Friday, November 7th, 2008

CENTRAL HOCKEY LEAGUE HEADLINES

1) Amarillo Joe
2) Bee’s Big Test
3) Life of Riley
4) A ‘Rocky’ Rage

1- A homecoming of sorts will take place on Friday night when the expansion Rapid City Rush (2-1-4) travel to Amarillo to take on the Gorillas (2-6-0) as current Rush Head Coach and former Gorillas Head Coach Joe Ferras will return to the Amarillo Civic Center.  As the bench boss of the Amarillo franchise (one year with the Rattlers and four years with the Gorillas), Ferras posted a 161-132-23 record making the post-season in each of his last four seasons.  Ferras left the Gorillas after the 2005-06 season to take an assistant coach job with the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers.  He was named the head coach of the Rush more than a year before the team took the ice for the first time and has put together a solid team who has played half of their 14-game road trip to start the season.  Rapid City plays their home opener on Saturday, November 29th at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Arena.        

2- The Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees are the lone perfect team in the CHL with a 5-0-0 record and this weekend, they will be tested this weekend with a home game versus Odessa (5-2-1) on Friday and a road game at the Bucks (5-4-0) on Saturday.  The Killer Bees did not win their sixth game last season until November 21st and had just eight wins at Christmas.  This year, defense has been the name of the game allowing just nine goals in five games seeing only one team score more than two goals (Rapid City notched three on Oct. 25).  Wylie Rogers has shouldered most of the load in net going 4-0 with a 1.57 GAA and a league-leading .957 save percentage.  Earlier in the week, he was named the Sher-Wood CHL Goaltender of the Month.

3- Veteran Riley Nelson and the Colorado Eagles (8-1-0) get to catch their breath with a rare Friday night off before hosting the Rapid City Rush (2-1-4) on Saturday in their only game of the weekend.  Nelson (5-12=17) is currently second to the Rush’s Rich Hansen (7-11=18) in points trailing by one point recording at least a point in each of the Eagles nine games thus far.  Dating back to last season, Nelson has points in each of the last 17 regular season games for Colorado totaling 32 points (14-18=32) over that stretch.  The Eagles have the league’s highest point total with 16 and had their eight-game win streak to start the season stopped on Saturday in Mississippi (6-2 RiverKings win).

4- The Rocky Mountain Rage have easily been one of the biggest disappointments this season after last year’s 36-22-6 breakout season.  This season, the Rage have won just once in seven games and are 1-3 at home.  They have been outscored 35-15 in their seven contests.  Head Coach and General Manager Tracy Egeland has made some moves acquiring veteran center Aaron Davis from Texas and waiving veteran forward John Snowden.  The later has scored three goals in the Rage’s seven games but was a woeful -8.  Davis has played in 278 career CHL games scoring 221 points (78-143=221).  This season with the Brahmas, the former Lake Superior star has scored a goal with two helpers in six games.  Rocky Mountain is at Mississippi on Friday and at Bossier-Shreveport on Saturday.
 

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
596  The number of goals that RGV’s Robin Bouchard has scored in his career although this season with the Bees he has found the back of the net just once
161  The number of wins goaltender Mike Gorman has in his CHL career ranking third on the all-time list trailing just Rod Branch-194 and Tony Martino-187…The veteran net minder was signed this week by Amarillo and could see action this weekend
6  The difference in team shutouts from a year ago…Dustin Traylen and Kevin Beech had both already recorded two shutouts by Nov. 7th last season…Jason Wolfe (NMX) has the league’s only shutout in 2008-09
1/15/03 The date that the Corpus Christi IceRays last won a game in New Mexico prior to Wednesday’s 6-3 victory at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, NM

THIS DATE IN CHL HISTORY (November 7, 2003)
The Colorado Eagles defeated the New Mexico Scorpions 8-2 with Riley Nelson, Ryan Tobler and Greg Pankewicz combining for 12 points (5-7=12) and a +11 plus/minus.  The trio finished that season as the top three scorers for the Eagles with 257 combined points (109-148=257) and collectively were a +104.