The Trail Smoke Eaters are hoping home cooking this weekend will vault them into fourth place in the BCHL’s Interior Conference.
The first of two home games goes Friday night against the Prince George Spruce Kings.
The Smokies will try to ride the momentum of last weekend’s sweep of road games in West Kelowna against the second place Warriors and Salmon Arm, the home of the third place Silverbacks.
Captain Ethan Warrener had the best weekend of his BCHL career.
The 20-year-old defenceman scored a hat trick and one assist during Friday night’s 6-5 overtime win in West Kelowna and added two helpers the next night as Trail triumphed 4-1 over the Silverbacks.
He was named the BCHL’s second star of the week.
Trail has won three of the four head-to-head clashes against the Spruce Kings, including home ice wins of 7-3 and 4-1. Their 8-7 pre-Christmas victory in Prince George was the highest scoring game this season in the BCHL.
The Spruce Kings recorded a 3-0 win the next evening.
Power forward, Ridge Dawson leads all scorers in the season series with three goals. He also buried recent road winning goals in Cranbrook and Salmon Arm, scored a key goal in last Friday’s comeback victory in West Kelowna, while creating havoc in front of the Warriors net during Adam Marshall’s overtime winner.
The Smoke Eaters were without veteran forwards Ethan Mann and Josh Schenk last weekend. They were out with lower body injuries, while local boy Nathan Dominici missed Saturday’s game with a lower body ailment.
He has been cleared to play this weekend, while Mann is questionable and Schenk will remain on the injured list.
The Smoke Eaters will have to be aware of the Prince George power play, which is sitting at almost 24% for the season and is 5-for-14 in the season series.
Trail has won three of their last four starts and played an excellent game despite a 3-2 home ice loss to conference-leading Penticton.
The Spruce Kings have lost eight of their last nine games, but did record a recent victory over Vernon.
The Smoke Eaters have the fourth-place Vipers in their sights.
They are three points back and host Vernon on Saturday night.
Both Cominco Arena clashes are scheduled to start at 7 p.m. and good seats are still available at Tickets.TrailSmokeEaters.com.
