As they head into Day Three of the Coy Cup competition the Prince Rupert Rampage have their backs against the wall, with today's match up against the Dawson Creek Canucks a pivotal match for their ambitions to advance towards the finals of the Senior Men's Tournament.
Having dropped their first two games of Tuesday and Wednesday, the Rampage will need a win and volume of goals against the Canucks to try to push their way into the Semi Final on Friday.
The Canucks enter the game today with a 1-1 record having topped Williams Lake on Monday and losing to the host Fort St. John Flyers last evening in a close contest.
Results which give Dawson Creek no shortage of incentive to make this afternoon a statement game against the Rampage and perhaps seek another shot at their Peace Country rivals.
Heading into today's game with an 0-2 record makes the path ahead much harder for the Rampage who will not only have to beat the Canucks, but fill the net to ensure that goal differential doesn't knock them out of any tie breaker scenarios.
Those margins make the Rupert task a tough one, with the Goals Against and For ratio providing some indication as to their offensive struggles in their first two games.
The GA/GF for all four teams is as follows
Fort St. John Flyers GF 11 GA 4
Dawson Creek Canucks GF 9 GA 5
Williams Lake Stampeders GF 9 GA 12
Prince Rupert Ramapge GF 7 GA 15
The round robin portion of the Coy Cup comes to an end with the Williams Lake/Fort St. John game this evening at 8PM, which will be broadcast live by Fort St. John radio station Moose FM.
The Semi Final game goes Friday evening with the Second place and Third Place finishers squaring off, with the winner to take on the First Place team in the Final Saturday night.
For Prince Rupert, this afternoon's game offers their last chance to try and push themselves into one of the semi final spots to get that Saturday night shot at the Coy Cup.
Premier John Horgan in Terrace in February announcing plans for a Northern Capital Fund, on Wednesday the province released the details of how that funding will be distributed across the Northwest (BC Gov't photo)
The Provincial government's Finance Department has put away the abacus and is now ready to deliver on Premier John Horgan's one time funding program for the Northwest, an initiative known as the Northern Capital and Planning Grant first outlined by the Premier at a February 16th Terrace event.
In an announcement released on Wednesday, the distribution of part of the 100 million dollars in funding for four regional districts and 22 municipalities across the region was outlined with the North Coast set to receive close to 20 million dollars in the funds to be put to use towards long standing infrastructure needs.
For Prince Rupert the funding will provide for $8,121,000 dollars which can be used to meet immediate infrastructure concerns or can be saved for a future opportunity or as leverage to secure other sources of funding, borrowing or grant programs to cover major infrastructure and long term planning initiatives.
Prince Rupert City Council has not to this point indicated how they plan to make use of the funds since it was first announced in February.
For Port Edward the funding will deliver over 2 million dollars to be put towards infrastructure work around the District.
Around the North Coast and Haida Gwaii the financial distribution looks as follows:
Prince Rupert: $8,121,000 North Coast Regional District: $1,712,000 Port Edward: $2,098,000 Port Clements: $2,085,000 Queen Charlotte: $2,935,000 Masset: $2,753,000
Selina Robinson, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing made note of the challenges facing communities of the region and how the funding may offer some assistance for a range of initiatives.
“We’ve been hearing from local governments in northern B.C. about the challenges they face funding much-needed upgrades to their aging infrastructure, and I know this new grant will help close the gap, With this funding, communities can start moving forward on the initiatives they need to seize opportunities now and down the road.”
Around the remainder of the Northwest the funding distribution looks as follows, with Terrace set to receive $8,197,000 leading the entire region in the total amount allocated to communities as part of this one time program.
The race to take up the NDP torch from Nathan Cullen now has one confirmed candidate, with Smithers Mayor Taylor Bachrach making the announcement of his intention to seek the nomination by way of Wednesday evening Facebook and twitter posts.
As he rolled out his announcement Bachrach made note of three core values for his process, the first being the power of place and how he believes that when big decisions are required that affect the region it's the voices of the people who live here that should be heard most loudly.
His second value is a concern for future generations and the desire to have our kids to be able to enjoy what we've enjoyed in the Northwest.
The third value put the focus on the state of politics which he believes is one of division and contempt and how there is a need to show respect for each other regardless of our differences and regardless of whether we agree, and especially when we disagree.
Since then there have been a number of names floated around the Northwest as potential candidates, but so far Mr. Bachrach is the only one to make the leap towards the federal scene.
Should he prove successful, he will secure the fifteen year hold that the Bulkley Valley has had in the riding, set to continue the work of Mr. Cullen if he finds success in the October vote.
There was no indication from the launch as to what kind of a travel schedule that candidate Bachrach may be preparing to take on, with NDP members on the North Coast no doubt interested in having him make the trip to Prince Rupert to see what he will have to say and how much of an understanding he may have of North coast issues.
NDP officials in Skeena-Bulkley Valley announced Thursday that the candidate selection meeting will take place May 25th in Terrace, with voting details still to be determined for those that cannot make it to Terrace for the May event.
Des Nobels and Colleen Fitzpatrick appeared at Monday's City Council Session to provide their view of Railroad related concerns for the community
Prince Rupert City Council received a tutorial on rail safety Monday evening, as two representatives from the Prince Rupert Environmental Society raised a number of concerns about the level of rail safety in BC and in the Prince Rupert area.
Providing for the presentation were Des Nobels and Colleen Fitzpatrick, with the pair splitting up their work to provide for an overall look at rail safety issues.
To open the presentation Mr. Nobels provided a brief review of a recent information night held in January in Prince Rupert, when author Bruce Campbell provided a look at the research he had done for his book Lac Megantic Rail Disaster, offering up some chilling concerns about rail safety and the need for more information, more preparation and more advocacy for community.
Mr. Nobels observed that he had hoped at the time that some members of Council might have attended the event, but due to time constraints he imagined that they couldn't take it in. Towards that he offered a number of copies of the presentation for Council members to view on their own time if they wished.
From his notes he outlined a number of the national rail concerns and then focused on the local situation which he noted is now finding a very different type of cargo mix set to come through the entire Northwest on the way to Prince Rupert.
Noting that in previous years the majority of the freight transiting to Prince Rupert was wood or agriculture products in nature, the future will offer a significant increase that will deliver much more hazardous cargo mostly hydro-carbon based.
'We in this area I think have some serious issues to consider, we have some very large projects scheduled for the area here, all of them bringing in hazardous materials. We are looking at conceivably up as high as 400 more rail cars a day coming into Rupert and through the communities of the Northwest. These cars will be comprised of mostly hydro-carbons gasoline, methanol, diesel and possibly Bunker C. This creates a problem for our communities"
As for action from Council Mr. Nobels asked for consideration of two items:
He asked that after Council has had a chance to review the material he had submitted and to have read the Campbell book; that Council write to the Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau and request of him an upgrading of rail safety in Western Canada with a great and hard look at Northwestern BC Mr. Nobels also noted that the topic will be up for discussion at the upcoming NCLGA meeting and how he hopes the city will take action on those discussion themes.
Things were fairly quiet along the waterfront rail yard on Wednesday with both the Water Street entrance and Kwinitsa Station area both not particularly busy on a mid day afternoon. On Monday night the Prince Rupert Environmental Society had outlined a number of concerns for City Council about rail operations in that area of the city
For her part Ms. Fitzpatrick outlined concerns in the community about such issues as emissions, train noise and the potential for major incidents in the Prince Rupert Freight yard area. She spoke of the idling of engines, the release of air brakes, emissions generated, vibrations from passing train cars and the ongoing shunting that takes place in the rail yard which impacts on the residents of the immediate area.
She also expressed concerns for the potential of derailment that her organization believes is present in the rail yard.
The theme of the Wolverine Marine Terminal also made for some of the presentation, with Ms. Fitzpatrick asking if Council had any kind of update on that project, noting how it literally metres away from some of the homes along Graham Avenue.
The lack of information from CN as to what is being transported on the trains also made for some of their concerns, as the Society observed how the safety of the community lies in the hands of City Council.
Towards that community safety Ms. Fitzpatrick and her group had three requests of City Council:
Write a letter to the Prince Rupert Port Authority asking for some information on air quality in the community. Seeking access to the air quality data monitoring for the Westview site, asking for winter data for 2018 and 2019 to have it be made available and to have that data also made available on the BC Air Quality monitoring site. Engage with the Prince Rupert Environmental Society to seek solutions for the rail complaints by entering into the process of resolution by following guidelines of the Canadian Transport Agency. The third request is that the City to develop an emergency response plan for the health and Safety of the residents of Prince Rupert. To be included as part of the plan will be public input and development of an evacuation protocol.
In comments for the Society following their presentation, Prince Rupert Mayor Lee Brain observed how he had met with the group and the Port last April and would be willing to work with them on their concerns.
"So yes, I did attend a meeting in April to discuss some of these issues with the Port with you guys, happy to re-engage and will review the material that you have submitted here and I think there's a lot as you said, simple solutions that we can work together on. So happy to work with you on that and we should set up a meeting shortly and begin those discussions"
A look at the full presentation can be found from the City's Video Archive starting at the 21 minute mark.
Crew members from the Port of Prince Rupert patrol vessel Charles Hays are being credited for their fast response to a marine incident near Smith Island on Tuesday (Photo from Port of PR)
A call for marine assistance over the noon hour on Tuesday, sent a number of responders towards the Smith Island area racing to offer assistance to a crab fisherman in distress, with the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue Station 64, Canadian Coast Guard and Port of Prince Rupert patrol vessel all charting a course to the area due south of Port Edward.
As the account on the RCMSAR Station 64 Facebook tells the story, the fishermen had become entangled with the gear on the vessel and had been pulled underwater, remaining submerged for close to 3 to 4 minutes before finally being freed by crew members.
The closest vessel at the time to the Smith Island area was the Port Vessel Charles Hays which arrived shortly after the call for assistance was issued, upon arrival crew members attended to the unresponsive patient and then stabilized his condition.
At that point they were joined by fast response vessels from the Prince Rupert Coast Guard Base and the RCM SAR 64 vessel Geoff Gould to provide for advanced medical care.
The patient was then taken by the Charles Hays to Porpoise Harbour dock for further transport by BC
Ambulance to Prince Rupert Regional Hospital.
At last report, the patient was recovering at the hospital.
In the post to their Facebook page, which you can read here, the RCM SAR group pay tribute to the work of the Hays crew in saving a life, as well as the level of cooperation that all the responders were able to deliver on the call for service.
The Peace Country dominated Day One of the Coy Cup with both the host Fort St. John Flyers and Dawson Creek Canucks finding success on the score board in the opening games to the Senior Men's tournament.
For Prince Rupert's Rampage it was a rough welcome to the Peace as the Flyers found their mark frequently on the way to an 8-3 opening night victory, the Rampage squad not really finding their skating legs until the third period.
A few snippets of the game action have been posted to the Rampage Facebook page to offer up a sample of the tournament play so far.
In the early game, the Williams Lake Stampeders had similar problems with the Canucks, as Dawson Creek which just wrapped up their playoff season a week ago, was able to jump right back into action cruising to an 8-2 victory over the Cariboo squad.
The two CIHL rivals will be the feature attraction at 3 PM today in the early game as the Rampage and Stamps look to bounce back from their Day One disappointment.
The Two northeast teams match up at 8 with the Canucks and Flyers looking to take charge of the tourney with an opportunity to keep a perfect record through the first two days.
The evening games are featured as part of an audio stream from Fort St. John radio station Moose FM. There are also plans for a live stream of the semi final and final games, however details on that have yet to be released.
Results which give Dawson Creek no shortage of incentive to make this afternoon a statement game against the Rampage and perhaps seek another shot at their Peace Country rivals.
