Rampage playoff aspirations take the hit with loss to Luckies

The path to the CIHL playoffs for the Prince Rupert Rampage came to an end on the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre ice on Sunday.

After a hard earned, and much deserved 3-2 victory over the Smithers Steelheads on Saturday night, the Rampage faced a showdown with the Houston Luckies on Sunday afternoon, a game which had key playoff implications for the home side Rampage.

However, by the end of the quite physical, winner take all kind of game that it was, the Luckies on the strength of their 6-3 victory over the Rampage, were the ones to leave town with the two points providing them with the coveted last playoff spot for this years CIHL playoffs.

The Luckies got off to a quick start with a goal at the 29 second mark of the first, a goal countered by Jared Meers at 11:09.

Houston took the lead back in the second, only to see the Rampage tie the game up once again at 3:48 of period two, with a goal from Kory Movald on the power play. However, the Luckies took the lead for what eventually be for good at 18:20 of the second.

Houston added three more goals in the third, while the Rampage responded only once in the final period of the game on another marker for Kory Movald.

The first period set the tone for the battle ahead, featuring a penalty filled affair that saw 14 penalties called. Including some interesting calls on the Luckies Cole Hasell, who went onto the game score sheet for such offences as an Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty, a Gross Misconduct and even a Travesty of Game penalty, to name a few.

Once order had been restored on the ice, Hassell found himself ejected from the game, accounting for the bulk of the Luckies penalty calls at 14:02 of the first period.

From that rather nasty turn of events, the remainder of the games calls were the more pedestrian calls of roughing, cross checking, slashing and such.

Overall the Rampage were assessed 21 minutes of penalties on 10 infractions during the course of the game, Houston had 14 penalty infractions called over the sixty minutes for 25 minutes and the ejection of Hassell.

Keano Wilson faced 39 shots from Houston over the course of the game, Brock Henrickson turned aside 32 of the 35 Rampage shots on the Luckies net.

While the Luckies have no games remaining on their schedule, it would seem from a study of the standings, that they will move forward into the CIHL playoffs based on their victories over the Rampage on November 17th and on Sunday afternoon.

With one game left in the regular season, the Rampage will host the Omenica Ice in what would be their season farewell on Saturday night.