The Kimberley Dynamiters took on their rivals the Fernie Ghostriders on Friday for the first time since the Christmas Classic, and after a close, clean first two periods things took a turn in the third and a post-game spearing of Dynamiters Cam Reid resulted in a skirmish and a handful of suspensions.
The Dynamiters were up 3-2 with less than a minute to play. Fernie pulled their goalie making it six on five, and then a holding penalty on Ty Smith made it six on four with 40 seconds to play.
Kimberley managed to fend off the offensive onslaught and take the win, but after the buzzer Fernie forward Ben Couvier speared Cam Reid.
The rest of the Dynamiters as always had started heading on to the ice to celebrate their win, some of them rushed Couvier and a fight broke out.
Couvier is suspended for eight games for a match penalty for spearing.
Kimberley’s Conner Furukawa is suspended for six games for leaving the bench to participate in a post-game altercation and being assessed a major penalty for fighting. Ty Smith and Tyler Russell are suspended for three games and Kasey Miller, Adam Kennedy and Matt Fleet are suspended for two for leaving the bench to participate in a post-game altercation.
Fernie’s head coach Ty Valin and Dynamiters head coach Derek Stuart also both received suspensions for “failing to control the bench” at the end of the period.
“The game was actually very clean, I think there was only three penalties each, if I’m not mistaken during the game and a good six,” he said. “Seven seconds after the horn went after the game one of our players got speared in front of our net and of course our players were going out at the end of the game to celebrate and see their goaltender, something ensued after that and our player stood up for our player that got speared.”
He added while the 3-2 score may indicate a close game, in terms of gameplay he felt the Dynamiters controlled the vast majority of the game. The Dynamiters did indeed outshoot Fernie 45-26 and Stuart gave a lot of credit to Ghostriders goalie Casey Thomson for the game being as close as it was.
“[Thomson] was fantastic and he was the reason the game was close all the way until the end,” Stuart said.
“Their goalie just made some unbelievable saves and was very difficult to beat on Friday.”
Kimberley’s Trystan Self also made some fantastic saves and played well all game helping his team get the win.
The Dynamiters then went into the following night’s game on the road against the Columbia Valley Rockets, the number two team in the division, with a big disadvantage having six players and their head coach suspended.
Stuart doesn’t however blame his team’s first loss in nine games on the reduced roster due to the suspensions going into Saturday’s game.
“Our depth really shone through on Saturday night and I was very proud of the guys and how well they played, I was very impressed to be honest,” he said. “I was a little bit concerned with having six regulars out of the lineup but the guys that played did an excellent job and one bad bounce or mistake at the end was the difference. That game should have been over after 40 minutes with the amount of scoring chances we had in the first two periods.”
paul.rodgers@kimberleybulletin
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