Havoc is promised to the Saturday night Cominco Arena crowd, when the Trail Smoke Eaters host the Prince George Spruce Kings.
It’s the annual Halloween theme night game, with fans encouraged to wear their costumes, while the Smokies will be donning a different costume of their own.
The players will be wearing retro jerseys from the early 1900’s.
Both teams are coming off 1-and-1 splits at the BCHL Showcase in Seattle.
Trail topped Nanaimo 8-6 in a wild affair on Wednesday night and showed signs of playing their second game in about 18 hours during the 5-1 Thursday afternoon loss to Alberni Valley.
The game was scoreless after the first period in which the Smokies outshot the Bulldogs 10-5.
The islanders broke the game open with two goals on odd-man rushes less than a minute apart, just before the midway point of the middle frame.
The Smokies missed a glorious opportunity during a power play on a 2-on-0 breakaway late in the period when Christian Kim’s shot was stopped point blank by Bulldogs goalie Callum Tung. Alberni Valley also took a too-many-men penalty on that play, giving Trail a 5-on-3 for 1:17. Trail was unable to score on either advantage.
The Bulldogs connected on the power play about four minutes into the third period and added another goal just shy of the 11-minute mark to make it a 4-0 game.
Max Potvin would finally solve Tung about two-minutes later, but the Bulldogs would put the game away with an empty net goal with about two and a half minutes remaining.
The Smokies outshot the Bulldogs 32-21 as Tung earned second star honours. Trail was 0-for-2 on the power play, while killing off 3-of-4 Alberni Valley advantages.
Trail’s Ryan Parker stopped 16-of-20 shots.
The Spruce Kings opened their showcase with a 5-4 win over Powell River Wednesday morning, before suffering a 7-2 setback to Nanaimo on Thursday night.
Both have had a day to recover from bus-legs after the long ride to Trail.
It’s a 7 p.m. start with a moment of silence before the anthem to honour the late Gerry Penner, a member of the Trail Smoke Eaters 1961 World Championship team who wore number 14. Penner passed away earlier this week at the age of 89.
The game can be heard on Mixlr or watch the action on FloHockey.
