Friday, December 8, 2017

Rampage look for home ice advantage to carry them to victory Saturday night

Fans of the Prince Rupert Rampage will be hoping that there are still some goals in the sticks of the Rhino players, after a high scoring trek into the Cariboo last weekend.

Prince Rupert split its road games in the won loss column from last Saturday and Sunday, taking a convincing 9-2 victory over the Quesnel Kangaroos and then coming up just a little bit short in a hard fought battle with the Williams Lake Mustangs on Sunday.

Floodgates of scoring opened up during the Saturday night match up in Quesnel, with Dominick Hodges, Cody Kikimaki and Jordan Aubee all picking up two goals each, with singles going to  Jean Luc Fournier, Michael Keys and Cody Hodges. 

All together, the Rampage accumulated 18 points on the night, with Brett Roth turning aside all but three of the shots directed his way.

Sunday in Williams Lake things were somewhat more restrained in the offensive bursts with the Rampage edged out 4-3 in Overtime by the home town Stamps, with Tyler Matalone, Cody Kokimaki and Dominick Hodges finding the range on the afternoon.

Dave Wood had the call in the nets for the Sunday game, facing 34 shots for the 60 minutes of regulation play and thirty four seconds of Overtime before the Stamps gained the decision.

Tomorrow night the Rampage are at home to the Kitimat Ice Devils, looking to knock down their Northwest rivals in front of what should be another  good sized crowd at the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre. 

The night providing for a reunion for the fans and their team after an extended absence from the home town digs.

The Rampage last had a home game at the Jim on November 18th which was also  a previous visit to town by the Ice Demons, with the Rhinos coming out on top of that one 3-2.

Since that date, the Rampage have been road warriors, with a stop in Terrace before their journey to the Cariboo of last weekend.

The Prince Rupert squad head into tomorrow night's action holding down third place in the CIHL, hosting a record of 4 Wins, 2 Losses, 1 Tie and 3 OT losses. 

That gives the Rhinos 12 points in the standings, just two away from the CIHL leaders of Quesnel and Terrace who both have fourteen. The Rampage also hold a game in hand over the two top ranked squads.



The weekend also features the popular fan event of Skate with the Rampage, the annual charity Skate in aid of the Salvation Army. The pre-Christmas tradition takes place Sunday afternoon from 3:15 to 5:15 PM, with admission by a donation to the Salvation Army Food Bank.

Some notes on that event can be found here.

One other thing to keep an eye on during Saturday nights game is how high the scoreboard goes for the home side, once again this year the Prince Rupert Port Authority has been keeping a tally of each home game goal from the Rhinos matching their scoring punch with a 100 dollar a goal donation to the Salvation Army.

So far that means that from the goals tallies of the home games the Rampage have helped to deliver 1,000 dollars for 2017 to Saturday night's puck drop. 

That amount makes up part of the total of 13,000 dollars that the Port of Prince Rupert has donated since the Goals For Giving program began five years ago.

Considering the surge of scoring from last weekend, fans will be hoping that the hot streak on the offensive side will continue into Saturday night.

Saturday nights match with the Ice Demons starts at 7PM

You can keep up to date on notes from the Rampage camp through their Facebook Page, website and twitter feed.

For more items of interest on the CIHL see our archive page here.

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