held off the empty-net assault and secured their 3-2 victory.
This meant that Saturday’s game would determine which of these two rival teams would be named Eddie Mountain Division Champions: a perfect way to end the season.
Lucas Desjarlais gave Fernie its first lead 11 minutes into the third period. The Dynamiters scored two unanswered goals in the second before Eli Neilsen tied things up on a power play.
The game winner was scored by Dayden Collier on a power play 16 minutes into the third, securing the game and the Division Champion title.
This is the first time the Ghostriders have been Eddie Mountain Champions since the 2014/15 season.
“On Saturday about halfway through the game I was just watching the game unfold in front of me and I had a flashback to an early exhibition game we had against Kimberley and it’s so neat to compare how both teams have come since the start of the season,” Valin reflected. “You get into that last game of the regular season and it’s so impressive to see the calibre and the hard work that both clubs put in over the season and just to see where they’ve both got, so it’s pretty neat that way.
“You have your team at the start and you just want to develop and push forward every day, especially in our division, because it’s such a hard division to win in on a nightly basis, everybody’s competitive and everybody plays hard each night and anybody can beat anybody. It’s really impressive when you look back over the course of the season and you start to see what worked well, what didn’t work well, where your team started turning a corner and stuff like that.”
Valin added he was impressed with his team’s progression from Christmas onwards, saying they really came into their own and battle through a tough schedule in January that saw the team on the road more than they were at home by a large margin.
“The boys buckled down and battled and competed every chance we got and just sucked it up and played hard all the way through January and carried into February as well. We had a tough weekend there, but that’s going to happen too, and they responded well going into the last couple weekends of the regular season which was nice.”
The organization has been under the leadership of head coach Ty Valin since the 2021 season and this year he was named Coach of the Year for the Eddie Mountain Division. The Ghostriders went 20-11-3-1 this season, finishing sixth overall in the KIJHL, and Valin has improved on his win totals in each of his three seasons with the team.
“I was definitely surprised when I found out,” Valin said. “It’s voted by my peers so that’s always nice when you get that for sure. Obviously it’s a testament to my players and how well they played all season. Without them I’m not getting recognized by the other coaches in our division. It’s pretty cool.”
It is now time for playoff hockey and the Ghostriders first round will be against the Creston Valley Thunder Cats, with the first two games taking place on home ice on Friday, Feb. 23 and Saturday, Feb. 24. Valin said the key to this next week will be for the team to keep a level head and stay focused to ensure they’re ready to go come puck drop on Friday night.
“As I mentioned before in our division it’s really hard to win on a nightly basis and once you get to playoffs everyone takes another step and the expectation is that our guys are going to take that step as well,” he said.
“You’ve got to stay focused all week and put the work in and just be ready to go Friday night, because it’s going to be a good series. Creston is a good hockey team and they’ve got some firepower over there and we’re going to have to make sure we’re ready to go Friday night and don’t take them too lightly.”