The Ghostriders may be off the ice but Riders coaches and staff are hard at work changing the look of next year’s team.
“We’re taking more of a Kootenay focus with the team,” said Ghostriders head coach Will Verner. “We’re also looking at having a much younger team.”
The Riders have already signed one local player, Dane Carlson, who is 17-years-old but will be 18 for the hockey season.
“He played a bunch of games last year for our club and he played this past season with the Cranbrook Midget AAA team that won the provincial championship,” said Verner.
He said that the Riders are also looking at several other Fernie players.
“There are some 16-year-olds, we’re only allowed two and there are kind of five local 16-year-olds in Fernie and Sparwood, and in a perfect world we’d have some of them on our team too,” said Verner.
The Riders have also signed some players out of Cranbrook and Invermere.
Verner said there will also be some changes behind the bench with associate head coach Rick Hillier joining the board of directors for the Ghostriders.
“He came in on a contract to help because we were in the provincials,” said Verner.
He said that the staff and the board is going to sit down to talk about the direction they will take.
“The goal is to win a provincial championship,” said Verner. “We’re hoping the new approach will give us the edge we need to get there.”