Push to playoff time starts with back to back games for the Rampage

The Prince Rupert Rampage will be looking to shake off the lethargy of the holidays, with a pair of games over the weekend as they launch final month of the CIHL season.

With only five regular season games remaining, the twin bill  Friday and Saturday with the Kitimat Ice Demons could be the opportunity that the Rampage need to push their way back towards the top of the CIHL listings as the January 28th end of season looms closer.

The Rampage are in Kitimat tonight for the first of the home and home series, with puck drop at the Tamitik Arena set for 8 PM.

The two teams then renew acquaintances less than 24 hours later, when the Ice Demons come to Rupert for the back end of the weekend series with a 7PM start at the Jim.

The Rampage head into the weekend looking for their first win since November 27th when they claimed two points in the standings at the expense of the Quesnel Kangaroos, however December was not kind a mind for the Rupert lands as the Rhinos dropped games to Terrace and Smithers prior to the Christmas break.

Despite the skid into the end of the year, the Rampage with 11 points on the year are still within striking distance of their Northwest rivals, five points behind both Terrace and Smithers in the race for second place in the CIHL.

To increase those chances the Rampage will be looking to Josh Cook to pick up from where he left off in 2016, the Prince Rupert forward leads the team in scoring heading into the final month, with 4 goals and 10 assists on eight games played.

 Cole Atchison is four points behind the pace of Cook with 4 goals and six assists recorded on the stats sheet to this point.

The full list of Rampage scoring for the year so far can be found here.

With the return to action this weekend, the Rampage will be facing an Ice Demons team which will be highly motivated  to give the Tamitik fans a good show and take some of the usual home ice frenzy away from the Rupert ones.

2016 did not go very well for the Kitimat squad who have yet to record their first win of the year after eleven starts, if any team has a New Year's resolution to work on in 2017, it's probably the Ice Demons who will be looking to finish off the year by collecting some points for the win column.

More notes from the Rampage camp can be found from their Facebook page and website

You can review the Rampage story so far from our results page here, while a larger overview of the CIHL can be found on our CIHL Notes archive here.