Friday, November 15, 2013

Rampage return to the road for Saturday showdown in Kitimat

The road weary Rupert Rampage will head on down Highway 16 one more time this November, with a Saturday night match up with the Kitimat Ice Demons on the CIHL schedule.

The Rampage who returned earlier this week from a whirlwind trek into the Cariboo, will be looking to reverse the results of last weekend which saw the team drop both games in their 24 hour blitz of Williams Lake and Quesnel.

The Ice Demons might be looking for a little payback on Saturday as well, they were stripped of their two points earned on November 2nd, when the CIHL ruled that they had played an ineligible player, as Jordan Goncalves had previously been suspended and according to the CIHL should not have been in the Ice Demon's lineup two weeks ago.

While Kitimat has appealed that decision, they no doubt will be looking to keep the two points up for grabs on Saturday when the Rampage come to town.

Scoring has a bit of an Achilles heel for the young Rampage squad, with 23 goals scored on the year, they currently are tied with Terrace with the lowest Goals For in their eight games of the 2013-14 season.

Defensive struggles also find them with high numbers in Goals Against, where Prince Rupert at 45 has the second highest totals across the CIHL

Rupert has had some impressive spurts in their recent work, however, third period troubles seem to have dictated the results that find the Rampage at the bottom rung of the CIHL West ladder with a record of 2 and 6.

Which makes picking up some momentum and few wins along the way vital, if they hope to keep pace with the Smithers Steelheads and the Terrace River Kings who currently are three and four in the five team West.

The Ice Demons are holding down second at the moment, one point behind the division leading Houston Luckies. They will look to make some ground up on their neighbours to the east, when they take to the Tamitik Arena ice at 8 PM.

The Rampage for their part will be using Saturday night as a potential turn around point, working to get back into a winning groove and start their move towards playoff contention heading towards the mid way point of the CIHL season.

Prince Rupert returns to home ice on November 23rd when the Smithers Steelheads will make the trip west to the North Coast, Saturday's game will be the first of two for the Steelheads who also will travel to Kitimat on the 24th.

You can review all of our CIHL and Rampage coverage from our archive page.

Update:  The CIHL has reversed it's ruling of a forfeiture of two points for the Kitimat Ice Demons, the reversal returns the Prince Rupert Rampage to a record of 1 and 7 in the CIHL standings, details on the ruling can be found here.

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