By George Hurlbut
The Riders spotted Golden 3-0 and 4-2 leads but scored 3 nice goals in the third for a 5-4 win last Friday night here in Fernie.
The Riders’ player of the month for December, Brendan Burge scored the game winner and had 6 points on the weekend. Also last Friday, two top players, Marty Wicks and Kyle Garcia, had an excellent centre ice UFC main event.
The Ghostriders graduated Nick Tupper to the Alberni Valley Bulldogs of the Jr. “A” BCHL last week. Rider Coach Will Verner says, “This promotion is a great opportunity for the 18 year old 6’4 defenseman from Calgary. Nick has a tremendous amount of potential and his new team is getting an unbelievable kid.”
With the new carding rules Verner gets a card back and now can bring in two players before January 10. By the time you read this the Riders may very well have added to the roster for their tough weekend featuring a home game against Revelstoke on Friday and a trip to Nelson on Saturday.
Here’s what happens when you have a good local rivalry. Fernie was in Kimberley on December 29 and 1,211 fans attended the game. A week later 200 fans came out to watch Golden. Fernie had a sell-out (1,240) December 30 for the Nitros and 777 for Golden last Friday.
The Alumni game raised $30,000 for two Fernie locals who are battling cancer. The event organizers were Barb Anderson and Stella Hutchinson and their effort was outstanding. There is a great photo slide show of the event taken by Matt Kuhn linked on the Ghostriders’ website. There are lots of kids in the photos.
The Storm’s top scorer Colten De Frias (91) was in the Kamloops newspaper last week. He was charged with assault after a bar fight in October. Storm GM Barry Dewar has no plans to discipline De Frias, because, he says, “it was a non team activity,” proving once again that pretty girls and top scorers live on a different planet.
Despite having a poll on their website where most voters said sell and relocate the team, the 1-36 Grand Forks Border Bruins have issued a statement saying they are not folding and/or relocating the team to 100 Mile House, and, they are even looking for a new Coach to fire, I mean, run the team next season.