Midway through the 2017-2018 CIHL season, the Prince Rupert Rampage are on the rise.
The Rampage won their second game of the season, a commanding 9-6 victory over the Terrace River Kings on Nov. 4. Prince Rupert, coming off a tie against Terrace last week in Prince Rupert, were looking to build off the momentum they have been building in the middle part of the season following some tough early results.
Head Coach Roger Atchison said the team knew, the game would be a difficult one.
“Any time we play Terrace we know it’s going to be tough,” he said. “We just battle each other hard.”
In addition to the intensity of an inter-city rivalry, Atchison said the team was short a few players, but were bolstered by the addition of players from the Smithers Steelheads team that did not compete in the league this year.
“It was a nice complement, we got a bit of scoring punch and it worked out well.” he said. “They added a bit of veteran presence, they’ve won in the past so they brought a bit of their leadership to our younger guys.”
Prince Rupert held a 3-2 advantage after the first period following goals from Jared Carter, Brendan DeVries and Kory Movold.
In the second period an early goal from Terrace’s Rajan Sangha tied the game 3-3 before goals from DeVries, Jared Meers, Mark Arnold and Cody Cringen helped the Rampage take a 7-4 lead into the third period.
In the third, the Rampage scored two more goals behind efforts from Calvin Johnson and DeVries, who completed the hat trick with a little over a minute left.
Atchison said the win gives the team confidence moving as they can now rest in their by-week and come back fresh against Kitimat in their next game on Nov. 18. He said the team has been able to keep up with every team they’ve played, it’s just been a matter of competing through till the end.
“I said to my guys that in every game we’ve played, we’ve been within a goal going into the third,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter in this league because everyone is pretty even, so you have to play the full 60 minutes.”
