Terrace claims first game of Best of Three with 5 -2 victory over the Rampage

It was another packed house at the Jim on Saturday as over 1,000 fans celebrated the start of the CIHL playoffs for the Prince Rupert Rampage hopeful that the home side Black Out would provide the home ice advantage to claim victory in game number one of the three games series with the Terrace River Kings.

And for the first twenty five minutes of play, things looked promising for the home side, with the Rampage taking a 1 - 0 lead into the first five minutes of period number two.

The Rhinos were first to the scoreboard thanks to a power play marker by Kory Movald who converted the passing of Tyler Halliday and Tyler Ostrom into goal number one of the night at 4:10 of the opening frame, a physical twenty minutes that saw 10 minutes of penalties called, with the River Kings taking six of the ten minutes in the box.

And while the physical nature of the game continued into period two, the River Kings quickly adjusted and began to take control of the score sheet, with two goals in the first ten minutes of the second period and other two goals to book end the second half of period number two.

In between the Rampage picked up their second and final goal of the night, when Jared Meers scored at 13:19 of period number two, helped out by Tyler Halliday and Kory Movald.

Terrace put things away late in the third, taking the 5-2 score to the final
buzzer, but not before more of the rough stuff dominated the final half of play.

By games end, Jordan Aubree would be found atop the penalty totals for the night, having received 5 minutes for fighting, two minutes for instigating and a ten minute misconduct.

Terrace on the other hand was assessed but one penalty in the final period, a two minute minor for Roughing.

When the final number came in at game's end, the Rampage had more than doubled the Terrace totals, with the River Kings assessed 14 minutes on 7 penalties, while Prince Rupert sat out 31 minutes on 10 infractions.

The high scoring River Kings kept Devin Geritts busy through the sixty minutes, taking 30 shots on the night, Gerrits turning aside 25 of the total 

Patrick Leal in the Terrace end didn't have quite the same workload, with Prince Rupert firing 19 shots his way, with the Terrace keeper turning aside all but two.

You can review the summary of Saturday night's match up here.

The win puts the River Kings in the drivers seat heading into game two, with an elimination game set for Saturday night in Terrace at 8 PM.  Should the Rampage take game two, they two teams will turn around and face off again on February 7th at 4:30 PM

In other CIHL action this weekend, the Quesnel Kangaroos eliminated Lac La Hache int two games, winning the knock out game on Saturday 9-5.

In Kitimat, the Ice Demons found themselves on the wrong end of the scoresheet in their opening round matchup with the Smithers, the Steelheads left the Aluminum city up 1 game to none after a convincing 9-4 victory on Saturday night.

Notes on the run up to this Saturday's showdown in Terrace can be found on the Rampage Facebook page and twitter feed.

For more background on the CIHL playoffs see our Rampage Archive page here.