Storm off to Rockie Start

Long day on the road steals their legs!

The Kamloops Storm hit the road for the first time in 4 weeks and it started out rocky. After an 8hr bus ride to the East Kootenays, the Storm hit the ice against the Columbia Valley Rockies in Invermere. Although it was a beautiful day to travel, coach Perrier must have wondered why he just didn't keep on going.

By the mid point of the first period, Kamloops witnessed it's own storm... and it wasn't pretty. Back-up goaltender Bobby Derkson got his first start of the season and was greeted with an offensive barrage from the Rockies, led by fire-cracker Cody Steele. Steele was in on 3 of the first 4 Rockies goals and ended up with 3 assists, one goal and first star honours. Derkson on the other hand got the mercy hook after the third goal, a short-handed tally by Chad Wloderek.

The Storm looked sluggish most of the evening, making defensive mistakes caused by intense forechecking pressure by the Rockies. League leading goal scorer Brett Bjorkman was a dominant presense all night. Although he ended up with only one assist, Bjorkman carried the puck well and positioned himself all evening so to draw attention from the Storm defenders and opening up the ice for his smurf linesmates, Steele and Justin Brown.

Kamloops did have a couple of bright spots.
Anthony Manfredi did a commendible job between the pipes after replacing Derkson.
Anthony Collins came to play, scoring 2 goals.
Ryan Bullock struggled with his shooting hands but came up big by using them for another important purpose, KO ing Rockie tough guy, Joey McEwen, who took liberty of laying out Bullock with a vicious crosscheck earlier in the game. Bullock took a little longer this night, having to land 2 punches instead of one.

Kamloops ended up outshooting the Rockies 38 - 33. Rockies goaltenter Carson Loveday looked solid but the Storm made him look good but throwing shot after shot into his belly and pads.

Let hope for a better team effort against the league leading Fernie Ghostbusters on Sat. night.