The Rampage fell at the hands of the Terrace River Kings Saturday night.
The game was a hard-fought battle and three periods weren’t enough to separate the two teams as the game headed into overtime tied 3-3. Terrace scored the game-winning goal a few minutes into the extra frame to take the game 4-3.
Despite the negative result head coach of the Rampage was more than happy with his team’s effort.
“It was such a gritty, gutsy effort it definitely showed character for everyone who was here,” Atchison said.
The team was not fully manned and had only dressed 12 skaters and a goalie going into the game, while Terrace had a full roster of 20 skaters, this immediate mismatch would usually crush most teams, but not the Rampage, who took the game by the horns and took a 1-0 lead early in the first.
“We saw them in full force in warm-ups and then you could almost hear a pin drop in our dressing room, we were like holy smokes what’s going on here, but we came out got a good couple shifts and got going,” Atchison said.
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The Rampage never trailed in the game, even going up by a score of 3-1 in the third, the team was outmanned, on the road and on the second half of a back to back, the effort put forth by the team reminded coach Atchison of a certain early 2000’s blockbuster.
“I can’t say enough about our guys, it felt like that Spartan movie, 300, we had half the skaters and we took it to them for a bit, we definitely opened their eyes,” Atchison said.
The team banded together when they were at an immediate disadvantage, and if it weren’t for a hometown bounce of the dasher late in the third the Rampage may have pulled out the win.
“They got a break, a dump in ricocheted off the dasher and went in between our goalie and defensemen and they got an easy one, that energized them,” Atchison said.
After scratching out a tough road point in a game where the odds were stacked against them, Atchison said that the loss only proved how strong the team is.
“For us, we knew we were going into a tough spot, I think this is just going to give our guys the motivation they need, when we get our guys back we are going to be that much stronger,” Atchison said.
The team has a month off and will be back in action Jan 18, 2019.
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