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The Riders shut out the Dynamiters

The Ghostriders are moving on to the next round of the Eddie Mountain Division play offs after winning four games against the Kimberley Dynamiters.
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The Fernie Ghostriders and the Kimberley Dynamiters faced-off on Saturday night for game three of the first series of the play offs.

The Ghostriders are moving on to the next round of the Eddie Mountain Division play offs after winning four games against the Kimberley Dynamiters.“You never expect that,” said associate head coach Rick Hillier about the Riders’ wins. “A lot of people might have expected it after the 12-3 win, but Will, Phil and I have being doing this for a long time, and everybody knows that anything can happen, and all those guys need is the breath of life.”Hillier said that in the four games against Kimberley there were contributions from everyone in the line up.“When Michael Anderson scores four goals in four games, that’s a pretty nice addition to the scoring we already have,” he said.The Riders played game two in Kimberley on Wednesday night. “We certainly weren’t expecting another 12-3 win because that never usually happens,” said Hillier. “A lot of times when that happens there is a blow out one night, and then the next the other team comes back and wins the next night, so we were pretty cautious of that.”The Dynamiters didn’t come back to win game two, the Riders defeated Kimberley with a 7-1 win, putting them two games ahead in the series.“The guys right now are paying a lot more attention to detail,” said Hillier about the Riders.Game three was played at home on Saturday night. The Riders took another game over the Dynamiters with a big 9-3 win.“Our power play capitalized, and when these guys play at home they are always better,” said Hillier. “With the fans here, it doesn’t matter if it’s the first goal of the game or the 12th goal of the game, they are going crazy, and that’s pretty cool for the guys.”He said that Saturday night was the most complete game that Riders had played out of the four. One of the highlights of game three was an unassisted goal by Mark Strachan in the second period.“I’ve never seen many people make a goal like that,” said Hillier. “Basically I don’t think the goal tender had any idea where he was.”He said that he put his vote in for goal of the year for the goal by Strachan.Despite the 5-1 win over the Dynamiters in the fourth game, Hillier said that the game was much closer.“We couldn’t score early in the game,” said Hillier.Neither team had scored going into the second period, and the Riders went into the period down two players due to a penalty.“Anything could have happened,” he said. “Basically, we couldn’t find the net until later in the game and then things came together for us.”Hillier said the Riders stuck to the system and eventually it paid off.“Game four is always the toughest one to win, and that proved true, but we finally came through in the third period,” said Hillier.The Ghostriders will play their rivals the Creston Valley Thunder Cats in the next round. Creston defeated the Golden Rockets four games to two.The next game is scheduled for February 25.