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Lethal Ingram leads high-octane Rockies
Led by Keenan Ingram, who is tied for the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League (KIJHL) lead in goals with 26, the Columbia Valley Rockies are the highest scoring team in the league with 132 goals.
Later into this edition of the KIJHL Notebook, we’ll get into more detail about the Rockies offence as well as the other 18 teams, especially what they average in goals-per-game. The league average is 3.24, and there are eight teams below that.
Rockies head coach-GM Emery Olauson says in some ways, the 18-year-old Calgary product surpassed expectations.
“I first saw Keenan when he joined us midway through camp for our third exhibition game in Golden, and he immediately scored two goals and got right off to this start,” said Olauson. “He’s got an elite shot, he’s a very good athlete, who is big (6-1, 180-pounds) and fast. Did we think we would have a first-year player start and be as consistent and score at over a goal-a-game clip? No, we didn’t. Keenan’s an extremely talented goal scorer.”
He’s also strong defensively as the Rockies don’t spend a lot of time in their zone when Ingram’s on the ice. He is dedicated to playing a strong defensive game and it’s an area Olauson says Ingram works on.
Ingram is also making the Rockies offence difficult to defend because he doesn’t often play with Anthony Domina and Kayde Kinaschuk.
“It’s very hard for teams to prepare for us because most teams have one scoring line that if you kind of eliminate them, you have a good chance of winning the game,” said Olauson.
“We’ve built a team that gets contributions from all four lines. If you were to try and shut down Ingram specifically, well then you’ve got Kinaschuk, who led our league in scoring last year (33 goals in 39 games), breathing down the necks of guys that aren’t your best defensive players.”
Ingram primarily plays with Jordan Normand and Reed Sparrow. At times he is on the power-play with Domina and Kinaschuk.
“The thing with Keenan is, he has scored with every player on our team and in a lot of different ways,” said Olauson. “He will take the puck right to the net, he can shoot from the blueline, he can shoot from the top of the circles, play the middle of the ice. He can kind of score from just about anywhere, which you just don’t have a recipe for defending. Some of the better teams have done slightly better and there have been some runaway nights where Keenan has four goals.”
Ingram just had a six-game goal streak snapped on Dec. 16 in which he put up nine goals and 12 points. Earlier in the season from Oct. 21 to Nov. 10 in a five-game span, he had five goals and eight points. Ingram is currently on a 10-game point streak with 14 goals and 23 points.
Olauson said, “I don’t think we play anyone that doesn’t have his name circled in the room and he still gets it done. He’s a pretty exciting player to watch.”
Eddie Mountain Division
As mentioned earlier in the Notebook, the Rockies have scored the most goals at 132 and average 4.71 goals-per-game, also a league best. Olauson said during their training camp there was a strong sense that the team possessed “a lot of offensive talent.”
Along with Ingram leading the way, Domina has 15 goals in 23 games, while Kinaschuk has 15 in 25. Rookie Lucas De La Salle has 10 goals in 27 games.
“It’s hard obviously when you have zero returning defencemen to really rely on defence and at that point in time, didn’t have any returning goalies,” said Olauson. “We really trusted that we had a lot of offensive players and our forward group was really good and obviously the D-core came along nicely with their offensive talents.”
Olauson added that lately the players have bought into playing harder defensively. When they do that, “we get pucks back a lot quicker and the offence hasn’t suffered as a result. Just a really balanced attack.”
Like the Posse, the Rockies picked up their 20th win on Dec. 16 against Golden.
The Fernie Ghostriders have 92 goals, which ranks them 10th, and they rank the same in goals-per-game average of 3.29. Ethan MacDuff leads the team with 15 goals in 28 games, while Kort Kisinger has 12.
The Kimberley Dynamiters have 89 goals, which ranks them 13th as does their goals-per-game average of 3.18. Kade Leskosky leads the team with 16 goals in 26 games.
The Creston Valley Thunder Cats have 95 goals, ranking them seventh in the league, while their goals-per-game average of 3.28 is 11th. Luke Chakrabarti leads the Thunder Cats with 26 goals in 27 games and is tied with Ingram for the league lead.
The Golden Rockets have scored the second highest goals at 120, while their goals-per-game average of 4.00 is third. The Rockets are led by Jordan Lario who has 22 goals in 30 games, while Nick Morin has 15 in 30 games.
Read about the rest of the KIJHL.
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