The Road beckons for the Prince Rupert Rampage with clash between top teams on the horizon

The weekend  trek is long one for the Prince Rupert Rampage, with
the team heading into the Cariboo for a pair of games 

With a five game wining streak coming to an end last weekend at the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre, the Prince Rupert Rampage turn their focus the schedule ahead as they hit the road this weekend, with two games in Cariboo country and a chance to regain the bragging rights as top team in the CIHL.

The exhausting trip into the Interior of the province takes the Rhinos to Williams Lake on Saturday night where they will take on the Stampeders, a game which will feature the two top teams in the league at the midpoint of November.

Both teams head into weekend play with identical records of 6-1, their success the result of some strong defensive play with the Rampage the most parsimonious team in the league when it comes to surrendering goals with a Goals Against total of 27 compared to the Stamps 33.

That will be put to the test against the high flying Stampeders who lead the league in Goals scored at 69 in just seven games, something that comes from staying out of the penalty box where Williams Lake is second to the Terrace river Kings in the good behaviour category with 126 Penalty minutes so far this year.

The key for the Rampage defenders will be to shut down Zach Sternburg, the Stamps defenceman who leads the league in scoring with an equal amount of goals and assists for a total of 22 points.

Also finding success early on the the Williams Lake side have been Spencer Brooks and Nathan Zurak with 15 and 14 total points respectively.

The Rampage will be looking to their own top trio to match the Stamps goal for goal with Judd Repole, Cole Atchison and Jared Meers all among the top ten scoring leaders seven games into the season.

Saturday's puck drop in Williams Lake is set for 7:30.

As soon as the game wraps up the Rampage will turn their attention to the challenge ahead for Sunday, when they travel up Highway 97 for a 1 PM game Sunday in Quesnel.

Shutting down the Kangaroos top scorers of Justin Fulton and Alessio Tamassetti will be the task for the matinee, with the Quesnel squad looking to make a push into the top tier of the standings with weekend play.

With a 4-2 record, the Kangaroos are only three points behind the CIHL leaders, their on ice performance making for an even split of 37 each for Goals For and Goals Against.

Depending on how he weekend works out, there will either continue to be a split between the top scoring teams and the rest of the pack in the CIHL, or the lead at the top of the standings tables will become just a little bit more congested heading towards December.

The Rampage will make their way back to the North Coast late Sunday evening and will have a couple of weeks to recuperate from the long distance trek inland, they next return to the ice on December 8th when they host the Kitimat Ice Demons at the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre for a 7:30 start.

In other CIHL action this weekend, the Ice Demons will be looking for their first win of the season as they host the Terrace River Kings on Saturday night at Tamitik, game time is 7:30 from the Aluminum City.

The Saturday Terrace/Kitimat game is available for CityWest subscribers broadcast on their Community Channel 10/HD 310.

You can track the Rampage through our schedule results page here, while a wider overview of notes about the CIHL can be found from our CIHL Archive page.


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