By Stephanie Stevens
The first week of January wasn’t half bad for the Columbia Valley Rockies.
The Kootenay International Junior Hockey League Junior A team had a five-point week and worked their way up the standings in the Eddie Mountain Division to second place, just seven points behind the Kimberley Dynamiters and five points ahead of the Fernie Ghostriders, though with the ‘Riders having five games in hand the pressure will be on the Rockies to keep their spot for the rest of the season.
New Year’s Eve saw the hometown boys out of town facing off against the Creston Valley Thunder Cats.
The game was ultimately a 4-5 loss, but as it was in overtime the team still garnered a point from the game.
First period offerings were from Carter Velker (assists from Noah Asmundson and Dylan Duzan), then Jack Hefferan (Carter Hensch and Kobe Mason) in the second. The third period saw two more goals, first from Trae Lees (Hensch and Paddy Donahue) and then team captain Mason (Bryan Kim) tied up the game and sent them into overtime.
Goaltender Ryan Bain kept 28 of 33 shots out of the net.
Back home in the Eddie Mountain Memorial Arena on Friday, Dec. 3 the Rockies took on the Williams Lake Mustangs.
Duzan (Teo Fath and Jaxson Sperling) opened up the scoring for the Rockies, followed by Wyatt Wurtz (Chance Cole and Peter Godley) and then Duzan (Wurtz and Asmundson) again.
The tally went up in the second with Carter Tuplin (Lees and Hefferan), Kim (Wurtz and Ethan Cerone), Fath (Hensch) and Duzan (Asmundson and Wurtz) picked himself up a hattrick, beating the Mustang goalie for a third time.
Bain was in goal again and kept 24 of 30 shots at bay.
Saturday saw the Dynamiters in the Eddie.
The fast-paced game saw no scoring in the first, with Asmundson (Hefferan and Lees) starting things off in the second, followed by Johnny Lozeman (Goldley and Duzan). The third period saw Duzan (Velker and Sperling) and Ashton Sledz (Lees and Wurtz) bring the tally to 4-2, and with less than two minutes on the clock, Fath potted an unassisted empty netter to close out his 100th game as a Rockie.
Between the pipes, Bain stood on his head all night and stopped 38 of 40 shots on goal.
Head coach Tayler Sincennes said they would “always be happy with five of six points in a week.
“I thought we were a little flat in Creston and at home against Williams Lake,” he said. “We didn’t defend very well in those games and gave up far too many great scoring chances for the opportunity, and we lost the specialty teams battle in those games. The Kimberley game we executed our systems really well and managed the puck great throughout the full 60 minutes. Our penalty kill did an excellent job when we needed them and our power play generated momentum and got us a huge goal in the second. We defended in that Kimberley game very well and got an excellent goaltending performance as well.”
The Rockies will be playing out of town this coming week, first in Sicamous on Saturday and then in Fernie on Tuesday.
The next home game is January 17 with the puck drop at 7 p.m.
