Rampage to face River Kings in CIHL Playoff action this weekend

The Prince Rupert Rampage will begin their quest for the Coy Cup with a road trip to Terrace this weekend as they take on the River Kings in the first of a potential three game series this weekend in CIHL playoff action.

The weekend play will be the first on ice action for the team since the regular season ended, with the CIHL schedule maker giving Rampage the bye from first round action.

The River Kings moved forward in the playoffs following a pair of games with the Kitimat Ice Demons last weekend with the Terrace squad claiming an 11-6 victory on Friday, putting the Ice Demons away the following night by a score of 5-0.

The second round will move back to Prince Rupert following Friday night's game, with a Saturday night showdown set for the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre at 7 PM, should there be a need for a third and final game it will take place on Sunday afternoon at 1 PM.

The weekend sets the stage from some fast paced and  hard hitting hockey, the two teams had some fairly competitive games throughout the regular season.

The River Kings and Rampage matched up five times since October, with three of the contests settled by a single goal,  the teams combined for a total of 47 goals. 

Terrace took the season series by a total of 3 games to 2.

October 5 -- Prince Rupert 8  -- Terrace 7
October 26 -- Prince Rupert 8 -- Terrace 5
November 10 -- Terrace 4 -- Prince Rupert 3
December 15 -- Terrace 4 -- Prince Rupert 3
January 18 -- Terrace 3 -- Prince Rupert 2

The winner of the series will move on to take on the winner of the Williams Lake/Quesnel Kangaroos series, which currently is in favour of the Kangaroos who one game one last weekend by a score of 8-2.

Those two teams renew acquaintances on Saturday in Quesnel, if there is a need for a game three in that series it will take place Sunday afternoon in Quesnel.

Saturday night's game in Prince Rupert will make for a very busy Civic Centre complex, taking place as it does at the same time as the finals for the 60th edition of the All Native Basketball tournament, something which will make parking spots a valuable bit of real estate.

Fans of either event may want to give some consideration towards car pooling to make the best of what will be a very crowded parking environment. The neighbourhood around the Civic centre may also find that street parking is a little crowded during the course of the twin events of Saturday night,

For more items of note related to the CIHL see our archive page here.

We will be following the playoff round through our Results page as well, you can catch up with the boxscores from the weekend play here.

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